Showing 1 - 10 of 11
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.
The air war: plywood and Styrofoam
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 20/09/2025
» 'Nato is responding with unity and strength," said British defence secretary John Healey. "If you've got drones that are putting Polish lives at risk, then Nato will take them out. There's no firm confirmation on intent, but in the end that's not the point. It's still reckless. It's still dangerous."
Mideast missile madness gets even worse
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 25/01/2024
» Not all that long ago, attacking another country's territory was still seen as a big deal. It was, in legal terms, an "act of war", liable to have unpleasant and potentially unlimited consequences, including full-scale war. Very powerful countries occasionally made small, one-off attacks on very weak ones to "discipline" them, but even that was relatively rare.
Schrödinger's Island: Taiwan election 2024
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 12/01/2024
» Taiwan's fate is as unknowable as usual, even though we know who the next president will be. The Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) William Lai, vice-president under outgoing President Tsai Ing-Wen, will almost certainly win the election tomorrow because the two opposition parties failed to agree on a joint candidate and will split the slightly-less-anti-China vote between them.
Have we solved the floaty-bag problem?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/02/2023
» The United States has been having "a bit of a floaty-bag problem over its airspace", as South Africa's Daily Maverick news site put it.
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".
Taiwan is still in China's web of war games
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/01/2021
» Most news agencies reported on Sunday that China sent large groups of fighters and bombers into the Taiwanese airspace two days in a row. Much fluttering in the dovecote: the Chinese are testing the resolve of newly installed US President Joe Biden.
Turkey's anxious Erdogan takes on the world
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/02/2020
» Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is not an "Islamist", in the extreme sense of the word. He doesn't wear a suicide vest, he doesn't behead people, he doesn't even go around holding one finger up in the air to signify his hatred of those who fail to acknowledge the One True God. But he certainly does like the Islamists a lot.
Climates of fear lead to 'shoot-downs'
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/01/2020
» One of the main causes of death for airline passengers in recent decades is being shot down by somebody's military. Not the very biggest, of course: accidents account for nine-tenths of all deaths in civilian airline crashes, and terrorist attacks and hijackings cause most of the rest. But a solid 2.5% of the deaths are due to trigger-happy people in military uniforms.
Little to show for US role in Mideast wars
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 14/02/2019
» Last Wednesday Donald Trump said: "It should be announced, probably some time next week, that we will have 100% of the [Islamic State[ caliphate." Well, it is next week now, and by the weekend Mr Trump will probably have made exactly that announcement. He will be right, too: IS as a major threat has been defeated for good.