Becoming a Fellow of the Ideas Festival, the Aspen Institute’s flagship event for 20 years held in the heart of the Elk Mountains over 2000 meters above sea level, was a humbling and mind opening experience.

"For almost a year now, Russia has taken the initiative on the front. Despite their considerable military superiority, however, the Russian forces have not been spectacularly successful. There are also no signs that the Ukrainian defense could collapse in the coming months. Russia is not in a position to claim victory on the battlefield, but…

Germany is currently struggling with its own crises and does not seem too interested in leading or even setting itself as an example for the rest of Europe, says Milan Nič in conversation with Robert Schuster.

The centralization of power in Xi Jinping’s hands leaves China’s economy without experienced experts to manage policy. As everything must be decided personally by the president, delays and about-faces abound. Beijing needs to close a gap in its leadership’s credibility, which – together with its limited room for maneuver on the international stage – is…

The Crisis of Narration Byung-Chul Han Polity Press, 2024 76 pages By Benjamin Cunningham

Has the situation in the Baltic Sea changed after Sweden and Finland joined NATO? It probably has, if the head of Polish diplomacy says publicly that the Russian Baltic Fleet may meet the same sad fate as the Black Sea Fleet. Bartosz Wieliński

When Russia brutally attacked Ukraine in February 2022, the Western powers responded by imposing the broadest and, as it was then believed, the most effective sanctions on Moscow. In this article, Vladislav Inozemtsev analyzes the efficiency of these sanctions based on the results they produced over the last two years.

People have short memories and few remember what it was like to live behind the Iron Curtain. Things like visa-free travel, study abroad and harassment-free life are being taken for granted, says Paul Lendvai, an Austrian journalist originally from Hungary in an interview with Robert Schuster.

I am hopeful that there will not be a third world war, but I am pessimistic about Ukraine - says British historian Martyn Rady.

Ukraine was recognized too late and at too high a price. And the account is still not final. Mykola Riabchuk

Michael Ignatieff, former Rector of Central European University in Budapest, author and former Canadian politician, on how Viktor Orbán rose to the top of the Conservative International and created a new Hungarian bourgeoisie.

Zuzana Čaputová is the first woman to hold the position of head of state in the Slovak Republic, and one of the few females to have decided to take an active part in the politics of this fairly young Central European country.

“Conservative, identity-based piety will not offer people any vision of the future. Certainly, the kind of Church we know from Poland or even the Czech Republic will not do it,” says Monsignor Prof. Tomáš Halik in an interview with Aleksander Kaczorowski.

Russian national identity is based on pride in its armed forces and its ability to defeat an enemy, albeit an enemy largely invented, like the Ukrainians - says Prof. Orlando Figes in an interview with Aleksander Kaczorowski.

According to Julian Gerhart, schools are in serious need of courses on civic competence. Five years ago, he founded zmudri.sk, an educational website, along with his friends, and has since received the Aspen CE Madeleine K. Albright Leadership Award in 2023.

Overreach: The Inside Story of Putin’s War Against Ukraine Owen Matthews Mudlark, 2022 448 pp By Benjamin Cunningham

Minka Halasz from Hungary and Anka Sušická from the Czech Republic were among the many participants at the Aspen Future Leaders Climate Summit, which took place in March 2023 in Miami, Florida. In conversation with Robert Schuster they expressed appreciation for the opportunity to confront their ideas with other participants with different backgrounds and gain…

While the war in Ukraine has brought China and Russia closer together, deepening the asymmetry between these powers to Moscow’s disadvantage, the implications of the conflict for China’s flagship initiative, the “Belt and Road”, are far more complex.