Faced with a U.S. president who is uncommonly critical of conventional expertise and many components of the U.S.-led international order, who communicates in tweets and consumes information via one-pagers and maps, Brookings has reacted in Blob-ian fashion: with a 63-page defense of traditional U.S. foreign policy that contains exactly 37 footnotes and exactly zero maps. […]
China exports more to the US than the US exports to China, and that makes Donald Trump furious. But with the Communist Party’s 19th Congress set to take place in Beijing this year, Chinese leaders are unlikely to yield to US pressure. Read Here – Project Syndicate
A new and powerful figure has joined the list of candidates among Iranian conservatives for the May presidential election: Ebrahim Raisi, a senior cleric who has gradually risen through the ranks to assume powerful positions. Born in the holy city of Mashhad in northeast Iran — home to the shrine of the eighth Shiite imam […]
For the last two months, mystery and confusion has shrouded Gen. Raheel Sharif, Pakistan’s retired army chief, over whether he will be the supreme commander of the Saudi-led “Islamic military alliance” created by Riyadh in 2015. News of Sharif’s appointment has been widely criticized in Pakistan, and the drama underscores the friction in the Saudi-Pakistani relationship. Read Here […]
As election season approaches with the May presidential vote around the corner, there will be more discussions of this sort among Iranian political factions. Through Khatami’s call for unity in the face of Trump’s threats as well as Rouhani’s defiant speech on Feb. 10, the moderates and the Reformists are in essence pushing to the […]
On its face, the bump in year-to-year defense investment appears a welcoming sign for Indian military modernization, but once the budget estimate curtain is pulled back, the actual picture indicates something more complex. Read Here – The National Interest India’s Defense Industry: Reach Still Outpaces Grasp
China’s transition is opening space for other countries to move into low-cost manufacturing, where China until recently dominated. Deloitte predicts that the economies of Malaysia, India, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam, the “Mighty Five” or MITI-V, will inherit China’s crown for such products. The consensus among industry and regional experts interviewed for this article is that […]
A radical anti-Sufi movement is growing throughout the Islamic world. Until the 20th century, ultra-orthodox strains of Islam tended to be regarded as heretical by most Muslims. But since the 1970s, Saudi oil wealth has been used to spread such intolerant beliefs across the globe. As a result, many contemporary Muslims have been taught a […]
Across Asia, the world has supposedly been witnessing the return of the strongman. Chinese President Xi Jinping has been grasping more and more control in his own hands since claiming power in 2012. Two years later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India and President Joko Widodo (known as “Jokowi”) in Indonesia won office by selling themselves […]
But Iran isn’t the only reason why we might be at the beginning stages of an Arab arms race. The Saudis don’t want to be “one-upped” by the Emiratis, so they too have embarked on a very ambitious nuclear plan (especially with oil prices at around $50 a barrel), involving 16 nuclear reactors to be […]
