Showing 1 - 10 of 11
It could take 1 Danish soldier in Greenland
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 23/01/2026
» In 1910, Henry Wilson, the British army officer charged with planning for a possible war with Germany, visited the French officer doing the same job in Paris, Ferdinand Foch. The Anglo-French alliance was still a tentative, semi-secret thing, so Wilson asked Foch, "What is the smallest British military force that would be of any practical assistance to you?"
Palestinians are pawns in a deadly game
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 31/07/2024
» The Palestinian death toll in the Gaza Strip since last October's Hamas attacks on Israeli settlements will reach 40,000 people in the next week or so. (It's back up around 50-100 civilians dead per day.)
ICJ's efforts to build rule of law must continue
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 31/01/2024
» Israel's defence minister, Yoav Gallant, dismissed the ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the accusation that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip with the words "Hague Schmague". US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was equally dismissive, saying that the case brought before the ICJ by South Africa was "meritless".
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.
The unravelling of Burma's military rule
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 19/12/2023
» The Burmese army is a leading candidate for Nastiest Army in the World. Even more than Pakistan's army, it is the tail that wags the dog: rather than the army serving the country, it's the other way around.
China and Covid: The cost of infallibility
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/05/2022
» Even the pope claims to be infallible only on matters of faith and doctrine.
Winter is on the way in Afghanistan
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 10/11/2021
» The first snow of the winter will reach Kabul any day now, and the death rate will start to climb: mostly children, at first, but it will not really be the cold that kills them. The cold will only finish the work that malnutrition began months or years ago -- but the other cause of their deaths will be a different kind of freeze.
English speakers feel Covid's wrath
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 26/02/2021
» To those who obsessively followed Covid websites over the past 11 months, one thing demanded an explanation above all: Why were the worst death rates-per-million in the richest, most developed countries, and in the United States and the United Kingdom most of all?
Iran: Yet another nuclear bungle?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/02/2021
» The self-esteem of two-year-olds and nation states is too fragile for them to admit they were wrong, which makes it hard for them to move on from blunders. That's why the toys don't get picked up and the broken treaties don't get fixed, and why there may be a tantrum (in the case of two-year-olds) or a nuclear war (in the case of the United States and Iran).
Time for the rich to erase proof of climate neglect?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 24/01/2020
» Donald Trump's speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos on Monday contained no surprises: half an hour of chest-thumping self-praise, although without the usual xenophobia and dog-whistle racism. It was, after all, an audience of the ultra-rich and powerful in which most of the movers and shakers were not American.