Next month, March 2013, will mark the second anniversary of the Syrian uprising. This bloody conflict, as I have repeatedly written, has been characterized by the bombing of bread lines, town-wide massacres and burgeoning sectarian attacks. The enormity of the death toll, 70,000 and counting, should elicit shock to even the casual follower of international […]
North Korea’s nuclear test this week, coming on the heels of last December’s launch of a long-range ballistic missile along with reports (here and here) that Pyongyang is developing a mobile missile launcher, underscores a point I’ve argued in earlier posts (here and here): It is exceedingly difficult for Washington to stop a rogue regime […]
Royal Dutch Shell has announced that it will be dry towing its two drill ships anchored in Alaska to ports in Asia for repairs. This means that it likely won’t be drilling in the Alaskan Arctic this summer unless the fixes are somehow completed in time. Two ships are needed whenever drilling is taking place: […]
“Right now all of the European Union is in distress.” This opening statement sets the tone in the Great Decisions’ documentary, “Imperfect Union: The Eurozone in Crisis,” produced by Foreign Policy Association. The documentary revolves around the following questions: What would a failed euro mean for the EU? Or for its largest partner the U.S.? […]
My last post noted how skirmishes in the disputed Kashmir region last month have put a spanner in the promising rapprochement between India and Pakistan. This is a familiar theme in bilateral affairs. The exemplar of how military tussles in Kashmir can escalate into a wider confrontation and subvert important diplomatic initiatives is the 1999 […]
“In particular, I strongly believe that Europe should join the United States in increasing and deepening our defense engagement with the Asia-Pacific region.” These words are from outgoing U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in his final overseas address to an audience at King’s College, London, delivered on January 18. This raises the question: […]
Editor’s Note: The following is a guest contributing piece by Jamshid Barzegar. Mr. Barzegar is a Senior Iran Analyst with the BBC Persian Service. Mr. Barzegar will be one of the participating guests in the upcoming FPA series on the Iranian elections:A Candid Discussion on Iran’s Presidential Elections ____________________________________________________________________ by Jamshid Barzegar The recent […]
Australia and the Arctic aren’t often mentioned in the same sentence. One tends to hear more about Australia and Antarctica, since the country has an Antarctic Division and carries out scientific research at the icy continent not so far away from Tasmania. But I think that a comparison of Australia and the Arctic, particularly the […]
Last week, Syria was hit by an airstrike, just a few miles from Damascus. Israel has all but taken responsibility (credit?) for the strike. This level of aggression between the two neighboring nations is rare. The two have continued their battles in rhetoric and by proxy since the birth of the Jewish state, but Israel […]
Reacting to a United Nations Security Council’s Jan. 28, 2013 press release that cilled on the Haitian government to hold free, fair, inclusive and credible senatorial and municipal elections that are 14-months overdue, Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe reiterated his administration’s determination to organize elections this year, an exercise the note stressed “Is important to maintain […]
Here on the tranquil island of Palawan, in the West Philippine Sea, the arrival of Chinese naval vessels is causing quite some anxiety among local residents. Last Friday, three ships from the Peoples Liberation Army Navy’s North China Sea fleet, the missile destroyer Qingdao and missile frigates Yantai and Yancheng, traveled through the Bashi Channel, […]
Greenpeace Canada has obtained a draft of the Arctic Council’s Agreement on Cooperation on Marine Oil Pollution that officials have claimed is genuine. In a press release on Greenpeace’s website, Christy Ferguson, Arctic project leader for Greenpeace Canada, called the 21-page agreement “effectively useless.” She stated, “Despite promises that this would be the first legally-binding agreement of its […]
Despite the promising rapprochement (here and here) that gathered pace between India and Pakistan last year, disruptive military tensions are never far from the surface. This point was amply demonstrated by last month’s skirmishes along the 450 mile-long boundary – known as the Line of Control (LOC) – separating the two armies in the disputed […]
“The United States is struggling to confront an uptick in threats from the world’s newest jihadist hot spot with limited intelligence and few partners to help as the Obama administration weighs how to keep Islamic extremists in North Africa from jeopardizing national security without launching war. We want to put up a map here and […]
My mother was born in Havana on December 11, 1953, into a solidly middle-class Cuban family. After years of self-driven study and hard work, my grandfather Celestino had been able to launch a successful car import business that allowed him and my grandmother to raise and support a family. They lived on the second story […]