China is engaging in a nearly trillion dollar play for the future of Afro-Eurasia—called the Belt and Road Initiative—and has so far caught the United States flat-footed. Unless the United States works with key allies and partners to craft a forward-leaning response, it risks replicating the strategic failure that occurred in the South China Sea. The result […]
It has been more than six years since the start of the Arab Spring, and life for most Arabs is worse than it was in 2011. Unemployment is rife in the Middle East and North Africa, where two thirds of the population is between the ages of 15 and 29. And throughout the region, regimes […]
You can get to Dawn’s Special Report on the Changing of the Guard in Pakistan — about a decade of rule by President General (later self-elevated to field marshal) Muhammad Ayub Khan through our South Asia section.
China’s elite have long had to keep their diaries clear for much of September, October and November, waiting for a date to be announced for a five-yearly congress of the ruling Communist Party. At last, it has been revealed. The red carpets will be rolled out and the skies turned blue (by shutting down factories […]
A grandson of Mao Zedong is among the “princelings” from China’s People’s Liberation Army who have not been invited to the upcoming 19th party congress. Major General Mao Xinyu is one of five senior military figures descended from or with close family ties to revolutionary generals or former state leaders who will miss out on […]
As a key U.S. ally in the Middle East, Egypt has played an integral role in helping to combat the region’s terrorist threat, particularly since Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi came to power in June 2014. However, Egypt is facing a daunting terrorist challenge of its own, primarily in the lawless Sinai Peninsula where ISIS’ […]
Should the U.S. fear growing Russian progress in artificial intelligence? Last week, Vladimir Putin told students, “Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.” That caught the interest of noted AI phobe / profiteer Elon Musk who tweeted, simply and ominously: “It begins…” Read Here – Defense One
North Korea looks pretty scary at the moment, firing off missile after missile, threatening to target Guam, and, on Sept. 3, testing what the regime claims was its first hydrogen bomb. And the country’s dictator, Kim Jong Un—so ruthless he may have had members of his own family murdered—might be just crazy enough to push the button to initiate a catastrophic […]
Trump did not create the American empire. He knows nothing of its creation, does not read history and would be happy to see it collapse under its own weight, as the British, French and Dutch empires have collapsed in his lifetime. Brexit appealed to him as a deliberate casting-off of the kind of responsibilities and […]
The real lesson, therefore, that India should learn from the Doklam standoff is that it shouldn’t draw wrong conclusions. The BRICS Summit in Xiamen is not to be mistaken as a “kiss-and-make-up” moment. Deep down, India has a choice to make and China is watching closely. Should the Modi government go further down the road […]
looking beyond borders 