Showing 1 - 10 of 61
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.
It's time to go geoengineering on climate issue
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 05/06/2025
» This is the second anniversary of the arrival of the emergency but practically nobody is mentioning it. Instead people are choosing to worry about more familiar problems like global trade wars, the rise of fascism and genocidal wars. It's kind of a global displacement activity: if we don't mention it, maybe it will go away.
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.
War: two steps forward, two steps back?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/02/2025
» In classical civilisations, there was a continuing, unresolved debate about whether history moved forward or just went around in circles: was it linear or was it cyclical? But that debate was largely settled once human beings learned about their deeper past. It's linear.
Vintage tonnage keeps Russian oil flowing
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/01/2025
» The name is brilliant: "vintage tonnage". It evokes 17th-century pirate vessels flying the skull-and-crossbones, 18th-century ships-of-the-line bristling with cannons, or even 19th-century clipper ships in full sail bringing tea to England and America. The images are always romantic and often beautiful.
Feedback on climate – not in front of the kids
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 16/01/2025
» 'This does not mean the international +1.5ºC target has been broken because that refers to a long-term average over decades." If those carefully chosen words don't set your alarm bells ringing, you have not travelled much in the land of lawyers.
Syria: It's those jihadis on the march again
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/12/2024
» One week in, the ceasefire in Lebanon seems to be holding, but everything is connected: only three days later, the civil war in Syria started up again after a de facto four-year truce.
With Israel and Iran it's tit for tat for tit for tat...
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 31/10/2024
» It's more like a courtship ritual between exotic birds than a 21st-century war. First the Israelis assassinate Revolutionary Guard generals in an Iranian embassy on foreign soil. Tag. You're it.
The world is headed towards uncharted waters
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 17/09/2024
» No sirens are blaring, nobody even looks frightened, but they should be. Last week, the world moved into uncharted territory. The "aspirational" goal of never allowing the average global temperature to rise more than 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than the pre-industrial norm (+1.5C) has been breached for a whole year -- and probably forever.
FGM and the need for Islamic scholars
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 20/07/2024
» There was a small victory in The Gambia this week when a proposed law to legalise female genital mutilation (FGM) was defeated by human rights campaigners. It was quite a small victory, however, because the great majority of little girls in The Gambia are still being mutilated by the professional "cutters" who move from village to village.