Showing 21 - 30 of 76
Sri Lanka: A bad 'Band of Brothers'
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 16/07/2022
» 'How did you go bankrupt?" Bill asked (in Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises). "Two ways," Mike said. "Gradually and then suddenly." Sri Lanka is much the same.
Ukraine: lessons for Taiwan, and for China too
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 23/03/2022
» Almost a month in, China is still being extremely coy about its attitude towards the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The regime is acutely aware that there are many parallels between the Russian-Ukrainian relationship and the Chinese-Taiwanese one, and that the Russian attempt to conquer Ukraine is failing, or at least stalled.
Afghanistan faces famine, it can't be ignored
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/02/2022
» Because the Taliban have been designated as "terrorists", it is possible for the United States not only to embargo American aid and trade to Afghanistan, but also to block or at least seriously hinder efforts by other countries to send humanitarian aid. As a result, more than half the country's people -- 23 million at last count -- are suddenly near starvation.
Hypersonic missiles are a needless complication
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/11/2021
» 'I saw in some of the newspapers they used the term 'Sputnik moment'," said General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. "I don't know if it's quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it's very close to that. It's a very significant technological event that occurred."
Will China actually ever invade Taiwan?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/10/2021
» China's President Xi Jinping promised on Saturday that "The historical task of the complete reunification of the motherland... will definitely be fulfilled." That was a threat to Taiwan, but a threat without a deadline. However Chinese state media, in the form of the ever-rabid Global Times, warned that war "could be triggered at any time".
Is it too late for Iran to rejoin nuclear treaty?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/06/2021
» 'Lifting Trump's sanctions, @SecBlinken, is a legal & moral obligation, NOT negotiating leverage. Didn't work for Trump -- won't work for you," tweeted Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif late last month. But what if US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (and President Joe Biden) have just decided that reviving the 2015 nuclear deal is a lost cause?
Belarus: An unexpected opportunity
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/05/2021
» Poland's Prime Minister Mateus Morawiecki has condemned the "hijacking" of the Ryanair jet on the orders of Belarus's President Alexander Lukashenko, accusing him of a "reprehensible act of state terrorism".
Objective allies: Netanyahu and Hamas militants
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 14/05/2021
» 'Objective allies' generally don't even talk to each other. They don't have common values, their ultimate goals may be completely incompatible, they often hate each other. But they share some intermediate goal, and are clever enough to realise they can both get what they want by acting together in certain ways.
Someone like 'Bibi' can't lose in Israel
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/05/2021
» A tempest in a small teapot this week, as Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Israel of "apartheid".
Syria's suffered enough: End the sanctions
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 19/03/2021
» The Syrian civil war is 10 years old this week, and it's time to stop it. At least half a million Syrians are dead, a quarter of the pre-war population are refugees abroad, and another quarter are refugees inside Syria. Thirty percent of the country's housing stock is destroyed or badly damaged -- and we have known who won the war for at least four years now.