Author: Luqmaan Bamba (Page 1 of 2)

It was an early Wednesday morning, and seventy people were already in line at a Wohnungsbesichtigung, a public house viewing in Berlin. Sam Albaid, who had been looking for a stable apartment for months, clutched his folder of documents as he approached the representative: credit report, ID, references, everything he had been told he needed. The man skimmed the papers until he reached one detail.

“You’re with the job center?” he asked, referring to the government office that dispenses social benefits.

Sam nodded.

“Don’t even try it,” the representative said. “They will not even read it.”

“Why? Is this legal?” Sam asked.

“No,” the man said, “but that’s what’s gonna happen.”

Sam never had a chance, not because of missing documents, but because he received social benefits. Like thousands of other refugees in Berlin, he found himself trapped in a contradiction at the very center of Germany’s integration system. When Sam arrived from Syria via Istanbul in 2017, he entered the long pre-work phase required of most asylum seekers: months, sometimes years, of German-language classes, cultural orientation sessions, and vocational integration courses. Only after clearing these hurdles could he even begin applying for real jobs. At the same time, he had to navigate the slow asylum process, which could take months or years.

In this early stage, refugees cannot work full-time, and many cannot work at all. Without income, they rely on benefits to survive. Yet, once they do, landlords often shut them out, rendering them unable to secure permanent housing at precisely the moment they need it most.

Niklas Harder, Co-head of the Integration Department at the German Center for Integration and Migration Research, explained the logic he hears from landlords again and again. Yes, a job center letter means rent is guaranteed by the state. But from a landlord’s perspective, Harder said, it signals something else entirely: “They get relatively little in terms of quantity,” he said. “So a lot of people want to ask higher rents, and they don’t accept tenants who are on social benefits.”

To understand this dynamic, one has to understand Germany’s social housing system and what’s gone wrong with it. In Germany, “social housing” refers to rent-controlled apartments whose rent levels are capped and legally compatible with what social benefits will cover. These units are, in theory, the solution for people like Sam: affordable, regulated, and protected from the volatility of the private market.

But Berlin simply does not have enough of them. The stock of social housing has shrunk dramatically over the past decades as units age out of regulation. Demand, meanwhile, has surged, driven by demographic change, urban growth, and successive waves of asylum seekers from Syria, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and other conflicts.

As a result, new arrivals who could theoretically pay rent with their benefits cannot actually rent anything. And the unsubsidized private market is even more out of reach. Berlin’s private rents have risen so sharply that even refugees who do find work struggle to afford them.

The consequences are visible in shelters across the city. People remain in overcrowded temporary housing far longer than the system was designed for. The shelters were meant to serve as short-term landing pads; instead, families spend months or years waiting for a chance at something permanent.

Even those who might want to escape Berlin’s impossible housing market face another hurdle: German federalism. Refugees are assigned to a specific municipality when they receive benefits, and those benefits, including housing support, can only be used within that region.

“You’re basically assigned to an office that pays out your social benefits,” Harder explained. “And they will only pay for rent that is in their region of responsibility.”

This means that even if more affordable housing exists in a neighboring state, beneficiaries are effectively anchored in place. They cannot simply move to where housing is available. Federalism, designed for administrative order, inadvertently becomes a barrier to mobility and therefore to integration.

Together, these constraints create a vicious trap: without a job, refugees cannot rent an apartment. Without an apartment, they cannot easily get a job.

At first glance, this seems overstated. Surely someone can get a job while living in a shelter? But in practice, employers require a stable address for payroll, tax documents, and background checks. Banks require a stable address to open an account. Employers look for proof that a potential employee can reliably stay in the city. And for refugees juggling appointments with the migration office, language courses, legal processes, and shelter rules, demonstrating that stability becomes nearly impossible.

This is especially paradoxical in Germany, a country facing a major labor shortage and desperately trying to bring more workers into the economy. But integration into the workforce is not as simple as filling open positions.

