Showing 1 - 10 of 45
After 66 years, Cuba's regime faces reckoning
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 21/02/2026
» Fidel Castro and his communist band of brothers have had a good long run in power (66 years), but they have run out of road.
Nato 1.0 is dead. Long live Nato 2.0
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/02/2026
» Every year about this time, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato), the world's most powerful alliance for the past 77 years, holds a conference in Munich to examine its state of health.
The case of the disappearing senior generals
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 10/02/2026
» Armies can be used against both against foreigners abroad and against citizens at home, but the two roles require quite different equipment and tactics. The same applies to their commanders: you need a different kind of general if you think that the primary task of their troops will be controlling dissent at home.
Somaliland: Mixed motivations
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/01/2026
» Last week Israel was the first country in the world to establish diplomatic relations with Somaliland. Not Somalia, a wreck of a country on the East African coast that has been mired in civil war for the past thirty-five years, but Somaliland, a different country just north of there that has been peaceful, relatively prosperous and even democratic for all those years.
Peace on Earth? Democracy everywhere?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 29/12/2025
» Democracy is in retreat or at least on the defensive almost everywhere, while wars are getting bigger and more frequent. The trend lines are frighteningly bad.
Too long in power a bad idea for leaders
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/07/2025
» Leading an entire country for a few years is a steep learning curve, but it's useful experience. Being in power for a dozen years makes most leaders arrogant and careless, but some remain more or less functional. Being in power for more than 30 years just makes you stupid. Consider Cambodia's Hun Sen and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
First as tragedy, then as farce: that's Trump
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/03/2025
» Hegel wrote that "all great world-historic facts and personages appear twice." It was Karl Marx who said that Hegel forgot to add that these repeating events happen "first as tragedy, then as farce." You know, like Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump.
Will there be a ceasefire in Ukraine now?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/02/2025
» It's taking Donald Trump a little longer than the 24 hours he said he would need to end Russia's war in Ukraine, but his 90-minute phone call with Vladimir Putin on Wednesday comes as no surprise.
Gaza ceasefire under pressure from all sides
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 21/01/2025
» In the 80 hours between Wednesday, Jan 15, when the Gaza ceasefire agreement was announced, and Sunday, Jan 19, when it went into effect, Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip killed 123 Palestinians, including dozens of women and children. The Israel Defence Force (IDF) said it had tried to avoid civilian casualties, but it had to kill the "terrorists" of Hamas wherever they were.
Age begins to show for Chinese Communists
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 08/10/2024
» 'No one can stop the wheel of history," said China's President Xi Jinping on the recent 75th anniversary of the day when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) proclaimed the creation of the People's Republic of China. And the wheel is indeed still turning -- but that may not be good news for the fourth-generation heirs of that revolution.