Showing 1 - 10 of 15
Fanatics, an obsessive, and a belligerent fool
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 07/04/2026
» We don't have to look very far to find a useful historical analogy for the current crisis in the Middle East. In 1967, Egypt closed the Strait of Tiran to Israeli ships, and Israel replied with a surprise air attack that destroyed almost the entire Egyptian air force on the ground.
Arab fraternity weakens and hegemons rule
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/11/2025
» 'This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper," wrote T S Eliot in 1925, probably responding to the profoundly unsatisfactory aftermath of World War I (although with a poet, you never really know). At any rate, it's happening again, this time in the Middle East.
We've all seen this war game play out before
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 20/06/2025
» I've seen this movie already. I don't want to see it again."They lied," said Donald Trump in 2016, running for the Republican presidential nomination against the neo-cons in his own party who had started the "forever wars" in Afghanistan and Iraq. "They said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none. And they knew there were none."
Three hours in Greenland and plenty of bluster
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/04/2025
» 'We need to wake up from a failed, 40-year consensus that said we could ignore the encroachment of powerful countries as they expand their ambitions," said US Vice-President JD Vance during his brief visit to the US military base at Pituffik in northern Greenland. (It was brief because the Greenland authorities wouldn't let Mr Vance go anywhere else.)
What now after Israel's invasion of Lebanon?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 05/10/2024
» Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, has launched his invasion of Lebanon. As usual in the opening stages of Israeli incursions into that fragile country, the signs and portents look good for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
New UN climate report clutching at straws
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/03/2023
» The final report of the United Nation's climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has come out at last. The desperate optimism that characterised the last few volumes (this is part four of four) has frayed away to almost nothing.
Russia's hope for 'General Winter' missed the bus
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 11/03/2023
» 'The cold is coming soon," gloated former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev last June. He predicted that the citizens of the European Union, deprived of the Russian gas that normally supplied about 40% of their energy, would be freezing in their homes when "General Winter" arrived.
Monkeypox a wake-up call to be prepared
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/07/2022
» Monkeypox is very unpleasant and it spreads very fast, but it's not a real killer: 16,000 cases in 75 countries in just a couple of months is impressive, but there have been only five deaths.
It's make or break time for Donald Trump
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/10/2020
» Now is when it gets interesting.
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?