“Even the positions in unskilled labor in Germany demand a minimum amount of language and literacy,” Harder said. For refugees with limited formal education, this represents a major hurdle. For those who are highly educated (doctors, engineers, teachers) another problem arises: without advanced German fluency, professional credential recognition remains unreachable. A Syrian doctor, for example, must communicate flawlessly with patients, colleagues, and medical institutions.

The focus here falls on what comes after a refugee leaves the asylum and state-run accommodation system, or tries to. During the initial phase, refugees live in shelters where they are provided food, basic furniture, and a shared room. But the transition out of shelters is exactly where most refugees become stuck.

Those who succeed face discrimination from landlords, steep deposits, guarantor requirements, and bureaucratic tangles. Those who don’t remain in limbo: unable to build a stable life, unable to advance in language learning, and unable to integrate socially or economically.

There are models that work. Programs like ARRIVO connect refugees with apprenticeships and skilled trades. Some NGOs help with bureaucratic navigation: [“registration for all,” ] These programs show what is possible when integration efforts are aligned across housing, employment, and social services.

But they remain exceptions in a system that too often leaves people behind.

Berlin’s housing market has become both a mirror and a test of Germany’s broader promise to integrate those who came seeking safety. The gap between that promise and the reality, between the job center letter and the closed doors it triggers, reveals the structural contradictions refugee communities must navigate.

When Sam described his language courses, his early hopes, and the spiraling difficulties he faced afterward, his story illuminated the heart of the issue: racism, housing discrimination, and labor-market barriers are not separate challenges. They reinforce one another.

Refugees are fighting for the basic building blocks of belonging: a stable home, a job that pays, and the dignity of agency over their futures. 

I found myself clapping at the end when Worth said Attora was “supervising repairs on a power line that would probably be blown up again tomorrow.” It was hilarious, pithy, and stuck at the heart of what the piece was about. The uncertain, elusive, and complex nature of the Aleppo conflict and the state of Syria after its fall. One could read it as a statement of futile endeavors. Or as a statement of daring hope? Structurally, though, I aspire to an ending similar to this that captures the essence of my piece and allows the reader to leave with an anchoring statement that summarizes the piece.  

Worth’s comparison: that Attora’s face looked like “Albert Camus’s might have if he lived a decade longer”, was reminiscent of McPhee’s comments on frame of reference. I don’t know what Albert Camus looks like, but I suppose the preceding details repay the borrowed vividness. McPhee tends to be a bit random and only tells you what he means at the end. I was confused for the longest time as to what he meant by frame of reference. As he talked about random moments where people weren’t getting his references because of different times, or when students used niche references, it all only comes together at the very end, and you’re like That’s what he’s doing. Maybe he’s breaking the rules of structure and loves to leave his readers confused for as long as possible. 

The TIME lede was a pretty novel style. It started straight in your face with the models being used before taking a step back to explain the context. I resonate with the piece of SiSi because I, too, am taking the approach of a single main character whose journey exemplifies a dynamic. From there, the work can be a commendatory and meaningful discussion on an aspect of society. The emphasis on really drawing on expert insights on a topic that you’re going into without knowledge is definitely a takeaway, as I conduct two expert interviews this week.

Lede: 

It was a Wednesday morning at 7 AM when Sam Albaid visited a house viewing as he hunted for an apartment in Berlin. When he got there, 70 people were already in line. He was standing in line waiting to get inside and a company representative asked to see his papers. He looked them over and then looked at him and asked, “You’re with the job center?” – referring to the government assistance letter guaranteeing coverage of a portion of rent for does making less than a certain amount. Sam nodded and the guy told him not to even try going in. “What, why,” Sam asked. “Is this legal?” “No, but that’s what’s gonna happen.”

Nutgraph: 

The search for stable housing is one of the most harrowing endeavors of every new Berliner. For refugees and migrants, that struggle is magnified. Despite Germany’s urgent need for workers, many newcomers find themselves caught in a circular trap: without a job, they can’t rent an apartment; without an apartment, they can’t get a job.

