Libya is in chaos, and Colonel Gaddafi seems determined to hang on to power at any expense. But he has already lost control of large swathes of the country, the security forces and bureaucracy, and it is not premature to start planning for a post-Gaddafi Libya.

The crises in Côte d’Ivoire and Tunisia have exposed the strategic challenge for France now that its former sphere of influence appears to be collapsing. But a post-colonial Europe still has the ability to affect African affairs.

There are two important lessons to be learned from last month's EU-Africa summit. First, Europe needs to reassert its diplomatic clout after a post-Lisbon period of uncertainty. Second, it needs to think more cleverly about how to promote its values in a world where our economic and political models are no longer unquestioningly accepted.

A shift in the power balance between the EU and India has changed the two powers' attitudes to each other, but there will still be plenty to talk about at their summit this week. Concluding a free trade agreement, and greater strategic cooperation on a range of security issues, is in the interests of both.

We should not demand more from political collaboration within the EU than we demand as citizens from our own countries. We are already demanding of ourselves and our politicians that we work together to ensure our freedom, safety, security, prosperity and welfare. If we want an EU that works, the demands must be the same – no more, no less.

Germany has fallen out of love with Europe, and its customary role as the uncomplaining engine of the EU. But as other EU members question whether Germany is now 'going it alone', Berlin must answer questions about what Germany wants from Europe in the 21st century, and what price it is willing to pay for it.

The Lisbon summit has drawn a line under a fractious period for NATO. But as it reaches out to Russia and withdraws from Afghanistan, the alliance is still struggling to find a new purpose.

The EU’s annual summit with Ukraine takes place with Brussels desperately searching for success stories in the Eastern Neighbourhood. The countries there are increasingly acting as balancers rather than joiners, treading a fine line between the EU and Moscow

NATO leaders are meeting in Lisbon to approve a new strategic blueprint aimed at enhancing the security of Europe. But what about managing security within Europe? Who is responsible for that, and how should it be organised?

The EU's national rivalries comprise a standing invitation for any major world power to divide and rule. In an article for The Guardian, Timothy Garton Ash argues that even if things go well, what Europeans may achieve in concentrating power resources will only just compensate for the relative loss of power to the re-emerging old-new giants in the east.

At first glance the recent Franco-British treaty on defence looks like a model of pragmatism, tinged by a British desire to keep greater pan-EU defence cooperation at bay. But like so many European agreements over the last decades, this aspiration to preserve sovereignty may not prevent the treaty contributing to exactly that higher level of cooperation.

Following President Obama?s mauling in this week?s midterm elections, European diplomats will doubtless be working on memos to their ministers with titles like ?The Transatlantic Alliance and the Tea Party?. Richard Gowan suggests what they should say.

The mid-term elections in the United States are not just a set-back for President Obama at home: they will also limit his capacity to lead in the international arena at a time of rising powers and greater competition.

A historian of the future writing about the decline of the West should include a few lines on the events of October 2010. The EU gave up some privileges at the IMF, but it's not clear that the rising powers will now play by the West's rules.

The announcement of a Franco-British defence partnership will be a watershed in European security thinking. Once that Rubicon has been crossed it will raise questions for their EU partners, and perhaps this will have a profound bearing on whether Europe can keep a seat in the global game.