Showing 1 - 10 of 17
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.
Climate change: the August deadline
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/08/2024
» When you spend four years writing a book on climate change, you get to know most of the leading players. I have never seen them so dismayed.
Armenia's latest exodus: Not a genocide
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/10/2023
» It is a tragedy, but it is not a genocide. In a single week, almost all of the 120,000 Armenians who lived in the enclave in western Azerbaijan called Nagorno-Karabakh have fled across the border into Armenia. Most say they don't expect ever to go home again.
International law must prevail in Ukraine war
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 24/02/2023
» Just before the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which falls tomorrow France's President Emmanuel Macron declared that he wanted to see Russia "defeated, but not crushed". That is a very fine distinction, but an important one.
What's next for Ukraine as the siege goes on?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 26/03/2022
» Russian troops are stalled for the third week outside most of the major cities of eastern and central Ukraine, but they have failed to surround and cut off any of them except Mariupol, the big port on the Black Sea that has become the Ukrainian "Stalingrad". Indeed, Ukrainian counter-attacks are driving the Russians back some distance in a few places.
Coups are all the rage again in beleaguered Africa
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/02/2022
» Military coups are back in fashion in Africa. There have been over 200 attempted coups in the continent since 1960, about half of them successful, but in the past two decades they had dropped to only two a year. Last year saw six, however, and there have been two already this year. The latest in Guinea-Bissau.
Why this year's COP26 isn't going to deliver
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 30/10/2021
» 'The world is on a catastrophic pathway to 2.7°C of heating," said UN Secretary General António Guterres. "There is a high risk of failure of COP26." That's the global climate summit that meets every five years (but was postponed last year because of the pandemic) to plot a course away from climate disaster. And it really isn't looking good.
Sept 11 didn't change the world forever
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 11/09/2021
» 'Changed the world forever' is the most hackneyed phrase in journalism, and if you can get through this week (the 20th anniversary of the Sept 11 attacks) without hearing it half a dozen times you'll be very lucky.
Today it's Zuma, tomorrow it could be Trump
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/07/2021
» Sooner or later ex-president Donald Trump is bound to be indicted for some crime. It doesn't matter which -- it could be a fraud or corruption charge, or a sexual offence, or incitement to violence, or even just tax evasion. (That's what finally got American gangster Al Capone.) And it doesn't matter whether he's convicted, either; the real drama will come before that.
When robots will be caring for humans
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 24/05/2021
» The birth rates are falling fast in all the world's more prosperous countries, but the generation now in their middle years have not yet grasped what that means for their later years. If they end up needing some sort of assisted living, either at home or in a care home, they will probably be looked after by a robot.