In Berlin, the housing crisis isn’t simply financial, it shapes entire lives. Refugees often spend months, sometimes years, in overcrowded shelters while waiting for a chance at permanent housing. Those who make it out face discrimination from landlords, sky-high deposits, and bureaucratic hurdles that make even basic rentals feel out of reach. On top of that, barriers to employment, like language certification, skill recognition, and temporary legal status, keep many from gaining the stability they need to move forward.

Still, there are signs of resilience. Programs like ARRIVO connect refugees with apprenticeships and job training, offering rare success stories amid a system that too often leaves people behind. Berlin’s housing market has become both a mirror and a test of Germany’s promise to integrate those who came seeking safety, and a future.

On a gray Tuesday evening in Berlin’s Neukölln district, the living room of the Blue House was filled with a cozy light and the murmur of diverse people. A dozen people gather around a long table: refugees, volunteers, and students practicing English. Sam Alabiad smiled engagingly at everyone around him. 

He was excited to share his story after I introduced myself and told him I was a student journalist. His expressions did not betray the challenges he’d faced, which I’d come to learn as the night progressed. 

When Sam arrived in Berlin in 2017, he was thirty years old, trained in linguistics, and already twice displaced. In 2016, he had fled Syria for Turkey, hoping to find safety and academic work. “It was unstable,” he recalled. “After the coup attempt, we were always worried, are they going to deport us?” He’s referring to the 2016 failed coup attempt against Erdogan and the crackdown on civilians that ensued. A friend in Germany told him to try for a research visa. “I didn’t want to cross the sea. I didn’t want to risk it,” he said, about those fleeing to Greece in flimsy rafts.  So he found a short-term research post in Arabic linguistics, packed his degree, and flew to Berlin.

The visa lasted six months. After it expired, Turkey’s laws forbade him from returning for five years. “I was stuck,” he said simply. “So I applied for asylum.”

What followed was not a single moment of arrival, but a slow, grinding negotiation with bureaucracy. Germany’s asylum process can take months or years; in Sam’s case, it took eight. He learned that even refugees with degrees and language skills face systemic barriers: recredentialing requirements, certification processes, and waiting lists. “If you want to teach in Germany,” he said, “you must teach two subjects. I could teach English, but not only English. They told me, ‘You need to do another bachelor’s degree.’ Another three years of study. I thought; Why?”

When I spoke to Philipp Jaschke, a policy researcher at Germany’s Institute for Employment Research, he nodded knowingly at Sam’s story. “And it’s often hard for, especially for refugees, but generally for migrants, because Germany is, I would say it’s unique with this vocational education system. If people apply, often they get a decision and then okay, ‘we approve part of your qualification.’”

“And so they tell you you need to prove practice in this and that and that and that and you need to go to school to learn in theory this and this and this. So it’s super complicated.”

In other words, integration in Germany isn’t only about learning the language; it’s about navigating institutional bureaucracy. “Everything here is on paper,” Sam said. “Letters, letters, letters. If you don’t know the language, you can’t survive the bureaucracy.” He relied on friends to translate documents and accompany him to offices, each visit another performance of legitimacy: am I educated enough, fluent enough, deserving enough to settle here?

He spent three years studying German intensively. “From zero to C1,” he said, shaking his head, referring to the European grade system for languages. “Three years of my life were just that.” When the pandemic hit, Berlin shut down. Classes went online; language schools closed; temporary teaching gigs vanished. “Two years without a job,” he said. “I was just at home.”

Finally, after six years of uncertainty, Sam found a stable position teaching English at a private school. “Now, when I apply for a job,” he said, smiling faintly, “they actually call me for an interview.”

For many in Berlin’s refugee community, the harder struggle comes not in the classroom but at home; literally. Housing in Berlin is a battle, even for Germans. For immigrants, it’s worse. “I spent two years searching for a flat,” Sam said. “Every day, every night. You apply, you go to viewings, you bring all your papers.” At open houses, he’d line up with dozens of others, clutching a folder: passport, residence permit, bank statements, a government letter guaranteeing rent payments. “And still,” he said, “they see ‘job center’ on the paper and say, ‘They won’t give you the flat.’”

