Whatever happens with the ongoing negotiation impasse in Zimbabwe, there are social realities that no agreement will be able to reconcile. Even if the process of forging a unity government proves successful, that will mark a beginning of a long slog, not a triumphal endpoint. Hunger is rampant throughout the country with the food crisis expected to grow worse. And inflation continues to spiral unabated even as the government continues to pursue gimmicky fiscal policies.
Robert Mugabe is strangely optimistic that there will be a resolution by week's end, but he is hardly a reliable broker in all of this, and one imagines that his optimism (and hints about opening up Zimbabwe's notoriously closed media culture) is largely tied to his hope that the Western nations will lift sanctions. Mugabe has continued to be the chief impediment to political progress. There is no real reason to believe that anything has changed on that front in the last few days.
A few months ago, I wrote about the early stages of the conflict in Ukraine through the lens of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While it appears likely that the war will carry on into the foreseeable future, enough time has passed for us to make an honest assessment of each side’s relative […]
The Ukrainian Army has made dramatic strides in the last few weeks. Ukraine’s tactical commanders have outfoxed their Russian counterparts, and by issuing a feint towards the south the UA has been able to earn substantial gains in the north of their country. The impact of these efforts have been compounded by the steady stream […]
In mid-May the Irish political party, Sinn Féin, won the plurality of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many American readers might not fully understand the significance of Sinn Féin’s political victory- but rest assured that subjects of the United Kingdom and a wide range of political movements the world over have heard the message […]
The first wave of the Russian offensive in Ukraine has fallen short of Russian autocrat Vladmir Putin’s ambitions. Most analysts deduced that Putin had hoped to achieve a decapitation strike of the Ukrainian government- taking Kiev and replacing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolinski with a pro-Kremlin voice. Kiev has been threatened repeatedly through the course of […]
On the weekend of March 26th, the notorious MS-13 gang went on a massive killing spree in El Salvador which left more than 70 people dead by Sunday. Even for a country where powerful gangs hold massive sway, this recent tragedy stands out considering that it was the bloodiest day on record since the civil […]
