We are cruising on a pristine, 380 km-long four-lane superhighway from Almaty to Khorgos – finished in 2016 for $1.25 billion, 85% of the cost covered by a World Bank loan. And then, suddenly, riding parallel to us, there’s the real superstar of New Silk Road connectivity. Meet Yuxinou, the container cargo train plying back…
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is both brain dead and divided as it holds latest annual meeting in London, with nothing but uncertainty surrounding its future and many questioning whether it can even remain functional in its present form. *** This year’s annual NATO meeting is being held in London from 3-4 December, during which…
The crisis in Europe will come from Germany. Germany has entered a period of political crisis that, as yet, has not exploded. But the pyre is built, the torches lit and all that remains is dragging Chancellor Angela Merkel up and setting the whole thing on fire. For those that want to understand the fundamental…
“Trump might well come to view staying the course in Afghanistan as the least bad option from a political standpoint—at least when compared to a peace deal with the Taliban. It would be a tragedy, of course, but one that Americans are well used to living through by now.” *** Ten years ago, Barack Obama…
Israel’s inability to assemble a government is not easy to understand. America has been in deadlock since the 1970s, but that’s hardly surprising since (a) it’s not a democracy but a dysfunctional eighteenth-century republic lingering on well past its sell-by date; and (b) power is fragmented among a handful of political institutions that must align…
Seventy is normally considered a ripe old age at which people should be enjoying retirement. The NATO alliance, which meets to celebrate its anniversary in London, should have been pensioned off long ago. The French president, who told the Economist in early November that NATO was “brain dead”, seems determined to jolt the alliance and its…