Berlin’s rental market has become so competitive that underground brokers offer “black market” placements: sometimes more than €5,000. “I know people who paid under the table just to get a flat,” Sam said. “The government knows it exists. But what can they do? People are desperate.”

He eventually found his first real apartment thanks to a German friend’s mother, who vouched for him in person. “She told the landlord, ‘If he doesn’t pay, I will,’” Sam said. “That’s how I got the flat.”

The loneliness was harder to solve. “People say Berlin is open, multicultural,” Sam said. “That’s true: but only if you’re a party person. If you like bars, nightclubs, you’ll find people. I’m not that person.” For him, community meant the language cafés, the Sunday meetups, the Blue House, where volunteers and refugees trade words and stories. “This is my social life,” he said. “German people are not very open. Even your neighbors; you don’t know them. They live in their own bubbles.”

He laughed softly. “In England, they say people are cold. But the Germans are another level. To grab a coffee with a friend, you must schedule one month in advance.”

Today, Sam’s life is stable on paper: full-time job, apartment, friends, legal status. But stability, he said, isn’t the same as ease. The journey to Berlin was just the start of a years-long fight to truly take root and feel at home in Berlin. In the Blue House, where volunteers and newcomers trade stories in slow English, he finds a gome. Here, no one asks for papers. They ask where you’re from, what brought you here, and how you’re doing this week. People arrive from everywhere, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Syria, Turkey, and learn to make the city livable together.

Alaa Mousa, a former Syrian military doctor, was found guilty on June 16th, 2025, of war crimes and crimes against humanity in a German court after being accused of torturing detainees in government hospitals during the Syrian Civil War in 2011 and 2012. The verdict, delivered by the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt, represented the expansion of universal jurisdiction prosecutions in Europe since the conflict began more than a decade ago. 

The case follows Germany’s landmark Koblenz trial, which in 2022 delivered the world’s first conviction of a senior Assad regime official for crimes against humanity under universal jurisdiction. That ruling established Germany as a leader in efforts to prosecute atrocities committed outside its borders. Since then, prosecutors have initiated several additional cases tied to Syria, including one related to the siege of the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus.

Analysts say these efforts show how Germany’s courts are expanding the frontiers of international accountability at a time when the International Criminal Court (ICC) remains politically constrained.

“A crime is a crime, even if the criminal doesn’t live in the country where it was committed,” said Princeton anthropologist John Borneman, who has written extensively on law and justice in Germany and Lebanon. “The system of universal jurisdiction is actually an advance in legal process. When domestic courts fail, others should step in; that’s progress, not overreach.”

Since 2011, Syrian activists, survivors, and legal NGOs have documented tens of thousands of cases of torture and disappearance under the Assad regime. But with Syria never having joined the ICC and Russia’s UN Security Council veto blocking an international war crimes trial, survivors have increasingly turned to national courts in Europe as their only legal recourse.

Germany, which received over 700,000 Syrian refugees during the so-called “long summer of 2015,” has become the epicenter of these prosecutions. Since the Koblenz trial, there have been almost 50 trials on Syria in European courts. Many refugees were professionals, doctors, engineers, and lawyers who possessed the networks and education to organize cases and provide testimony. That social dynamic, Borneman noted, helped Germany become uniquely positioned to take up Syrian claims. “The Syrians who fled were often middle or upper-middle class,” he said. “They knew how to activate the justice system. They understood the importance of pursuing these prosecutions even from exile.”

Indeed, after moving to Germany in 2015 under a skilled-worker visa, Mousa was arrested in 2020 after being identified by witnesses who had recognized him among the Syrian diaspora. 

For Dr. Zaher Sahloul, a Syrian-American physician and humanitarian who leads the NGO MedGlobal, Mousa’s conviction resonates deeply on ethical grounds.

