What does President Trump’s recent nomination of retired Army General John Abizaid to become the next U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia signify? Next to nothing — and arguably quite a lot. Abizaid’s proposed appointment is both a non-event and an opportunity not to be wasted. It means next to nothing in this sense: while once…
Trouble has been brewing in the Sea of Azov all year. It started with Ukraine’s seizing a Russian fishing boat and detaining its crew in March. The Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko canceled the Friendship Treaty with Russia. After that he has accepted surplus US naval vessels to prop up a navy that exists in name…
I have followed China’s development, its stunning advance in forty years from impoverished Third World to a huge economy, its rapid scientific progress. Coming from nowhere it now runs neck and neck with the US in supercomputes, does world-class work in genetic engineering and genomics (the Beijing Genomics Institute), quantum computing and quantum radar, in…
On a very relative scale, Australia can be grouped into the ‘second or third’ level players in terms of significance in the political game unfolding in the Indo-Pacific region. This group could also include Pakistan, Iran, and South Korea. And the main players are undoubtedly the United States and China. The significance ascribed to Australia…
President Donald Trump’s recent statement on the Jamal Khashoggi killing by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince might well be considered a metaphor for his foreign policy. Several commentators have suggested that the text appears to be something that Trump wrote himself without any adult supervision, similar to the poorly expressed random arguments presented in his tweeting…
The Mainstream Media is ginning up an infowar campaign against Tanzania’s President because of his vociferously pro-family socio-conservative policies and his recent decision to double down on his country’s decades-long strategic partnership with China, fearmongering about his allegedly “authoritarian” tendencies despite him publicly declining to amend his country’s constitution to remain in power beyond the…
