Critical events of early 2015—cheap oil and Middle East violence—will probably continue to take their toll as the year goes on, according to a new projection of geopolitical hot spots. Lower overall prices for commodities may hurt the economies of resource-rich nations. Read Here – Bloomberg
America should think twice about arming Ukraine as Russia could easily help China achieve its dreams in the South China Sea. Read Here – National Interest
The rise of China, changing power dynamics, territorial disputes in the East and South China Sea, and the U.S. rebalance to Asia have all led to the re-emergence of the Indian Ocean as the center stage for power politics in the Indo-Pacific. Read Here – The Diplomat
Turkish troops swept into Syria this weekend to recover remains from the first Ottoman sultan’s ancestor, who can’t rest in peace 800 years after his death. Read Here – The Atlantic
Evolution endowed us with a natural tendency to be kind to our genetic relations but to be xenophobic, suspicious, and aggressive toward people in other tribes. As our brains become better equipped to reason abstractly in such tasks as lumping dogs and rabbits together into the category “mammal,” so too have we improved in our […]
India’s biggest money managers have one piece of advice for Prime Minister Narendra Modi: Investors will forgive a higher budget deficit if the cash is spent on roads and bridges instead of food and fuel subsidies. Read Here – Bloomberg
Post-conflict Sri Lanka’s engagement with China was pure pragmatism. It had little to do with turning away from India or the West. Had Sri Lanka not taken the risk to turn to China and other countries in the East such as Japan and Korea for the sake of good relations with India or the West, […]
For most of the West, Vladimir Putin is a bogeyman. His love affair with the thuggish separatists in eastern Ukraine has blotched his image across the democratic world. In November, he had to slink away prematurely from the G20 Summit in Australia after he was snubbed by just about every leader who counted. Yet the reception […]
To some Western analysts, Salman’s moves also appeared to stress a pendulum swing to the so-called Sudairi block of the Al Saud, the seven brothers born to Abdulaziz by his favorite wife, from a group of princes long led by the late Abdullah. Read Here – Reuters
looking beyond borders 