In search of international recognition for several years, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, freshly re-elected head of the Republic of Turkey, is leading his country down the path of an ambiguous foreign policy.
Inherited from the era of great power struggles in the 19th century, neutrality helped Switzerland through the wars of the following century. Since then, however, the country has failed to establish a new doctrinaire basis for its foreign policy.
In Switzerland, there is a growing tendency to relativize neutrality by using vague adjectives and linking it to defense alliances. This is a sign of inconsistency and a lack of historical awareness.
On February 28, 2022, Switzerland surprised everyone by deciding to apply the European sanctions against Russia. This de facto renunciation of a certain neutrality led to a crisis in political discourse, particularly at the highest level. Analysis.
Neutrality has never been subject to a corseted definition. Its entire history demonstrates this. It depends on the goodwill of the other powers, and only makes sense if it is understood in the context of the moment.
Published six years apart, Tom Clancy's anticipation novel «Red Storm» and Francis Fukuyama's essay «The End of History and the Last Man» offer a striking contrast: the fear of a world war is followed by euphoria at the victory of democracies. In his own way, Fukuyama also tells the story of an unfulfilled future.
Professor of History at the University of Geneva, Irène Hermann specializes in Swiss neutrality. Although neutrality is under particular scrutiny today, it has never been unambiguous for the historian, who demystifies it in the light of the past. Interview.
While wokism is evident in academic and artistic circles, it is also permeable to the world of politics. In the front line: the European institutions. We take the temperature.
Few people anticipated the outbreak of war in the Ukraine, partly because it has characteristics that evoke a war that should have happened forty years ago. The novel «Tempête rouge» (Red Storm), published in 1986, proved to be just such a visionary work.
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