Having lobbied US policy toward Greece and Cyprus on the front lines in Washington, DC since Turkey’s 1974 invasion and occupation of Cyprus, we found the first year of Joe Biden’s presidency a dramatic departure from nearly all previous administrations.
Sometimes important news is overlooked. I read in Bloomberg on Tuesday that China and Saudi Arabia are negotiating oil sales in the Chinese yuan, rather than in dollars.
The worst-case scenario has regrettably been confirmed. Russia’s incursion into Ukraine is evolving into a major humanitarian catastrophe – the greatest in European history since the Second World War.
The war in Ukraine has brought ghosts of the 20th century hovering over Europe: the leveling of cities by Russia, millions of Ukrainian refugees, the mass exodus of Russian dissidents to neighboring countries, the armaments race, and the risk of nuclear conflagration.
The combination of economic stagnation and high inflation, or stagflation, may prove to be more than a specter hovering over the world. and especially Europe.
The crisis in Ukraine can teach us a few lessons. It is very important to successfully “read” your allies and opponents. Sometimes it is harder to do so with your partners.
On the one hand, there are artists who stand up and don’t mince their words. “The unlockable buckle restraining the west is fear of nuclear war, and Vladimir Putin, elevated into a deranged and unpredictable adversary, has played us well,” wrote British author Ian McEwan in an article published in The Guardian.
In its pre-election pledges, the Greek government had announced a series of urban interventions of an emblematic scale – such as the expansion of the Archaeological Museum of Athens.
In Ukraine, two wars intersect. One is for the revival of a dead union, the other for the creation of a new kind of peaceful coexistence among peoples.
OPINION
