Showing 1 - 10 of 44
Several bad options for US in Iran standoff
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/04/2026
» The Iranians know they have won, but President Trump doesn't get it yet. He's still at the stage of counting up the US and Israeli air strikes and assuming that those numbers mean a US victory is possible. But five gets you ten that the Iranians are already thinking about nuclear weapons. Not their own, which don't exist. America's.
Surviving the collapse of the population
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/02/2026
» 'To them that hath shall [more] be given" is generally a reliable guide, especially in economic matters, but it doesn't work if the beneficiaries are too stupid to take advantage of the gift. The scarce and precious commodity in this case being people, who are in increasingly short supply.
World leaders are destroying the rule of law
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/12/2025
» Russia's "big concession is they stop fighting, and they don't take any more land," US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday, when asked what Russia was conceding in the thinly disguised surrender document he was trying to shove down Ukrainian throats. He truly is a 19th-century man at heart.
Kingdom of Denmark vs the Shadow Fleet
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 25/10/2025
» Back in the 16th and 17th centuries, two-thirds of the Danish kingdom's income came from taxes paid by every ship passing through the Øresund ('The Sound') Strait, the only exit from the Baltic Sea. Each ship had to declare its cargo -- and if the Danes thought they were undervaluing it, Denmark had the right to buy it at the declared price.
Here's a taste of things to come in the US
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/10/2025
» 'Predictions are hard, especially about the future' (Danish proverb), but still we make them, especially when we care about the future. Here are some about the future of the United States in the next three and a bit years, expressed as probabilities, although you should not trust the numbers.
Climate effort needs to be more proactive
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 21/07/2025
» Start with China, the world's biggest emitter by far of greenhouse gases: 27% of the entire world's emissions, and more than twice that of the second-biggest emitter, the United States. In fact, it's more than all the emissions of all the other developed countries combined. Bad China.
'Flooding the zone' will likely backfire
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 22/02/2025
» The planning for a hard-right takeover of the United States federal government was detailed and meticulous, and its execution by Elon Musk and his young Silicon Valley stormtroopers was ruthless and mostly successful. They did indeed "move fast and break things", notably in gaining illegal access to the Department of Treasury payments system by sheer intimidation.
The slide back to war: Kagame and Trump
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 29/01/2025
» We seem to be drifting back into the world of "Might Makes Right". That would be a bad place to be.
Feedback on climate – not in front of the kids
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 16/01/2025
» 'This does not mean the international +1.5ºC target has been broken because that refers to a long-term average over decades." If those carefully chosen words don't set your alarm bells ringing, you have not travelled much in the land of lawyers.
New Caledonia pragmatism pips nationalism
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/09/2024
» With the sole exception of the fifty people on Pitcairn Island, the United Kingdom (once known as the British Empire) liquidated its holdings in the Pacific Ocean long ago. France, by contrast, has a half million citizens in the Pacific (and another two million living in other bits of its former empire on islands in all the world's major oceans).