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So, where does our moralistic support of national self-determination of peoples begin and end? The Abkhaz and South Ossetians? The Chechens? The Basques of Spain and France? The Kosovar Albanians? The Palestinians? The Tibetans and Taiwanese? The Kurds, the Armenians, the Azeris? The Sunni of Iraq? The residents of Darfur and of southern Sudan? Kashmiri Muslims under Indian rule? Tamils in Sri Lanka? German speakers in the Italian Sud Tirol?

The current issue of the Economist highlights the changing balance of economic power in Europe. European powers have been unevenly impacted by the global financial crisis. The article argues that a “new European pecking order has emerged, with statist France on top, corporatist Germany in the middle and poor old liberal Britain floored.” While the […]

“They are truly evil, evil people.” That from U.S. Marine Captain Brian Steidle who spent 18 months in Sudan’s Darfur region as a ceasefire observer with the African Union. He was referring to the Janjaweed, militias funded by the government in Khartoum who regularly rape and pillage not only villages but also refugee camps. [kml_flashembed […]

As the U.S.-Afghanistan-Pakistan presidential summit concludes it’s worth noting that we have heard a lot of talk about fighting the Taliban, fighting corruption, increasing aid for development, and promoting trade between the two countries, but there is one important issue that has not been discussed at the summit: the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. The […]

Check out this article (thanks to Robert Nolan for sending it along) about Goldman Sachs’ latest report on the shift of global economic power towards the East.

This week saw another confrontation between the US and China over Beijing’s growing naval power and what appears to be Washington’s attempts to retain control of the dominance to which it has grown accustomed in the East and South China Seas.  On Sunday 2 Chinese fishing vessels reportedly “harassed” an American surveillance ship in the […]

After months of trying to track her down, I spoke with female journalist Farida Nekzad in Kabul, Afghanistan in the wee hours of a March morning by phone from New York. Nekzad shared with me her vision for her work and the future of journalists in Afghanistan.

You can read a feature-length story about Nekzad and other female journalists in Pakistan and Afghanistan in this month’s issue of Quill magazine here.

NATO should focus on what really matters to Western interests over the coming half-century: arresting the proliferation of WMD; stopping Iran from acquiring the above; anchoring the Great and Rising Powers (including Russia and China) into Western institutions in order to more effectively resolve regional conflicts and other global problems; and, gently pushing human development in the direction of Fukuyama’s End of History.

Terrorism is not a Clash of Civilizations, but a Clash of Time Samuel Huntington forever changed the face of international political discourse when he published The Clash of Civilizations. It redefined the world not along political boundaries or geographic features, but along the delicate fault-lines of civilization and culture. In his 1993 article, he writes: […]

Ten of 19 of the nation’s largest banks failed the Fed stress test, and will require more capital or face the possibility of insolvency or receivership (i.e., ‘Nationalization’).

Last year when I walked through the urban centre of Tbilisi I was struck by the vibrancy of its people.   It’s a rare feeling, an energy that permeates through all senses. This was a month before the war broke out.  It was hard to believe that refugees would soon be flooding this cultural oasis – […]

Today is AfPak Day at the White House as President Obama hosts the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is hoped that the summit will lead to new resolve to combat the Taliban and a new spirit of cooperation at the regional level. I’d like to refer you to this White House blog post in […]