According to the great military thinker, Maj. Gen. J.F.C. Fuller, ‘the object of war is not victory. It is to achieve political goals.’ Too bad President Donald Trump does not read books. He has started economic wars against China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela without any clear strategic objective beyond inflating his ego as the…
There is nothing new about empires taking hostages and using them to put pressure on whatever rebel group needs to reminded “who is boss”. The recent arrest in Italy of Alexander Korshunov, the director for business development at Russia’s United Engine Corporation (UEC), is really nothing new but just the latest in a long string…
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was the enemy of the West, and President Ronald Reagan had the moral courage to identify it as the “evil empire,” which arguably sped up the fall of Soviet-led communism by a decade or more. However, communist China did not fall. Slowly and anonymously in the shadow of Russia and…
My father, a New York financier, used to call dubious stocks or bonds, “Chinese paper.” Last week, we saw a blizzard of Chinese paper, both in China and around the world. As manager of a sizeable investment portfolio (an unwelcome second job from my main work, journalism), I watched last week’s near death experience on…
New Kazakhstani President Tokayev is facing his first real test as the country’s leader after low-intensity anti-Chinese protests broke out in three main cities in response to concerns that the Central Asian state is becoming much too dependent on its eastern neighbor, with this sudden outbreak of small-scale unrest inconveniently (but not un-coincidentally) occurring just…
The tentative peace deal that the US is negotiating with the Taliban would redefine the regional balance of power if it’s officially promulgated, thus continuing the ongoing trend of Great Power realignment in Eurasia. It’s been widely reported that the tentative peace deal that the US is negotiating with the Taliban will see the removal…
