While the subject matter is fascinating, this film falls short in at least a couple of ways. First, the music doesn’t seem to sync up with the action, being loud and dramatic during quiet scenes and being almost silent during the high drama that takes place. It also presupposes that the viewer is familiar with […]
A maladroit visit to New Delhi is a harbinger of things to come The headline visit to India this past weekend by Pakistan’s de-facto interior minister, Rehman Malik, was supposed to celebrate the latest milestone in the détente process that has picked up speed between the two countries over the last year and a half. Instead, […]
Reflecting on 2012: where to start? 2012 has been another busy year for writers, analysts and students of foreign policy: from the violence in Syria and the Middle East, to the reelection of President Obama, to the lingering of the Eurocrisis, to the increase of natural disasters, so on and so forth. This year in […]
Someone once told me that they had recently been in Israel and that it had been a “crazy” time there. I told them that one of the first times I went, Ariel Sharon announced the disengagement from Gaza. The next time I went, Israel completed said disengagement. The time after that, Sharon fell into a […]
In hopes of generating patriotic fervor, German politicians have asked that their national football team to be compelled to sing the national anthem before each match. Players, such as Mesut Özil and Lukas Podolski, have been criticized for not participating in the ceremonious singing of the Deutschlandlied before each national match. Why? Özil is a third generation Turkish-German and Podolski first […]
The recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, long-term wars pitting factionalist fighters against government forces, renewed international interest in counter-insurgency. Washington D.C. sparked a cottage industry in what became known as COIN: think-tanks climbed aboard, new prophets emerged, blogs bloomed. Press accounts in 2009-2010 trumpeted COIN as the U.S. surged civilians and troops to Afghanistan, […]
A brief update on happenings in the Arctic from the road. Spaceport Sweden is planning to develop a launchpad in the northern city of Kiruna to send sub-orbital flights into space. The five-minute flights, which would obtain an altitude of 60 miles, would be for tourism and research. According to Discovery News, Kiruna’s location is […]
At thirty-nine years old, Selahattin Demirtas is the Chairman of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) in Turkish parliament. He has held this position since January 2010 and was first elected to parliament in 2007 as the MP for the Kurdish majority city of Diyarbakir, after which he joined the now-defunct Democratic Society Party […]
Whether he is the new Deng Xiaoping will say much about the contours of the evolving global order My post earlier this week argued that China’s long-term prospects are more uncertain than the conventional wisdom holds. The country’s new leader, Xi Jinping, is raising hopes that he is the man to tackle the daunting array of […]
The Set-Up Overflowing with distrust, deception, and ulterior motives, America and Iran’s tumultuous saga has the makings of a made-for-TV, B-rated movie. The twists, turns, and over-the-top drama are a guilty pleasure for movie viewers just as news junkies cannot get enough of the endless dramatics between the United States and Iran. The world wants […]
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair defended the U.K.’s full participation in the EU from the most recent wave of Euroscepticism in a speech at Chatham House late last month. Conceding up front that the European social model needs reform to remain sustainable, an argument echoed by the moderate left in the U.S., Blair […]
I was fortunate to have spent the past year working in Phnom Penh. Cambodia is a raw, untamed land with beautiful sights but also shocking poverty. I’m no stranger to living in the region but, for my money, there is nothing more amazing in the world than driving through the rural countryside of Southeast Asia […]
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