Showing 1 - 10 of 13
Arab fraternity weakens and hegemons rule
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 01/11/2025
» 'This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper," wrote T S Eliot in 1925, probably responding to the profoundly unsatisfactory aftermath of World War I (although with a poet, you never really know). At any rate, it's happening again, this time in the Middle East.
Symbolic acts won't create a real Palestine
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 25/09/2025
» Ten more countries are recognising Palestine as a sovereign state in the course of this week. That brings the total up from 147 to 157. It's a big deal to an extent because for the first time it includes quite a few big, rich Western countries (France, the UK, Canada and Australia). But it is not unified, and it still controls no territory.
Long live the Dalai Lama, but who is next?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 08/07/2025
» The whole business of succession would be a lot simpler if the Dalai Lama could just regenerate, like Doctor Who -- a long-running British science fiction series. When the time comes for The Doctor to stop looking like David Tennant and start looking like Matt Smith, there's flame coming out of his head and gushing out of his sleeves, and then he explodes. When the smoke clears, there's the new Doctor.
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.
Hope on horizon for starving Palestinians?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 14/03/2024
» Good news! The US logistical support ship General Frank S. Besson Junior has just sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, carrying the equipment needed to build a temporary pier off the coast of Gaza. That will enable the US to deliver food to the starving (yes, literally starving) Palestinian population of the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip.
The Gaza Strip: Creating a free-fire zone
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/10/2023
» Armies never tell you what their strategy is, but if you look at the problems they are faced with, you can usually figure it out.
Ukraine: lessons for Taiwan, and for China too
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 23/03/2022
» Almost a month in, China is still being extremely coy about its attitude towards the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The regime is acutely aware that there are many parallels between the Russian-Ukrainian relationship and the Chinese-Taiwanese one, and that the Russian attempt to conquer Ukraine is failing, or at least stalled.
Objective allies: Netanyahu and Hamas militants
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 14/05/2021
» 'Objective allies' generally don't even talk to each other. They don't have common values, their ultimate goals may be completely incompatible, they often hate each other. But they share some intermediate goal, and are clever enough to realise they can both get what they want by acting together in certain ways.
Is this the end for reckless populism?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/12/2020
» There is nothing wrong to participate in a sex party of any kind," said a source in the European Parliament. "However, such kinds of meetings with many people are illegal under the coronavirus laws."
Lebanon was cursed even before the blast
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 13/08/2020
» Beirut has been living with car bombs and air raids on a sporadic but continuing basis for so long that it would probably make sense to rebuild this time with shatterproof glass. The torrent of broken glass falling from a thousand shattered buildings probably accounted for half the 158 dead found so far in Beirut and certainly for most of the 6,000 wounded.