Vladimir Putin got straight to the point. At the opening of his one hour and fourteen minute video conversation with Xi Jinping on 15 December, he described Russia-China relations as “an example of genuine inter-state cooperation in the 21st century.” Their myriad levels of cooperation have been known for years now – from trade, oil…
In the annals of diplomacy, the White House official confirmation of a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing might qualify at best as a disc thrower being hit by a boomerang. Realpolitik minds struggle to find a point in this gratuitous provocation, intervening less than two months before the start of the…
The growing contradictions between China and the West, which received an ideological coloring after the speech of Mike Pompeo in 2020, who called the confrontation between Beijing and Washington a struggle between the Free World and the Marxist-Leninist Regime, is increasingly acquiring the character of a complex conflict between the parties. Washington and its Western…
The Gulf Arab states are now desperate to get the Iran deal back, fearing that Iran’s overtures are left unchecked and will only get worse. Just how “special” is the so-called special relationship between oil-rich Gulf Arab states and Washington? One could argue, since Joe Biden became President, that relations have hit an all time…
Economic sanctions have demonstrably failed to change North Korean behavior. So, when is the world going to try something new? North Korea is one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world. It has been subject to U.S. and international sanctions for more than 70 years. Those sanctions have come in three overlapping waves,…
The US and Ethiopia have been allies for years but the former risks turning the latter into an enemy with its latest provocations
