Europe

Less than a week before its planned deployment, the future of the EU military mission to the Central African Republic (CAR) is increasingly in jeopardy. In four consecutive force generation conferences held in February and early March, EU member states have been unable to muster the required troops and equipment. Subsequently, in an appeal letter to EU governments dated 11 March, EU High Representative Catherine Ashton warned that the lack of necessary capabilities puts the plans to launch the operation by mid-March at risk, adding that a delay would taint the EU’s credibility.

Will Vladimir Putin or Barack Obama ultimately benefit most from the crisis in Ukraine? Most pundits are betting on the former. The Russian president has pulled off a bravura display of ruthless guile in seizing control of Crimea. His American counterpart has looked limited, calculating that Moscow will want an “off ramp” out of a crisis that currently seems to be going Moscow’s way.

An unarmed OSCE mission has arrived in the Ukraine, in the hope that this will enable a diplomatic solution to the crisis. A clever move, says Richard Gowan, an expert on EU security.

Read the full Deutsche Welle article here.

The Ukrainian crisis has aroused an ugly array of thugs, from the snipers who fired on protesters in Kiev to pro-Russian biker gangs. But numerous multilateral organizations have been implicated too.

Read the full World Politics Review article here.

Will the Ukrainian revolution help or harm the Syrian rebellion? The two uprisings currently appear to be on very different trajectories. It is three years since Syrian citizens began protests against President Bashar Assad, precipitating the cycle of violence that would lead to civil war. By contrast, Assad’s Ukrainian counterpart, Viktor Yanukovych, was forced from the capital, Kiev, last week after just three months of demonstrations. Assad may view Yanukovych’s humiliation as proof of the need for utter ruthlessness against his opponents. But the two men’s fates remain intertwined.