World Politics in 2017

„The West and Russia“ and „Europe and its defence“ were the main topics of the workshop „Weltpolitische Lage“ which was held on March 31st at ETH Zurich. As usual, this gathering served as launch for the yearly CSS-publication series “Strategic Trends”. Authors and guests concluded that analysing the current security-political situation concerning Europe is as difficult as hardly ever before. First of all, the foreign policy of the United States under President Trump is hard to assess. On the other hand, the diverse impacts of Brexit on security policy are not known yet either. Additionally, central pillars of European security like NATO must find answers to the current challenges related to Russia. From Switzerland’s perspective, it would be welcomed if the OSCE – the only pan-European and at the same time transatlantic organisation – could regain a bigger role in these discussions. Increased tensions between the West and Russia, however, make this scenario currently unforeseeable.