The more the United States turns out to be a fickle, unreliable ally of its longstanding friends in the Middle East—especially Saudi Arabia and Israel—the more the leaders of South Korea and Japan will worry whether they can rely on the United States’ defense umbrella. Read Here – The Diplomat
A confident-looking Abdel Fattah el-Sisi strides across the tarmac at Almaza Air Base, dressed in a blue blazer and his trademark sunglasses. He is not yet Egypt’s head of state, but certainly looks like one Read Here – Politico
China has revolution envy. The world’s largest energy consumer wants a natural gas boom to match the speedy transformation in the U.S., where shale gas production more than quadrupled between 2007 and 2012. Read Here – Bloomberg
Plenty of pundits have jockeyed to be the top voice on the Middle East, but only one person’s ideas dominate the conversation Read Here – Tablet Magazine
the shale oil bonanza in the United States is actually a good thing for Riyadh. Over the last few decades, oil markets have experienced sharp price fluctuations, particularly with growing demand for oil in the emerging Asian economies. Read Here – Foreign Affairs
When considering the next steps with Iran, we should think less about Nazi Germany or North Korea and more about the China of Chairman Mao. Read Here – The Atlantic
Silvio Berlusconi is out and Angela Merkel was reelected. Nelson Mandela and Hugo Chavez passed away. Fidel Castro didn’t. People took to the streets in Kiev and Bangkok, Cairo and Khartoum. The president of Syria ignored Barack Obama’s red line and used chemical weapons, while Iran was willing to engage in negotiations with the United […]
Thanks to the Obama administration’s woeful disregard for the concerns of its erstwhile allies, the entire future of the Western alliance’s relationship with the Gulf region is now under threat. Read Here – The Telegraph, London
The U.S. military faces a 21st century identity crisis. But despite blanket spending cuts, it has options. Read Here – The Diplomat
Because Israel is the strongest and the PNA the weakest and defenceless, Tel Aviv now negotiates, even as it expands its colonies, to make the ‘two-state solution’ totally unfeasible Read Here – Gulf News
looking beyond borders 