Since the start of the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war, the Ukrainian armed forces have -quite unexpectedly- proven to be adept at withstanding the Russian onslaught on their territory. At the time of writing, the Russian armed forces have withdrawn from the Ukrainian capital and are making painfully little …

In this chapter, seven intercultural teaching experiences are contextualised by using the Hofstede (2011) model on cultural dimensions. The experiences are from Australia, China, France, Germany, Russia, India and Thailand. They are analysed using Hofstede’s four cultural dimensions of Power Distance, …

As an essential nutrient for food production, phosphate is largely used in fertilizers to enhance crop growth (Baishya et al., 2016; Hasanuzzaman et al., 2018). Regardless of its enormous demand, the only concentrated P source is phosphate rock and the resource is finite (Cordell & White, 2011; Smit …

Recently, the international security situation has changed significantly. Mutual trust between states has declined sharply. Policy makers of states and international organisations often no longer know where they stand. In 2016, the Oxford Dictionary proclaimed ‘post truth’ the word of the year.1 In …

This second part of the diptych on the art of deception revisited is about Russian deception and the way it was applied during the annexation of Crimea in 2014. During the annexation, armed soldiers dressed in dark green uniforms without insignias turned up and took control of the Ukrainian peninsula. …

European Union’s vulnerability to climate change stretches far beyond its borders because many of its economic sectors, such as meat and dairy, use raw materials sourced from far afield. Cross-border climate vulnerability is a relatively new subject in scientific literature, while of high societal and …

In 2017 NATO initiated Enhanced Forward Presence (eFP) in the Baltics to deter Russia. While most studies analyse eFP from the perspective of NATO or the troop contributing countries, this chapter addresses the question how the host nations, i.e. in this contribution Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, perceive …

This chapter examines the use of deterrence by President Putin of the Russian Federation against potential democratic revolts. It combines insights from the literatures on democratic revolutions and social movements on the one hand and deterrence and coercion on the other. This exploratory research sketches …

Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the conflict in the southeast region of Ukraine, NATO deployed four battlegroups to Poland and the Baltic States. The Netherlands contributes troops to the battlegroup in Lithuania, which considers itself a ‘front state’ against the Russian Federation. …

Non-ballistic hypersonic missiles are highly manoeuvrable weapons that move with a speed of Mach 5 or more. Russia, China, and the US are the frontrunners in developing those weapons. The combination of speed, accuracy, manoeuvrability, and range makes hypersonic missiles effective both against time-sensitive …