“The first rule in medicine is to do no harm,” Sahloul said. “To have a physician participate in torture and killing is against everything our profession stands for… it brings back memories of Hitler’s doctors. Justice was delayed, but this verdict matters.”

Sahloul argued that the Assad regime’s systematic targeting of hospitals and medical workers in Syria,  an early feature of the war, normalized attacks on healthcare in other conflicts, including Ukraine and Gaza. “Medical neutrality has been weaponized,” he said. “Holding perpetrators accountable is the only way to restore those norms. Otherwise, these conventions become ink on paper.”

While some critics question the fairness of trying lower-level perpetrators when senior regime figures remain untouchable, Sahloul said even symbolic cases have deterrent value. “You can’t try every officer or doctor,” he said. “But every conviction sends a message: there’s no impunity forever.”

Legal experts argue that Germany’s willingness to test the boundaries of jurisdiction reflects both its historical responsibility and its evolving identity. Since Nuremberg, Germany has embraced what Borneman calls a “ritual of accountability”; using law not only to punish, but to reaffirm moral order. “Trials like these,” he explained, “are secular rituals. They transform trauma into recognition. They tell victims: The world saw you.”

The Mousa case also illustrates how universal jurisdiction complements, and sometimes substitutes for, the ICC. Because the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute that created the court, and Syria has no domestic provision for universal jurisdiction, Europe remains the main venue for such prosecutions. As Borneman put it, “Sometimes, you can’t rely on your own country’s justice system. Political realities make it impossible. Universal jurisdiction gives victims another path.”

Sahloul believes that even incremental victories matter. “Justice is not only about punishment,” he said. “It’s about prevention. Every time a court rules that torture or starvation are crimes, wherever they happen, it strengthens the idea that law applies to everyone.”

Despite cases like this, the path toward comprehensive justice for Syria remains uncertain. Sahloul cautioned that the new Syrian regime, transitioning, institutionally weak, and beset by reconstruction challenges, is unlikely to take control of prosecutions soon. He suggested that national courts must continue to act until domestic systems are robust enough to assume responsibility. 

Germany’s prosecutors have also opened a landmark case on the siege of Yarmouk, a Palestinian district of Damascus besieged from 2011 to 2015, where civilians were deliberately starved. The case charges former Syrian officials with using starvation as a weapon of war, a first under German law and potentially precedent-setting for future conflicts. As these cases continue to unfold, the real test lies ahead: can such trials catalyze broader accountability, inspire local justice in Syria, and hold future crimes to account?

In the lead-up to the beginning of the trials in Nuremberg, a man was giving his thoughts on the IBM simultaneous translation “gizmos”. He commented that the creators seem to have forgotten the Biblical tale of the Tower of Babel. It was a funny anecdote, but for me, it represents an interesting theme of the connection between technological innovation and political revolution. 

On a fundamental level, scholars look to Gutenberg as a seminal moment that has democratized information and knowledge and has spurred revolutions, cultural, religious, and political. 

In Babel, human collaboration led to a human daring to reach God. The punishment was to diversify languages so they couldn’t understand each other and therefore couldn’t collaborate. 

We can see how this innovation then bridges the gap of linguistic difference, fostering a transnational collaboration critical to the success at Nuremberg. When we look at Vienna, Versailles, and Bretton Woods, it’s hard to imagine them happening on the scale they do without modernity. 

Indeed, this is not just my tech brain seeing things this way. As Albert Speer said at the conclusion, “as the more technical the world becomes, the more individual freedom and the self-rule of mankind becomes essential. The war has ended on the note of radio-controlled rockets, aircraft approaching the speed of sound, 

The airplane, the cargo ship, and mass media have all engineered a global village that further brings us together. The liberal world order owes its existence to its technological underpinnings. These were themes that I couldn’t help but see throughout Nuremberg, as that was indeed a technological turning point as much as it was a political one. 

Generally, studying Nuremberg through the film, paired with my ongoing research on universal jurisdiction, has matured my understanding of international relations and the symbolic performativeness and strength of rituals of power, procedure, and norm. 

