Putin is one of the most fascinating and one of the most pilloried of world leaders. The late Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham, have described him as a monster, […]
Saudi Arabia and Iran, a flashpoint in the making
The ongoing clash between Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies and Iran and its Shia allies has finally and unsurprisingly developed into a full-scale diplomatic split, a potential flashpoint. This is hardly unexpected […]
Ideological Wars and How to Lose Friends
Wars have generally been waged by countries against countries, or levied against a country’s leader, but much like Huntington’s thesis in his book, Clash of Civilisations, the current wars in the Middle […]
The US Department of War
The US Department of War, a.k.a. The War Office or The War Department, existed officially from 1789 until 1947 and was headed by a Secretary of War. It was then renamed the […]
Hello again, Libya!
As I wrote in my blog post of 1 August 2012, “Ongoing Arab Spring”, Libya is a ‘work in progress’. The role of the 120 independents has not been clearly defined and […]
China: Pivot to Syria
China is justifiably concerned about the US, its China bashing by the US congress and threats by a prospective US President, Romney to brand China a “currency manipulator“. More worrying and threatening […]
Muddle East Policy
Commentary about the recent conference in Tehran by the West interpreted the disagreement amongst the participants, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and Turkey as Iran being out of step with all others and […]
Looking beyond 2014, through a glass darkly
Perhaps the title of this blog post should be the “future” wars, ones in addition to the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the US presence officially winds down in Iraq […]
Syria a.k.a. Iraq
There was an excellent article outlining two possible scenarios for Syria on AP mobile news last week, neither of them good. To quote: “One scenario: a bloodbath as Syria’s majority Sunni population, […]
Israel-Iran Update
I refer to my blog of May 29, Election Game Changers, in which I wrote about the possibility of an Israeli (or US sanctioned) strike on Iran. Since then both Romney and […]
Global Policy Index 