Showing 11 - 20 of 44
Farewell to neutral Sweden and Finland
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 19/05/2022
» It's easy to imagine Vladimir Putin coming into the shop marked "Sweden", breaking some fine china accidentally on purpose, and growling: "Nice little shop you've got here. It would be a pity if something happened to it." But Sweden is not a pottery shop, Mr Putin is not a Mafia capo, and what's going on in the Baltic now is not a protection racket.
A complex deal: Iran, nukes, oil, Israel, Russia
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/03/2022
» As with most re-marriages between the same partners, the participants are not exactly starry-eyed. They have just figured out that the old deal was just better than no deal at all.
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.
Nuke deal is dead! Long live deterrence!
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 10/12/2021
» 'We reviewed the proposals ... carefully and thoroughly and concluded that Iran violated almost all compromises found previously in months of hard negotiations," said the German Foreign Ministry spokesman on Sunday. As a funeral oration, it lacked in elegance, but it did the job: the 2015 treaty curbing Iran's nuclear capabilities is dead.
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".
Aukus sub pact: Here's how an alliance is born!
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 21/09/2021
» When the Sept 11 attacks struck New York and Washington in 2001 and the US armed forces went on full alert, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice immediately got on the direct line to Moscow and told Vladimir Putin not to worry: the United States was not going to attack Russia. Mr Putin replied that he understood, and was standing Russian forces down.
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?
We're safe from non-existent nukes in Iran
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/04/2021
» First, the good news. The US and Iran had talks in Vienna on Tuesday, and the nuclear deal they and all the other great powers signed in 2015 is coming back.
Iran: Yet another nuclear bungle?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/02/2021
» The self-esteem of two-year-olds and nation states is too fragile for them to admit they were wrong, which makes it hard for them to move on from blunders. That's why the toys don't get picked up and the broken treaties don't get fixed, and why there may be a tantrum (in the case of two-year-olds) or a nuclear war (in the case of the United States and Iran).
Unravelling Iran's nuclear 'threshold' game
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 29/07/2020
» 'A glance at the history of nuclear weapons manufacture shows that all 11 countries that wished to build bombs did so within three to 10 years," wrote Yossi Melman, intelligence and strategic affairs correspondent for Israel's Haaretz newspaper, on Sunday. So why, he asked, has Iran failed to do so after more than 30 years of trying?