Now, the film in the film itself was very sobering. When Robert said that, up until the film, he did not obtain an understanding, even after the statistics and affidavits he had read. I couldn’t agree more. And when Elsie said she didn’t understand, even then, how such horror could take place, I also agreed. 

The twisted morality of the Nazi prisoners, especially Herman Goring, is something we always see in “revolutionary” leaders. Indeed, even leftist revolutionaries like Robespierre exhibited these same paradoxes of actions and ideals.    

I couldn’t believe my ears when the Commandant of Auschwitz was speaking, describing his atrocities with striking nonchalance. He felt the need to clarify that he exterminated people in the most humane fashion possible and that no torture was involved. “Does a rat catcher think it is wrong to kil rats?”  It is also very interesting to analyze the role of the psychologist in aiding in the longevity of the prisoners and working with Robert as an inside man with the defendants. 

I’ve never really studied Nuremberg; it was always glossed over in Global History classes that would lump it in there somewhere as we studied WW2 and the Cold War in one go. So it was all very new information.

For me, reading about the use of OSINT to document atrocities, identify targets, and foster liberation is really exciting for a budding engineer like myself and is a welcome instance of technology being used for good. Ukraine can see Russian barracks and neutralize them through this interactive map. Russia is incontrovertibly refuted on multiple counts. But technology, surveillance, and intelligence have always been a part of warfare. Now, it’s the democratization of information, thanks to the internet and the rise of white intelligence, publicly available resources that allow for truth to arise. 

This is my first introduction to forensic architecture, and it’s truly shocking how much can be constructed from what seems like so few resources. The audio modeling, where they simulate echoes and relate it to the physics of sound interaction with matter (i.e, walls) to model the building, was very astounding.  

In the case of the Douma yellow canister, what is revealed is how white intelligence can be used to not just show what is now, but say something about what happened in the past and how it happened. Specifically, they were able to show that the canister fell from the sky and the debris supports that trajectory.    

Studying the methodology of open source research, especially through HRW’s Syria article, opened my eyes to the necessity of this constructive process and helped me understand what is really meant by “fog of war.” It’s not that information doesn’t exist. The gap that open source fills is to take data and corroborate them with one another to reconstruct an event and reveal something tangible and definite. 

In the context of Russia’s kidnapping of Ukrainians, the general question of motive in this entire war comes to the fore. We have a sense that Russia’s motive for starting the whole war is expansive and imperialist, and trying to reclaim some Soviet Era dream. We also know that they’re afraid of NATO expansion to Eastern Europe and their potentially being encircled. 

Zooming in particularly to the motive for kidnapping children, it’s hard to see how indoctrinating kids advances those objectives. Yes, indoctrination can be used to make a population more manageable and less resistant. But the logic is you take over a place, then indoctrinate the people so that you can preserve control. To abduct people into your land and then indoctrinate them makes no sense. 

Population boost is another touted reason. But that’s negligible. You can’t implement a population overhaul through kidnapping. So it makes sense that they’re trying to bring occupied territories to the Russian fold. But still, it seems like the route they’re going is too costly.

Tallinn, Estonia – In the past week, Estonia and Poland have raised alarms over alleged airspace violations by Russian fighter jets and reconnaissance aircraft, prompting Germany and Sweden to scramble jets. Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to defend Poland and the Baltic states if Russia attacks. The incidents mark a sharp escalation in a war that many hoped might be inching toward diplomatic solutions.

These aerial violations come amid renewed peace talks and mounting international pressure on Russia over its war in Ukraine. They signal a strenuous test of NATO’s resolve along its eastern flank. As the violations accrue, so too do diplomatic strains and the risk of miscalculation which could derail nascent peace initiatives even as civilians continue to bear the brunt of the ongoing war.

Incidents

On Friday, September 19th, Estonia accused Russian fighter jets of violating its airspace, crossing into NATO territory without filing flight plans or mainitng contact with air traffic control. Germany sent two Eurofighter jets alongside two Swedish Gripen fighters to track down and photograph a russian IL-20 reconnaissance aircraft over the Baltic Sea. 

