• OPINION

  West's reproach of Russian realism reeks of hypocrisy

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/10/2015

  » It's a week since the Russians began their air strikes in Syria, and the countries that have already been bombing there for over a year -- the United States and some other Nato countries -- are working themselves up into a rage about it. The Russians are not bombing the right people, they are killing civilians, they are reckless, dangerous, and just plain evil.

• OPINION

  After Erdogan's win, Turkey inches closer to civil war

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/11/2015

  » "You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time...", begins Abraham Lincoln's aphorism about democracy -- but in a multi-party democratic system, that is usually enough. In a parliamentary system like Turkey's, 49% of the popular vote gives you a comfortable majority of seats, and so Recep Tayyib Erdogan will rule Turkey for another four years. If the country lasts that long.

• OPINION

  Retaliation would fulfil the terrorists' strategy

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 16/11/2015

  » As always when there is a major terrorist attack on the West, the right question to ask after the slaughter in Paris is: what were the strategic aims behind it? This requires getting your head around the concept that terrorists have rational strategies, but once you have done that the motives behind the attacks are easy to figure out. It also becomes clear that the motives have changed.

• OPINION

  Why Turkey shot down the Russian plane in a heartbeat

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/11/2015

  » The key fact is that the Russian plane, by Turkey's own admission, was in Turkish airspace for precisely seventeen seconds. That's a little less time than it takes to read this paragraph aloud. The Turks shot it down anyway -- and their allies publicly backed them, as loyal allies must.

• OPINION

  Five years on from Arab Spring, democracy can still work

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 20/01/2016

  » Five years ago this month, the "Arab Spring" got under way with the non-violent overthrow of Tunisia's long-ruling dictator, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali. He dared not order the army to open fire on the demonstrators (because it might not obey), and eventually he flew off off to Saudi Arabia to seek asylum.

• OPINION

  North Korea's real nuclear deterrent

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 11/02/2016

  » Here we go again. North Korea launched a ballistic missile of intercontinental range on Sunday (saying it was just putting up a satellite) only weeks after it carried out its fourth nuclear weapons test (which it claimed was a hydrogen bomb). The United Nations Security Council strongly condemned it, and even the People's Republic of China, North Korea's only ally, expressed its "regret" at what the country had done.

• OPINION

  The triumph and tragedy of Egypt

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/02/2016

  » Exactly five years after Egypt's democratic revolution triumphed, the country is once more ruled by a military office. General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi seized power in July 2013, and he is even nastier than his predecessors.

• OPINION

  Saudi Arabia's risky gamble is driving the oil downturn

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 20/02/2016

  » ‘The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent,” said John Maynard Keynes (or maybe it wasn’t him, but no matter). At any rate, that was the eternal verity the Saudi Arabians were counting on when they decided to let oil production rip — and the oil price collapse — in late 2014.

• OPINION

  Syria's chance for 'peace and stability'

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 02/03/2016

  » So far the Russian plan for a ceasefire in Syria is working remarkably well. The truce that came into effect on Saturday had been observed with only minor violations on all the relevant fronts, and the UN's humanitarian coordinator in Syria, Yacoub el-Hillo, called it "the best opportunity that the Syrian people have had over the last five years for lasting peace and stability".

• OPINION

  China: Another Chairman Mao?

  News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 11/03/2016

  » Opening the National People's Congress in Beijing last week, Prime Minister Li Keqiang set China's growth target for the coming year at 6.5-7%, the lowest in decades. Only two years ago, he said that 7% was the lowest acceptable growth rate, but he has had to eat his words. He really isn't in charge of very much any more.

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