Security and defence

The “realist” discourse about nuclear weapons promises that weapons prevent war. A feminist analysis helps to understand how nuclear weapons are a patriarchal tool, benefitting the patriarchy.

Violation of human rights, deportation and colonization of the Crimean population and territory by Russia has a long history. ‘The Soviet period was a real nightmare for the Crimea Tatars’, and still is today. Four years after the annexation of Crimea by Russia, European political leaders continue to sidestep the issue of Crimea. 

The Heinrich Böll Foundation congratulates its partner organisation, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), on winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

Within the last days, Russia has accused Ukraine in “state terrorism” and started massive military drills along Ukrainian border. Our office in Kiev answers the most pressing questions on the recent escalation in Crimea.

By 2016 the eastern neighbourhood of the European Union (EU) has turned into a region of intercultural conflicts, interstate wars and authoritarian experiments betraying the bright hopes for continental cooperation, freedom and peace of the early 1990s.

There can be no normalisation of the relations with Russia as long as Moscow leads a war in the eastern Ukraine. This articles examines a new attempt to resolve the Ukraine conflict.

Following peaceful protests against a contested third term of the president, violence has once again escalated in Burundi. Efforts to end the crisis will continue to fail if they ignore the country’s history and its political landscape.

We are living in extremely turbulent times. Never in the past decades has the old adagio ‘the EU is now at the crossroads’ been so true. Nothing seems certain any longer, everything can happen: a suspension of Schengen, the fall of the euro, a major war conducted by a EU country, a terrorist lockdown at the heart of Europe. We are all understandably confused.

During his internship, Daniel Lüchow researched on weapon exports. He conducted interviews with Sara Depauw and Nils Duquet both researchers at the Flemish Peace Institute, Kloé Tricot O’Farrell advocacy officer at Saferworld, Frank Slijper researcher at PAX, to Pierre-Arnaud Lotton, chair of the EU Council Working Party on Conventional Arms Exports (COARM) and Tobias Heider advisor to The Greens/European Free Alliance on Security and Defence. Here some of his findings.