Earlier this month, Poland reported that more than 20 Russian drones entered its airspace over the night of September 9. Also, two Russian fighter jets were accused of violating the safety zone over the Petrobaltic drilling platform in the Baltic Sea. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Poland would not hesitate to shoot down objects that clearly violate its territory, although he cautioned against hasty responses in less clear situations. 

Reactions

U.S. President Donald Trump commented publicly: when asked if the U.S. would defend Poland and the Baltics in case of a Russian attack, he replied simply, “Yeah, I would.” This affirmation underscores NATO’s mutual defense commitments even as the alliance grapples with how forcefully to respond. From the NATO/EU diplomatic side, the French issued a strong rebuke calling this a “blatant violation of international law”. 

A Changing War

While diplomatic firestorms rage over airspace breaches, the war inside Ukraine continues with destructive attacks. Overnight strikes targeted the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, reportedly using at least 10 aerial bombs. Schools, kindergartens, and factories were hit. Three civilians are reported dead, according to Ukrainian authorities. 

These air raids reflect the increasingly multidimensional nature of the conflict: while front-line battles remain important, longer-range attacks by Russian aircraft and drones are now tools aimed at disrupting civilian life, infrastructure, and morale. Meanwhile, Ukrainian forces continue counter-attacks, drone raids on Russian logistics hubs, and operations aimed at securing border regions. The intensity of these skirmishes and air assaults underlines that peace talks, while discussed, remain fragile.

Peace Talks

Despite the escalation, there are signals of diplomatic engagement. Russia has offered to extend the New START nuclear arms control treaty by one year after it expires in February 2026, though it conditions further reductions or adherence on U.S. reciprocity. Some Western leaders have cautiously welcomed the offer, seeing it as a possible opening for broader negotiations. 

But many analysts warn that unless airspace violations and attacks on civilians stop, trust will erode. European capitals are pushing for clearer rules of engagement, greater communication between militaries to avoid miscalculation, and enhanced surveillance and air defense over vulnerable borders. The UN Security Council has been convened to examine Estonia’s airspace complaint.

Regarding potential escalation between Russia and really all of NATO there’s a perception that its just more bark than bite. Philip Mwendwa a Princeton student offers: “I think there’s a lot of tension, but… he’s more calculated than that… it’s more to divert attention.” Still on potential spillover, Sakina Tanko, a 20 year old student living in Hamburg says “The mood is a bit heavier. Yes some worry it could get closer bit still [it’s] just more kinda background worry.” But things do hang in a precarious balance

The Stakes

For NATO and its eastern members, the key challenges it faces are credibility and deterrence. If Russia perceives that violations illicit with weak responses, it may continue pushing boundaries. On the other hand, overly aggressive responses risk escalating into open conflict. Poland’s government has made clear it will shoot down obvious violations, but cautions restraint and consultation with allies in more ambiguous situations.

For Ukraine, these developments are yet another indicator of the war’s growing unpredictability. Civilians are forced to endure air raids even far from the front line; infrastructure continues to be damaged; and the hope for peace is frequently undercut by military actions that inflame rather than calm tensions.

Outlook

As this pattern of aerial incursions and reprisals continues, the war in Ukraine increasingly spills into NATO territory, not just in rhetoric but in action. What begins as recon flights or drone overflights could lead to serious incidents if response mechanisms are misaligned or slow. Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts, while not halted, are walking on a tightrope.

Peace talks may offer a path forward, but the current week’s developments serve as a warning: unless violations are addressed and lines of communication strengthened, the risk of unintended escalation remains high. For now, the skies over Eastern Europe are as much a battlefield as the ground in Ukraine.

