Photo source: Euractiv By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront Russia’s Arctic and forested borderlands may seem an unlikely gateway into Europe, yet the route is not new. During the migration crisis of 2015–16, thousands of asylum seekers travelled through Russia’s far north and crossed into Finland and Norway, often using bicycles because some border crossings did not permit pedestrians. Reuters and BBC News reported that the route became a source of tension between Nordic governments and Moscow, with officials in Finland and Norway questioning why Russian authorities were allowing migrants to approach border checkpoints. Russia denied facilitating the movement of migrants. The route largely disappeared after 2016 but re-emerged in late 2023. According to Finland’s Border Guard and reporting by Reuters, nearly 900 asylum seekers arrived at Finland’s eastern border from Russia during November 2023. Finnish authorities stated that most arrivals came from countries including Syria,...

  Photo source: Harper's Bazar By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront By joining NATO, Finland has abandoned a 75-year tradition of military neutrality. It is now in an agreement with the West against an increasingly isolated Russia. The announcement is undoubtedly a black eye for Russian President Vladimir Putin, as his neighbour takes a side. But US and European policymakers should not exaggerate what’s coming in the future. NATO expansion is not a panacea. It will neither resolve the war in Ukraine nor fix the more serious underlying problems of European defence. In an accession ceremony in April 2023, it allowed policymakers to take a victory lap. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, was in attendance to receive Finland’s accession documents. He noted that the alliance was now 'more united than ever' along with an offhanded remark saying that 'this is the one thing we can thank Mr. Putin for.' British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak went further, arguing that Finla...

  Photo source: American Councils By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there was not a serious debate about the role of the Kazakh language in society. The war somehow gave a wake-up effort to Kazakh consciousness. After the war began, many people switched from words to actions. After that, they attended language courses and understood that speaking Kazakh was a matter of national security. They suddenly realised that they needed to urgently speak Kazakh because they were bordered by a hostile, imperial country. The war in Ukraine has precipitated significant social movements across Eastern Europe and Eurasia, if not globally. It has united the European Union on an unprecedented scale and catalysed NATO expansion, with Finland recently joining the alliance and Sweden about to follow suit. It has inspired greater diversification of trade and energy networks and isolated Russia as a cultural pariah. As Russian forces fight a physical war in ...

  Photo source: Foreign Policy By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront At the G20 Bali Summit 2022 in November 2022, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met face to face for the first time since Biden took office. The tone was careful but clear. Both leaders accepted that rivalry between their countries would continue, yet stressed that it must be managed responsibly. As Ananth Krishnan reported in The Hindu, they agreed to avoid military confrontation and to revive cooperation on issues such as climate change and global economic stability. The meeting reflected a shared understanding: a war between the United States and China would have devastating global consequences. What has taken shape instead is a quieter, more complex form of competition—often described as ‘institutional balancing’. Rather than relying on military build-ups or rigid alliances, this approach uses international institutions, rules, and norms to gain strategic advantage. States compete by shaping agendas, setting standar...

  Photo source: Al Majalla By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront The NATO summit in Vilnius in July 2023 marked a decisive moment in the evolution of European security. Its ninety-point communique, described by several commentators as ‘historic’, sought to project unity and resolve in the face of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Yet beneath its declaratory strength lay a more sobering reality: the conflict was far from resolution, and the alliance remained cautious about the risks of escalation. The summit concluded with leaders from thirty-one member states affirming that Ukraine would one day join NATO. However, no timetable was offered, nor were concrete accession conditions clarified. As BBC News observed in its coverage, the promise amounted to ‘political reassurance without immediate substance’, reflecting both solidarity with Kyiv and anxiety about provoking Moscow. This ambiguity is not accidental. Ukraine occupies an extraordinarily precarious position. While NATO continues to ...

