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In 2014, the CSIS Europe and Southeast Asia Programs embarked on a two-year initiative to create a new and enduring EU-U.S. collaborative mechanism to enhance transatlantic Asia-Pacific policy coordination and understanding. This report is the culmination of this two-year study and presents the findings of the research while also offering actionable recommendations for U.S. and EU policymakers.

In recent years, Europe has seen its largest influx of migrants and refugees in decades, with 1.9 million arrivals to the continent between 2014 and 2017. Peak arrivals in 2015, and sustained flows since then, have found the European Union and its 28 member states unable to face what has been called the \"European migration crisis.\" Part of their response has focused on cooperation with third countries of transit or origin, by leveraging development, humanitarian, and foreign policy tools to try and reduce migrant flows to Europe, including through many funding and budgetary decisions. This report attempts to quantify, through budgetary analysis, what shifts occurred in the external dimension of Europe's migration policy following the crisis, and in three member states (Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands). These short-term shifts, representing policy priorities, carry long-term consequences for the European Union's role as a foreign policy and soft power actor.

The New Ice Curtain explores Russia's strategic ambitions for its Arctic region—an understudied and underappreciated region that encompasses nearly the entire northern coast of Eurasia. As the Russian Arctic produces 14 percent of Russian GDP, 22 percent of its exports, and is home to nearly 2 million of its citizens, Russia's economic future will increasingly depend on robust Arctic development. ,

There was a deeply held assumption that, when the countries of Central and Eastern Europe joined NATO and the European Union in 2004, these countries would continue their positive democratic and economic transformation. Yet more than a decade later, the region has experienced a steady decline in democratic standards and governance practices at the same time that Russia’s economic engagement with the region expanded significantly. Regional political movements and figures have increasingly sought to align themselves with the Kremlin and with illiberalism. Central European governments have adopted ambiguous—if not outright pro-Russian—policy stances that have raised questions about their transatlantic orientation and produced tensions within Western institutions. The Center for the Study of Democracy, in partnership with the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), recently concluded a 16-month study to understand the nature of Russian influence in five case countries: Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Latvia, and Serbia. This research determined the extent of the Russian economic footprint in the domestic economy, which has ranged between 11% and 22% on average from 2004 to 2014. The report also presented evidence of how Russia has leveraged its economic presence to cultivate an opaque web of economic and political patronage across the region that the Kremlin uses to influence and direct decisionmaking. This web resembles a network-flow model—or “unvirtuous circle”—which the Kremlin can use to influence (if not control) critical state institutions, bodies, and economies, as well as shape national policies and decisions that serve its interests while actively discrediting the Western liberal democratic system. To exploit the governance loopholes, Russia’s strategy has been to capture powerful local brokers through providing them with government sponsored business opportunities at premium returns infiltrating them in state-owned companies, national agencies including in the security sector. Another common way is to use former security officials with significant influence over parties, businesses and institutions to act as intermediaries boosting Moscow’s interests where necessary. The reverse has also been happening in the region when local powerful economic groups use their Russian links to secure capital and political backing to acquire assets and invest in large projects. Sometimes domestic interests have vied for and received the economic and political support from Russian companies or politicians to engage in rent seeking with the local government, exploiting lack of oversight and lack rule of law. In exchange for providing their brand name or capital, Russian companies have taken nominal share in lucrative domestic businesses, gained access to a strategic asset in telecommunications, finance and most often in energy.

This report offers a reexamination of U.S. Army posture in Europe amid heightened tensions between the United States and Russia over the geopolitical orientation of Ukraine. This study reviews Russian military capabilities; considers alternative U.S. force posture arrangements; assesses how to determine whether assurance and deterrence goals are being met; and offers concrete recommendations in order to optimize the U.S. Army's presence in Europe to deter Russian aggression against the most vulnerable NATO members.

Across the United States, individuals and small businesses are increasingly buying and selling goods and services online. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the total value of online transactions in the United States grew from {dollar}3 trillion in 2006 to {dollar}5.4 trillion in 2012, about a third of U.S. GDP. Increasingly, these transactions are cross border. By 2017, a third of U.S. business-to-consumer (B2C) and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) e-commerce transactions will be with foreign counterparts, up from 16 percent today.

This report offers an examination of U.S. Army force posture in Europe amid heightened tensions between the United States and Russia.

This study presents the outcome of a Track II dialogue among civil society leaders, security experts, academics, and government representatives from across the Baltic States, Poland, and the United States who came together to discuss the shared threats and challenges facing NATO's eastern flank in light of Russia's aggressive behavior toward its neighbors. The objective of the study was to enhance scholarship on the challenges stemming from the Ukraine crisis and to inform public discussions on the evolving nature and future of security and defense relations among the United States, the Baltic States, and Poland.