The transnational region of Balochistan risks becoming another Kurdistan-like fault line as long as Iran continues to be tricked into worsening relations with Pakistan, with the worst-case scenario being that the Golden Ring’s weakest link undermines the entire geopolitical project that it has such a serious stake in securing. “Blood Borders” Iran’s uncharacteristically bellicose rhetoric…
China’s credits to various countries along its much-discussed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the most ambitious infrastructure undertaking in history, have recently been criticized for drawing poor countries into a debt trap by extending huge credits. Myanmar is often cited, as well as Sri Lanka. Malaysia and Pakistan are renegotiating multi-billion-dollar projects of previous regimes….
The creative “Democratic Security” (counter-Hybrid Warfare) model that Russia is successfully applying in the Central African Republic prompted the head of AFRICOM to warn about its possible export to other African countries, which terrifies the US to no end because it stands a very realistic chance of losing the continent to Russia instead of China…
Embedded in the now dominant US narrative of “Chinese aggression”, Sinophobes claim that China is not only a threat to the American way of life, but also an existential threat to the American republic. It’s worth noting, of course, that the American way of life has long ceased to be a model to be emulated all across…
The Myanmarese military’s accusation that the Buddhist-believing “Arakan Army” insurgents are working hand-in-hand with their Muslim “Rohingya” counterparts is either a sign that these two seemingly opposed anti-government forces have struck an “unholy alliance” with one another or a clever attempt by the Tatmadaw to “divide and rule” its enemies. Background Briefing Myanmar’s conflict-prone coastal…
The top story of 2019 – and the years ahead – will continue to revolve around the myriad, dangerous permutations of the economic ascent of China, the resurgence of nuclear superpower Russia and the decline of the US’s global hegemony. Two years ago, before the onset of the Trump administration, I sketched how the shadow…
