Is Obama irredeemably weak? The answer, I’m afraid, is yes, he is. He has been weakened by recent history: the disasters of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan. But sometimes, as in this instance, history teaches us nothing but fear. Read Here – WorldAffiarsJournal
Humans, and perhaps their pre-human ancestors, have engaged in murder and mayhem, as individuals and in groups, for hundreds of thousands of years. And, at least since the advent of recorded history, violence and politics have been intimately related. Nation-states use violence against internal and external foes. Dissidents engage in violence against states. Competing political […]
It was not the lethality of the AK that India feared, for it had a million-strong army to counter it. It was the psychological change that the assault rifle unleashed everywhere it went. AK stands for Avtomat Kalashnikova, and 47 denotes 1947, the year of its adoption by the Soviet military. The assault rifle made […]
The CIA could begin shipping arms to Syria in the coming weeks, after two US congressional panels cleared the way for the controversial transfer of weapons. The White House announced in June that it would provide limited military support for vetted rebel groups, which have recently been struggling in their campaign against President Bashar al-Assad. Read Here – The Guardian
To stop Syria’s meltdown and contain its mushrooming threats, the United States should launch a partial military intervention aimed at pushing all sides to the negotiating table, argues Andrew. J. Tabler in Foreign Affairs Creating a no-fly zone sounds good on paper, military officials say, and might help to give a morale boost to the […]
New Delhi will be confronted by a host of rapidly changing scenarios in Afghanistan as the country heads for transition in the security and political sectors in 2014. The interplay between different actors jockeying for power could either allow India to retain its present level of engagement, provide opportunities to expand its influence or bring […]
Every nation bordering Syria—Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Turkey—is being drawn into the conflict there. The leaders in these countries are worried, to say the least. But why is Saudi Arabia in a panic? None of the Syrian warfare is spilling over into Saudi Arabia. Iraq and Jordan serve as buffers. Still, hundreds if not thousands of […]
Amid Syria‘s worsening crisis, there is another unprecedented, yet overlooked phenomenon that bodes ill for the entire region: the rise of global Shia jihadism. The number of foreign Shia jihadists in Syria is arguably greater than Sunni ones. So what will this new trend mean, asks Hassan Hassan, Read Here – The National
The proposal by the U.S. and Russia to hold a diplomatic conference to end the carnage in Syria deserves a less skeptical reaction than it has received. While it will be difficult to get all of the relevant parties to the table in Geneva any time soon, much less to ensure an outcome that will stick, diplomacy is the only game left. As much as one might wish otherwise, every other […]
The Syrian opposition is in disarray; approving a major American military intervention is politically impossible in post-Iraq Washington; and a rift between Saudi Arabia and Qatar has slowed their delivery of weaponry to the rebels. Diplomatically, Washington’s key interlocutor is Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, one of Assad‘s primary international defenders. One key factor favors […]
looking beyond borders 