  Photo source: The Irish Times By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront T he war in Ukraine is far from over. As it kept on brewing in front of the world, what became apparent is that the Russian aggression was not about territorial expansion anymore, but it was actually more about controlling Ukraine’s political destiny. Even if Ukraine succeeds in pushing Russia’s military forces all the way back to its 1991 borders, the conflict won’t truly end. Ukrainian intelligence officials estimate that if the fighting were to stop in 2023, Russia would have sufficient capabilities in its arsenal to restart the war by 2027-2028, even with economic sanctions remaining in place. So, in order to truly end the conflict, Russia will have to understand, or be made to understand, that Ukraine’s future will be decided in Kyiv, not Moscow. And Kyiv has made it abundantly lucid that it sees its future with the West, as an integral part of the Euro-Atlantic institutions. That is why for Kyiv, finding a...

Photo source: Politico By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront For months, Putin denied that he would invade his Ukrainian neighbour. Even Ukrainian intelligence and its think tanks had made calculations that a large-scale war was not imminent, at the land border. But, Putin shocked everyone, and eventually went ahead and chose war by land, air, and sea, in February 2022, after a pre-dawn media address, as he thought Russians 'could not be safe, could not develop, and could not exist' for a while. He even claimed that his goal was to protect his people subjected to bullying, and genocide, and aimed for the demilitarisation and de-Nazification of modern Ukraine. For this, he even vowed to bring ‘Ukrainian fascists’ to court, who run the country since 2014. Although, Ukrainian leaders, including its prime minister, rejected Russia’s slur, outrightly. But, in reality, there are some Ukrainian territorial defence groups who are overtly and unabashedly hard-right in their ideological...

  Photo source: Daily Sabah By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront In January 2022, the Russian Defence Ministry announced that its air force had begun joint patrols with Syrian military pilots along Syria’s borders. As reported by Al Arabiya News, the patrols involved fighter jets, fighter‑bombers and airborne early warning aircraft, flying routes from the Golan Heights through southern Syria and then along the Euphrates River up to the north. Moscow presented these patrols as demonstrations of solidarity with the Assad regime and as measures to help Damascus pre‑emptively counter threats. They also served Russia’s longer‑term goal of assisting Assad in regaining control over territory still held by opposition groups. Adam Lammon, writing for the Centre for the National Interest, argued that the patrols were designed to enhance the Syrian military’s independent capabilities, asserting sovereignty while reducing Russia’s operational burden. Paul Iddon in Forbes offered a more nuanc...

                                                                                          Photo source: Open Democracy By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront When around a hundred thousand Russian troops were amassed near the Ukrainian border by December 2021, it created a renewal of a protracted civil war that first happened in 2014, in Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Satellite imagery, as per Ukrainian intelligence, showed movements of armour, missile and other heavy weaponry to Donbas separatist forces by Russia. In response, Ukrainian forces, in snow-laden wastelands were seen donning their white uniforms, with many snipers on the prowl. Near the front lines, war-weary soldiers were seen preparing food in makeshift kitchens, and the scenario reflected a newer ver...

Photo source: Foreign Policy By Naveed Qazi, Editor, Globe Upfront Alexei Nalvany, the leader of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, started his political career, by launching a dozen regional headquarters, staffed by young, social media savvy volunteers, with little political experience, but having enough zeal to defeat Putin run institutions. It was in March 2017, as part of his presidential bid, Navalny released, via his YouTube Channel, an investigation detailing the vast illegal fortune of Putin’s prime minister and ex-president, Dmitry Medvedev. The next day, Navalny summoned Russians to the streets. The protests were crushed by pre-emptive police harassment of organisers and the general public. The regime shrugged off the protests by saying that there was an interference of NATO in it. Still, the marches exceeded their geographic footprint, than any other show of discontent in post-Soviet Russia. With the result, thousand people were detained including Nalvany himself. Young protest...

Photo Source : Global Research By Naveed Qazi | Editor, Globe Upfront I n mid April 2020, a report issued by the United States State Department called " Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments " raised concerns that China might be conducting nuclear tests with low yields at its Lop Nur site, in violation of its Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) undertakings. The U.S. report also claims that Russia has conducted nuclear weapons experiments that produced a nuclear yield, underlying the CTBT. Russia and China have rejected the U.S.’s claims. With growing rivalry among major powers, the report harbingers a new global nuclear arms race, which would mark the end of the CTBT that came into being in 1996. In search of a political diplomacy, it was in March 2020, when Donald Trump  agreed to a proposal that China should join for a new round of arms control talks, along with four other pe...