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Germany
14.02.2025 US Vice President Vance met with Weidel, the leader of Germany’s ’far-right’ Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, during his trip to Germany. Vance also held meetings with leaders of major German political parties as part of his visit. Earlier in the day, he met with German President Steinmeier. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey)
European Union
February 14, 2025 DeepSeek: A problem or an opportunity for Europe? On January 20, 2025, Chinese AI company DeepSeek released its R1 reasoning model. White House AI Czar Sacks said there is “substantial evidence” that DeepSeek distilled knowledge out of OpenAI’s models. European regulators have greeted DeepSeek’s rise with concern, even as leading European AI companies have expressed excitement. /Source: The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) - Headquarters in Washington D.C., U.S./
by Caroli, a senior fellow of the Wadhwani AI Center at the CSIS in Washington, D.C.
Ukraine
(Friday), 14 February 2025 'Trump does not have a plan to end the war in Ukraine', Zelensky warned yesterday. The leader led a backlash against the White House alongside Sir Keir Starmer over concessions the US President made as part of a proposed Ukraine-Russia peace deal. His comments came after it emerged that on Wednesday Mr Trump had spoken to Russian president Putin for an hour and a half about the conflict. 'Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, warned the US against looking for a ‘dirty deal’ to end the conflict'. (Source: Daily Mail - United Kingdom)
Feb 14, 2025 Early this morning, Ukrainian sources released footage that according to them show a Russian attack drone targeting the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. /Photo, video/ (Source: BulgarianMilitary)
by Nikolov
North America
United States
(14 February 2025) Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's first visit to Washington under Trump's second term was a working visit. India enjoys a trade surplus with the US, its top trading partner. India cut average tariffs from 13% to 11% in its federal budget in a bid to pre-empt Trump's tariff moves. 75% of the US exports to India attract import taxes of less than 5%. India has little reason to fear reciprocal tariffs. The new $500bn trade goal aims to more than double the $190bn trade between the two countries in 2023. Modi and Trump committed to negotiating the first phase of a trade agreement by autumn 2025. Talks will focus on market access, tariff reductions and supply chain integration across goods and services. What is this trade agreement? It doesn't necessarily mean a free trade deal - if that were the case, it would have been stated explicitly. It could simply involve tariff reductions on select products of mutual interest. "For instance the US sanctions on Russian shadow fleet are soon going to kick in, so India can easily pivot to the US for more oil", Kishore, principal economist at the Singapore-based consultancy firm, Asia Decoded, says. Trump said at the joint press conference that the US would hopefully become India's number one supplier of oil and gas. With delays and cost overruns affecting some of India's arms deals with Russia, Delhi's defence ties with the US look set to deepen. While Russia remains India's top source, its share has dropped from 62% to 34% (2017-2023) as India shifts toward US procurement. India's defence trade with the US has surged from near zero to $20 billion, making the US its third-largest arms supplier. Trump said the US would increase military equipment sales to India "by many billions of dollars starting this year". Modi met Tesla CEO Musk to discuss AI and emerging tech. It's unclear if they addressed Musk's stalled plans for Starlink's India launch or Tesla's market entry. India is courting Tesla to set up a car factory, cutting EV import taxes for automakers committing $500m and local production within three years. Tesla has yet to confirm its plans. In a rare move, Modi joined Trump at a press conference, answering two questions. Indian billionaire Adani, with close ties with Modi, was charged with fraud in the US last November over an alleged $250m bribery scheme. Modi said he hadn't discussed the issue with Trump. On immigration, he stated India was ready to take back verified illegal Indian migrants. (Source: BBC News - United Kingdom)
February 14, 2025 Kennedy Jr. was sworn yesterday as President Trump’s health secretary after a close Senate vote, putting the prominent vaccine skeptic in control of $1.7 trillion in federal spending, vaccine recommendations and food safety as well as health insurance programs for roughly half the country. (Source: AP News - U.S.)
