Showing 1 - 6 of 6
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.
'Flooding the zone' will likely backfire
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 22/02/2025
» The planning for a hard-right takeover of the United States federal government was detailed and meticulous, and its execution by Elon Musk and his young Silicon Valley stormtroopers was ruthless and mostly successful. They did indeed "move fast and break things", notably in gaining illegal access to the Department of Treasury payments system by sheer intimidation.
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.
Over in Canada, PM Trudeau bites the dust
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/01/2025
» Donald Trump excels in every field, including surrealism. Leonard Cohen sang "First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin!", but it's completely outclassed by Mr Trump's "First we take Greenland, then we take Canada!" And he's going to take the Panama Canal too!
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.
Shipping is worse than aviation
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 30/03/2021
» 'We're waiting on food goods like coconut milk and syrups, some spare parts for motors, we've got some fork lift trucks, some Amazon goods on there, all sorts," said Steve Parks of Seaport Freight Services in England, who is awaiting twenty of the 18,300 containers aboard the Ever Given. Which of those things cannot be sourced from somewhere closer than Asia?