Showing 1 - 10 of 16
Trump smashes trade systems in record time
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 08/04/2025
» In ten whirlwind weeks, Donald Trump had already smashed the international system of rules and alliances that more or less kept the peace for the past eighty years, but his bizarre "tariffs on everybody" policy has given us a glimpse of what may take its place. It's the United States against the whole world, and America's only possible great-power ally is Russia.
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.
Trump: Neither unique nor irreplaceable
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 16/07/2024
» Almost everybody who feels obliged to comment about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump is currently insisting that "violence has no place in American politics", but of course it has. Four US presidents have been assassinated while in office, and three others (now including Mr Trump) have been injured in assassination attempts.
Did the West cause the war in Ukraine?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 25/06/2024
» There is one thing almost all populist nationalists agree on: the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the continuing carnage there was the fault of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato). If Nato had not expanded to Russia's borders, it would all still be peace and love in Europe.
Stop making the 'Munich in 1938' analogies
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/06/2024
» Scarcely a week passes without some media pundit or attention-seeking historian warning that a Great War is nigh. As always, there are enough signs and portents around to make that sort of prediction plausible, but it's rarely correct. In fact, it hasn't been correct now for 79 years.
Argentina must break its vicious political cycle
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/11/2023
» Bertolt Brecht lived in Germany, not in Argentina, and he has been dead longer than he was alive, but his famous question applies to the Argentine election next Sunday: "Would it not be simpler if the government dissolved the people and elected another?"
Soft dictatorship threatens India's democracy
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 23/06/2023
» We're not surprised when religious zealots in some benighted part of the American heartland ban the teaching of evolution in the local school, but what could have possessed the national government of a grown-up country like India to do the same thing?
2 coups (failed) and random speculation
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/12/2022
» Could there be anything more ridiculous than last week's failed coup attempt in Peru?
Will Russia opt to play the 'Cuban card'?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 19/01/2022
» After a week of intense discussions about "security" between Russia and the Nato countries, this is the week when the Western allies will send their written replies to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Various pundits, some of whom have actually been to Russia, warn us that there will be "War in Europe" if Mr Putin's demands are not met.
Despite claims, Russia unlikely to take Ukraine
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/12/2021
» I must admit that I googled the plot of the 1997 film Wag the Dog before starting to write this. It's a dark comedy about a US president facing a sex scandal whose staff invent a completely fictional war in the Balkans to draw the media's attention elsewhere. But sex scandals are not the Biden administration's style.