Showing 1 - 10 of 20
It could take 1 Danish soldier in Greenland
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 23/01/2026
» In 1910, Henry Wilson, the British army officer charged with planning for a possible war with Germany, visited the French officer doing the same job in Paris, Ferdinand Foch. The Anglo-French alliance was still a tentative, semi-secret thing, so Wilson asked Foch, "What is the smallest British military force that would be of any practical assistance to you?"
Somaliland: Mixed motivations
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/01/2026
» Last week Israel was the first country in the world to establish diplomatic relations with Somaliland. Not Somalia, a wreck of a country on the East African coast that has been mired in civil war for the past thirty-five years, but Somaliland, a different country just north of there that has been peaceful, relatively prosperous and even democratic for all those years.
Greenland, Ukraine and all that stuff
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 30/08/2025
» Last Wednesday, the Danish foreign minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, summoned the top US diplomat in Copenhagen to his office to complain that the United States is running a covert operation in Greenland, a semi-autonomous part of the Danish kingdom.
First as tragedy, then as farce: that's Trump
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 03/03/2025
» Hegel wrote that "all great world-historic facts and personages appear twice." It was Karl Marx who said that Hegel forgot to add that these repeating events happen "first as tragedy, then as farce." You know, like Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump.
Why the war against Russian aggression matters
News, Viktor Semenov, Published on 26/02/2025
» Feb 24, 2025, marks the third anniversary of Russia's full-scale military invasion of Ukraine -- an unprovoked, horrific assault on a peaceful nation. For three years, Ukrainians have stood against overwhelming odds, fighting to protect their homes, their families, and their fundamental right to freedom. What Russia hoped would be a swift conquest has instead become a protracted battle of resilience, courage, and determination.
Should Ukraine have nuclear weapons too?
News, Slavoj Žižek, Published on 02/12/2024
» Following Donald Trump's victory in the 2024 US presidential election, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic congresswoman from New York, publicly appealed to those who had voted for both her and Mr Trump. She wanted to know what motivated such an apparently inconsistent choice, and the predominant answer she heard was that she and Mr Trump seemed more sincere, whereas Vice President Kamala Harris came off as too calculating.
In Russia, the really dangerous ones are sane
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 08/04/2024
» There are plenty of crazies in Russian politics who make bizarre claims about their country's victim status ("the evil West made us do it") and issue blood-curdling but implausible threats about using nuclear weapons on their enemies. But the really dangerous ones are quite sane.
Israel pogroms reflect nation's shift to right
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/03/2023
» The dictionary definition of "pogrom" is "an organised massacre of a particular ethnic group, in particular that of Jewish people in Russia or eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries." So, there is something deeply strange about hearing pogrom used in Hebrew to describe what some Jewish people are doing to Arabs in 21st-century Israel.
How the United States can avoid war with China
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/02/2023
» 'I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight [with China] in 2025," declared US Air Force Gen Mike Minihan last weekend. He didn't mention what his elbow told him, or if he ever consulted his head on the matter.
State help needed
News, Postbag, Published on 07/03/2022
» Re: "Call time on call scams", (Editorial, March 3) and "56 rescued from call scammers" (BP, March 3).