Friday 14 February 2025 'Lasting peace' between Russia and Ukraine says US vice president Vance. The US wants to avoid seeing Eastern Europe "in conflict just a few years down the line" said the US vice president Vance during talks with Zelenskyy in Munich. /Video/ (Source: Sky News – United Kingdom)
Friday 14 February 2025 At the Munich Security Conference in Germany, today US vice president Vance has taken aim at United Kingdom and Europe over what he claimed was "backsliding" free speech and democracy. "When I look at Europe today, it's sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the Cold War's winners," he said, targeting perceived infringes on free speech. "Perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom, where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons, in particular, in the crosshairs," he added: Mr Vance criticised the country for the conviction of 51-year-old Smith-Connor, who was given a conditional discharge for breaching a safe zone around an abortion clinic in Bournemouth. "After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for, Adam replied simply, it was on behalf of the unborn son he and his former girlfriend had aborted years before," Mr Vance said. He then went on to talk about "safe access zones" in Scotland - a 200m wide area (150m in England) outside abortion clinics to stop anti-abortion campaigners leafleting, holding vigils, or showing graphic images to people near the sites. "In Britain, and across Europe, free speech I fear is in retreat," he said. In Washington, „there is a new sheriff in town” and „under Trump's leadership we may disagree with your views but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree," Mr Vance said to muted applause. As he listed values he believes Europe is diverging away from the US over, he raised immigration. He then switched his focus to the car attack in Munich yesterday, in which 36 people were injured. "I can't bring it up again without thinking about the terrible victims who had a beautiful winter day in Munich ruined," he said. "Our thoughts and prayers are with them and will remain with them. But why did this happen in the first place?" "No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants. "But you know what they did vote for in England? They voted for Brexit and, agree or disagree, they voted for it. "And more and more all over Europe, they're voting for political leaders who promised to put an end to out-of-control migration." Mr Vance also spoke about an annulled election in Romania, and issues in Sweden, Germany and Brussels. His speech was „the latest wake-up call for the UK and European nations in terms of security and the Trump administration's new foreign policy aims”. It highlighted the divergence between the new US administration and their ’allies’. /Photo, videos/ (Sky News – United Kingdom)
(14 February 2025) US Vice-President Vance criticised European leaders over free speech and democracy at the Munich Security Conference: "I worry about the threat from within". /Video/ (Source: BBC -United Kingdom)
February 14, 2025 In adress to Munich Securita Conference, Vice president Vance, largely critical of Europe’s ’Soviet’-style censorship activities, insisted the gathered leaders should listen more to their voters and abandon censorship, after Germany accused Musk of trying to interfere in its national elections. "Trust me, I say this with all humor," he said. "If American democracy can survive ten years of Thunberg scolding, you guys can survive a few months of Musk", he quipped. Thunberg, the 22-year-old Swedish environmental crusader, stole the spotlight among liberals over her climate concerns before she even turned 18. ’How long do you think you can continue to ignore the climate crisis, the global aspect of equity and historic emissions without being held accountable?’ Thunberg asked U.S. lawmakers before the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Environment. "Don't invite us here to just tell us how inspiring we are without actually doing anything about it," she said at age 16. Musk has gone toe-to-toe with Europe over censorship, and the European Commission recently ramped up its probe into whether Musk's X had breached EU rules on content moderation. Musk has called the commission "undemocractic" and called on the European Union to hold referendums to vote on policies that apply to all of its nations. Musk has also riled European officials with his support for the ’far-right’ Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Germany's elections, and for endorsing Britain's right-wing Reform party. /Photo, video/ (Source: Fox News – U.S.)
