Al-Qaeda is creating its most powerful stronghold ever in north-west Syria at a time when world attention is almost entirely focused on the impending defeat of ISIS in the east of the country. It has established full control of Idlib province and of a vital Syrian-Turkish border crossing since July. “Idlib Province is the largest…
For weeks, the party leadership in Beijing had trumpeted the Brics summit as a chance to herald China’s vision for the group of emerging nations. The meeting of the leaders of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in Fujian province was a big deal for Beijing. So when North Korea conducted a nuclear test,…
Faust was a 16th Century practitioner of arcane magical arts who reportedly sold his soul to the Devil to gain youth, knowledge, and (implicitly) immortality. I learned all that by Googling his name. Google’s mantra used to be “Don’t Be Evil,” but lately it has morphed into something more like “Don’t Make Waves.” Google doesn’t…
In the days since President Trump came down hard on Pakistan in his speech outlining America’s new Afghanistan strategy, the reaction in Islamabad—and elsewhere across the country—has been predictably angry and defiant. Pakistan’s National Security Committee, a group of top government and military officials, rejected Trump’s allegations—ones also made by many American leaders before him—that…
Why the standoff between India and China, near the Sikkim border, began at all, and how it ended, after 71 long and anxious days, on August 28, will likely never be fully known. The Indian foreign ministry maintains cryptically that “following diplomatic communications, expeditious disengagement of border personnel of India and China at the face-off site at Doklam,”…
China’s People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) carried out large-scale defensive military exercises on Tuesday morning, mere miles from their border with North Korea. The Chinese military reported that the exercise, which seems to have come out of the blue, was itself a series of “rapid response” drills in case of “surprise attacks.” The exercises…
