The U.S. economy is stuck in the doldrums, but the intelligence business in America is booming. The 17 organizations that today comprise the U.S. intelligence community are all, to one degree or another, building new multimillion-dollar headquarters buildings and operational facilities all over the greater Washington metropolitan area despite recent budget cuts. Read Here – […]
When most people think of Indonesia today, they think of beaches and temples or of its famously teeming cities, but this country of 240 million and counting is a much more modern, diversified, and dynamic economy than many international investors and companies assume. To make the most of Indonesia’s vast potential, they’re going to need […]
In his new book, The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate, Robert Kaplan (Stratfor Global Intelligence) contends that current global conflicts, including wars, political instability, and clashes over religion, can be better understood and even forecasted through close examination of the maps that chart our world. Read […]
During the Cold War, two blocs of nations stood ranged against one another in an easily comprehended conflict between two economic and political systems. In our age, the fault-lines are not so easily detected. Warfare is frequently asymmetric. The proximate causes of battle are often hyper-local, tribal and sectarian. The threads that link one to […]
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has been in Beijing this week for a round of meetings with senior Chinese officials, including presumptive paramount leader Xi Jinping. One topic that will most likely not be on the Panetta-Xi agenda is nuclear weapons. Which is weird. Oh sure, every now and again the topic makes it onto the […]
Many educated and highly placed Russians tend to see sinister enemy plots behind the international financial crisis, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the growing protest movement. Wherever we turn, from informal conversations to official pronouncements and state-controlled television programs, Russians are told that the Pussy Riot performance and the international reaction to the verdict against the group were part of a coordinated campaign designed to undermine Russian values […]
For a long time, the major powers had hoped that imposing strenuous sanctions on Iran could produce an interlocutor willing to negotiate honestly and to adhere to an exacting arms control agreement. But time may no longer permit the patient exercise of coercive diplomacy. Read Here – New York Times
SO WHAT HAS GONE WRONG in Europe in recent years? I shall divide my analysis into three broad subjects: the challenge of European unity; the requirements of democracy; and the demands of sound economic policy. These are all related to each other, analytically as well as empirically. Read Here – The New Republic
With Arctic ice melting at record pace, the world’s superpowers are increasingly jockeying for political influence and economic position in outposts like this one, previously regarded as barren wastelands. At stake are the Arctic’s abundant supplies of oil, gas and minerals that are, thanks to climate change, becoming newly accessible along with increasingly navigable polar shipping shortcuts. […]
When the Muslim Brotherhood took power in Egypt, there was fear that draconian social measures would be pursued, thereby killing the country’s important tourism industry. Instead, the party has attempted to portray a moderate face, and more aggressively, tout itself as an administration willing to cut lucrative deals. While the politics of the Brotherhood remain […]
looking beyond borders 