14.02.2025 US Vice President Vance has warned that the US could impose sanctions and possibly take military action if Russian President Putin refuses to negotiate a peace deal with Kyiv. Speaking to The Wall Street Journal yesterday, Vance said all options remain on the table, including the potential deployment of US troops to Ukraine, if Moscow fails to engage in talks in good faith. “There are economic tools of leverage, there are of course military tools of leverage” that Washington could use, Vance told the WSJ. The remarks follow President Trump’s announcement that he has begun negotiations with Putin to end the war in Ukraine. He’s going to say: "Everything is on the table, let’s make a deal", Vance said. Vance's remarks came a day after US Defense Secretary Hegseth said Ukraine would likely not recover its territory lost since 2014, would not join NATO through negotiations, and that US priorities were shifting away from European and Ukrainian security. /Photo/ (Source: Anadolu Agency)
February 14, 2025 It is still unclear what kind of peace deal in Ukraine the Trump administration intends to reach with Russia. 'The Europeans should have no doubt as to what will be expected of them afterwards. 'The Trump administration is signaling that European allies need to take the lead in securing Ukraine. National Security Advisor Waltz recently warned: our underlying principle is that ’the Europeans have to own this conflict going forward’. President Trump is going to end it, and 'then in terms of security guarantees, that is squarely going to be with the Europeans. Clearly, they have to step up and take more responsibility for their own defense and the maintenance of peace on the continent. If they don’t, "the partnership will fray irreparably, and their aspirations to be taken seriously in the emerging multipolar world order will be revealed as empty'. 'The Trump administration cannot afford to see the Europeans fail. It must ensure that any cease-fire in Ukraine stays intact and that Russia does not use it simply to pause before resuming its war of aggression. ’This requires that the United States continue to provide military assistance to Ukraine and signal that it will backstop European efforts to secure peace’. ’Only through such credible assurances will Russian President Putin accept and respect a cease-fire. The goal for Ukraine should be to keep the Russians out, the Europeans in, and the Americans on call'. How is this to be done? ’First, the Europeans must provide the Trump administration with a clear and realistically resourced plan for how they can, together, support Ukraine’s national defense forces in an equitable way for the foreseeable future’. ’Ukraine can provide the core of its own defense requirements with the manpower it has for approximately $20–40 billion a year.’ ’This requires, among other things, continued Western arms supplies, intelligence support, and training’. ’The Europeans need to help backstop Ukraine’s security with their own forces’. ’The Europeans need to put skin in the game something that only the presence of a sizable military deployment of about twenty thousand or more troops on Ukrainian soil can do’. ’One option would be to invoke the Berlin-plus formula designed to facilitate the European Union (EU) to draw on NATO assets to support its own Common Security and Defense Policy missions abroad’. ’Going this route would support the EU’s offer that Ukraine become a member of the Union and also signal its intent to be taken seriously as a geopolitical actor’. This has been used on at least two prior occasions for peacekeeping operations in the Balkans. ’Such an approach could also allow the United Kingdom, no longer part of the EU but one of Europe’s top three military powers, to participate and contribute’. If this option is too difficult because it will require the unanimous support of all EU members - something that cannot be assumed - then the Europeans can organize a coalition of the willing as 'the next best solution'. 'There’s precedent' for such a coalition; the British-led multinational Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) established in 2018 draws on NATO assets to respond to threats in northern Europe and the Baltic region. But, instead of the JEF’s relatively small rapid reaction force of around ten thousand troops, ’an EU-led coalition would require something more robust, involving contributions from Bulgaria, France, Germany, Poland, Romania, and the UK’. The key idea is this: ’whatever foreign troops are in Ukraine under a future armistice must be capable of fighting in place’ to defend themselves against a possible future Russian attack until reinforcements could arrive. If Ukraine does its part and builds a viable self-defense force, the European capability will function primarily as a backup and will not be in acute danger of being overrun ’in the opening days of a hypothetical war’. It should have time to consolidate its disparate elements 'within Ukraine and organize a serious defense in conjunction with Kyiv’. ’Doing so would not require the two hundred thousand European troops that President Zelenskyy has proposed—but would require perhaps twenty thousand’. 'For example', modern brigade combat teams - the key fighting units of Western militaries today - typically consist of 3,500 troops, plus two to three times as many uniformed individuals in support and several thousand more personnel to provide airpower capabilities. The Trump administration must convey to the Europeans that it stands behind their commitment to Ukraine’s defense - materially and politically - and thus provide the other key element of a serious deterrence strategy against Russia. ’The future U.S. military posture in Europe needs to move a bit further east than it was before 2022’, with response forces in Poland and perhaps the Baltic states as well. ’The right ballpark figure is perhaps another ten thousand U.S. troops' in Poland or points east, above and beyond the five thousand troops deployed there in 2021. 'Moreover, the United States should not a priori rule out deploying forces inside Ukraine', something that U.S. Vice President Vance has recently indicated is not off the table. Waltz’s démarche to NATO allies is right - up to a point. The Europeans do need to do more, but two immensely costly world wars in the last century should remind Waltz that this is not the time for the United States to risk a third by hastily disengaging from Ukraine once the guns fall silent. (Source: The Council on Foreign Relations - based in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C. It publishes the bi-monthly journal Foreign Affairs. CFR meetings discuss international issues. It also runs the Rockefeller Studies Program, which publishes research on foreign policy issue, makes recommendations to the diplomatic community and presidential administration).
by Stares, the General John W. Vessey senior fellow for conflict prevention at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he directs the Center on Preventive Action; O’Hanlon, who holds the Phil H. Knight chair in defense and strategy at the Brookings Institution.
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