The Al-Monitor article on the Yazidis in Germany and the Islamic State atrocities presents the same paradoxes as every other atrocity done in the name of religion. No line in the piece was more poignant than Tulay’s daughter whose torture was “‘punishment’ for Tulay’s failure to ‘properly’ recite the Quran.” Among Muslims in other parts of the world from Sri Lanka to the Balkans you don’t hear torture of people who don’t recite the Quran. But there are extremist elements everywhere: Christian extremism like the Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa, Hindu extremism in India against Muslims, and perhaps Kahaneism in the Jewish ultra-right.  So perhaps it’s not about religion but just about people. Because in political ideologies in both the extreme left (The Terror post French revolution) and the extreme right (Mussolini) we could cast blame on liberalism and conservatism. So perhaps at the end of the day economic, political and cultural factors are more at play in the terrorism. 

The Kingsley reading is great because it offers perspectives crucial to this immigration discourse that gets lost in the airwaves.  For one he tells us that “there is a crisis, but it’s one caused largely by our response to the refugees, rather than by the refugees themselves.” In all this rise of right wing anti-immigration rhetoric and the ensuing political meltdown we’re seeing not just in Germany but in all of Europe and America as well, the fact that refugees are only 500th of the population isn’t discussed. Kingsley also reveals that immigration is not simply a Western problem. People from war torn, repressive, and/or impoverished countries like Iraq. Syria and Libya, 86% of refugees are in the developing world. Europe is only just waking up to a “crisis” that’s been going on. 

For me another interesting theme continues to come up again and again. The threat to “european” ideals that the crisis is creating. The threat to the European Union as we know it with free border movement is facing a litmus test. And the principle of sharing the burden of member states is being called into question. This has been clear since a week or two ago when we started talking about Germany and their suspension of asylum controls and reinstating of border controls. Now learning about Italy and Greece nudging boats towards other countries due to failed summits to get other states to help them with the influx reveals another contour to the threat the EU faces to its integrity and tradition.

An interesting detail the euronews article reported on is that the German government had to give 1,000 euros to the 81 Afghans it deported. The reason is that the courts could block the deportation if it was deemed that the people faced financial destitution upon their return. This is a laudable humanitarian measure, and it’s a surprise to me that they afforded it to criminals. Note, I’m not saying that they shouldn’t afford it; in fact, I agree, but given the political climate, one would think that the country would’ve just deported them with nothing.

A key element this story reveals, and something we overlook, is the increasing importance of the judiciary in immigration discourse. There is an interesting cause-and-effect chain to observe. In Germany and much of the West, the public is turning against benevolent and humanitarian immigration policies, giving more votes to the anti-immigration right, and there’s an increasing strain on certain countries due to the immigrant influx. This drives executives to overreach to implement stricter policies that may very well return people to places where they face human rights violations.

The courts, then, being immune to politics and pressure (ideally), can preserve certain principles. This has been the case in Germany and even in America, despite the glaring partisanship and green-lighting of the Supreme Court. The parallels to the American case are worth studying.

On multiple accounts of presidential action, the courts have stifled the agenda, allowing the Supreme Court to use its shadow docket to simply allow the president to do as he wills. From stopping the end of temporary protected status and the alien enemies act fiasco.

Social media’s role and citizen journalism were also a critical theme in the readings. And in contemporary times, we’ve seen the internet allow for grassroots everything. In Gaza, regular people were using social media to report and document everything that was happening, aiding this overseas journalism or journalism in exile that Wafa was referring to. In Ukraine, we saw this in the war crimes investigations report by Yale that was referenced in last week’s class. Grassroots activism, information sharing, and community alerts are trends that we see from Algeria (Arab Spring) to Kenya(crowdsourced crisis mapping).

The role of Pakistan and Iran in Germany’s asylum program reveals a similar trend everywhere in how neighboring countries bear the brunt of a refugee crisis, even as countries farther away make promises of aid. Germany has had 10s and 100s of thousands of people in Pakistan. Why did Pakistan agree to take on this burden? Why must it now deal with a population that it definitely has less capacity than Germany to integrate in the face of these cancellations?

In Sudan, we saw this too. The international community funds neighbors like Chad, Egypt, and Ethiopia to bear the brunt of supporting and integrating refugees. These countries suffer strain with insufficient resources on top of their already struggling populations.