World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

Humanitarian intervention remains one of the most problematic policies in the current world order:  it is often difficult to separate humanitarian from imperial motives.  Moreover, humanitarian interventions often fail to realize their stated objectives and sometimes the end result is worse than the situation that was supposed to be rectified. Michael Doyle and Camille Strauss-Kahn offer some guidelines for making such interventions more effective in the future.

The Russian press is well aware of the West’s reaction to the annexation of Crimea.  The Russian Times gives a thorough synopsis of the negative reactions.  The sanctions leveled by the West seem unlikely to impose heavy penalties on Russia, so now the focus shifts to Russia’s intentions in other areas.  The West is somewhat hamstrung by the strength of a strongly nationalist party in Ukraine, Svoboda, with an unsavory background that finds support from other right-wing parties in Europe such as the National Democratic Party (NPD) in Germany.