Showing 1 - 10 of 95
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.
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.
Iran war: One miscalculation after another
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 24/03/2026
» Still not four full weeks into the war, and already Donald Trump's "short-term excursion" -- decapitate the Iranian regime with a surprise attack and impose harsh terms on the defeated survivors -- has morphed into a global economic crisis and a region-wide war that could destroy the wealth of all the countries on both sides of the Gulf. At the very least.
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.
Are the Iranians pretending to have nukes?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/02/2026
» The Iranian regime is brutal, fanatical and corrupt. It has just committed the mass murder of its own citizens in the city streets and in their own homes. But the story we are told about Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons is very misleading.
Musk's Starship: If it sounds too good to be true...
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/12/2025
» Elon Musk promised to build a spaceship that would put people and cargo into Earth orbit at one-hundredth of the current cost per kilo and even enable human beings to create a colony on Mars. A great many people were seduced by the idea, including me.
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."
Gaza Strip pantomime ending at last
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 29/07/2025
» The coordinated chorus of despair by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu, US President Donald Trump and their various henchpersons and flacks was quite impressive. The message was that everybody should stop hoping for a negotiated peace. Mr Netanyahu has stared Mr Trump down once again, and the four-month pantomime search for a new ceasefire in Gaza is at an end.
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."
South Asian nuclear war would hit globe
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/05/2025
» India and Pakistan have had several shooting matches since they carried out a total of nine underground nuclear weapons tests in 1998. However, they don't make Putin-style thinly veiled threats to use their nukes (around 170 nuclear warheads each at the moment), and they do understand that escalation from smaller, "conventional" wars is the real danger.