Starting from the presidency of George W. Bush to that of Trump, the U.S. has made some missteps that not only reduce its influence in strategic regions of the world but also its ability to project power and thus impose its will on those unwilling to genuflect appropriately. Some examples from the recent past will…
In the aftermath of the killing of Iranian IRGC General Qassem Soleimani a lot of questions hung in the air. The big one was, in my mind, “Why now?” There are a lot of angles to answer that question. Many of them were supplied by caretaker Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi who tried to let…
When the US began its military adventure in Iraq in 2003, many Western scholars noted that Washington’s unilateral aggression was leading to a rethinking of international processes, as well as the legitimisation and institutionalisation of multipolar thinking. There were various analyses of these events, from concepts of using force to ideology. Criticising America’s actions in…
With a stroke of a pen, Donald Trump created an entirely new branch of the armed forces last year. It’s the first new branch of the U.S. military since 1947. The Space Force is not exactly a new idea. It’s a revival of a Reagan-era initiative that had been set up to oversee missile defense,…
Russia’s repeated rejection of the US’ ‘Indo-Pacific’ concept that Foreign Minister Lavrov claims is a ruse for “containing China” highlights just how urgently it is that a more inclusive and non-hostile trans-regional integration alternative emerges, which can be embodied by the Afro-Eurasia proposal that brings together the Belt & Road Initiative, CPEC+, and the Greater…
John F. Sopko, the Special Inspector for Afghanistan Reconstruction, testified before Congress this week that America’s Afghan War was plagued by “mendacity and lies.” But all honesty in the world couldn’t have won it for the US. Lessons learned? The recent publication by the Washington Post of more than 2,000 pages of “Lessons Learned” interviews,…
