Showing 1 - 10 of 19
Too long in power a bad idea for leaders
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/07/2025
» Leading an entire country for a few years is a steep learning curve, but it's useful experience. Being in power for a dozen years makes most leaders arrogant and careless, but some remain more or less functional. Being in power for more than 30 years just makes you stupid. Consider Cambodia's Hun Sen and Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Clear danger as war in Europe is in the air
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 10/06/2025
» 'There is a clear, present risk, particularly as Vladimir Putin does see himself as being at war with the West. The homeland is again (in peril)...Air and missile attacks will potentially cause civilian casualties (in the United Kingdom) in very large numbers." Therefore, concludes Gen Sir Richard Barrons, the UK needs to bring back air raid sirens and air raid drills.
Conflict in Gaza and Kashmir on a parallel track
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 12/05/2025
» There is a striking parallel between the 20-month war in the Gaza Strip and the week-old not-yet-war between India and Pakistan. Both confrontations were set off by horrendously cruel mass murders by terrorists whose goal was obviously to start a war that drew the attention of the world back to their own goals and grievances.
Politics at the root of world's three famines
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 26/03/2024
» There are three incipient famines in the world today, and politics is at the root of all of them. That's not unusual, actually: famines are almost always political events.
Iran-US: Man's gotta do what a man's gotta do
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/02/2024
» In the immediate aftermath of the massacre of 1,140 Israeli civilians by Hamas terrorists last October, US President Joe Biden went to Israel and gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu some good advice.
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.
Farewell to neutral Sweden and Finland
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 19/05/2022
» It's easy to imagine Vladimir Putin coming into the shop marked "Sweden", breaking some fine china accidentally on purpose, and growling: "Nice little shop you've got here. It would be a pity if something happened to it." But Sweden is not a pottery shop, Mr Putin is not a Mafia capo, and what's going on in the Baltic now is not a protection racket.
Ukraine-Russia war's nuclear end-game
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 22/04/2022
» Last Sunday Vladimir Soloviev, the anchor of Russia's most popular current affairs show, Sunday Evening, was delivering his usual all-is-going-splendidly take on the war in Ukraine when he suddenly went off-piste. The United Kingdom, he suggested, is planning to use nukes against the Russian forces in Ukraine.
Afghanistan faces famine, it can't be ignored
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/02/2022
» Because the Taliban have been designated as "terrorists", it is possible for the United States not only to embargo American aid and trade to Afghanistan, but also to block or at least seriously hinder efforts by other countries to send humanitarian aid. As a result, more than half the country's people -- 23 million at last count -- are suddenly near starvation.
Nuke deal is dead! Long live deterrence!
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 10/12/2021
» 'We reviewed the proposals ... carefully and thoroughly and concluded that Iran violated almost all compromises found previously in months of hard negotiations," said the German Foreign Ministry spokesman on Sunday. As a funeral oration, it lacked in elegance, but it did the job: the 2015 treaty curbing Iran's nuclear capabilities is dead.