It has of late become inevitable to warn that things in and about Israel – domestically as well as internationally – have turned even more ugly than what pessimistic analysts of the Israeli political scene after Benjamin Netanyahu’s ominous electoral v…
Kategoriarkiv: Defence and Security
Africa’s giant facing elections – Nigeria’s uncertain way ahead
We shall soon see if Nigeria, this enormous and fast growing giant of Africa, will provide a living example to show that Western liberal democracy can be made to work, with an orderly and peaceful transfer of power, even in a context of a mega-size cou…
An interview of most interest
Victor Kogan Yasny is a political analyst with Yabloko Party. He says that young Russians are aligned with Putin because they know nothing else. You can watch this interview on the link below. https://youtu.be/e5C5zrOLysA
Earthquake in Turkey and Syria: Reflexions on emerging consequences
The earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on February 6, 2023, was a natural disaster of “biblical” proportions with devastating humanitarian consequences, a total death toll in excess of 30 000 people estimated at the time of writing, but with a tra…
Information on the war in Ukraine
It is easy to follow the usual sources at home, which for me are SVT, SR, NRK, Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet and Göteborgsposten. The foreign sources I follow are The Guardian, The New York Times and also German DW. I also read what is written by …
Thinking beyond the Russian Federation
The invasion war against Ukraine by the Russian Federation spells the death throes of Moscow’s imperialism. The potential collapse of the Russian Federation is something the Atlantic Council’s survey of global strategists and foresight practitioners’ p…
The EU, Western Balkans in the shadow of Ukraine: Time for re-appraisal? – A heavy burden for the upcoming Swedish EU Presidency
Again, crisis between Serbia and Kosovo Once again, winds of crisis and perhaps war blow over the Serbia-Kosovo border, all these years since the end-of millennium armed confrontation between the Milosevic regime in Belgrade and the Western-supported i…
The EU, Western Balkans in the shadow of Ukraine: Time for re-appraisal? – A heavy burden for the upcoming Swedish EU Presidency
Again, crisis between Serbia and Kosovo Once again, winds of crisis and perhaps war blow over the Serbia-Kosovo border, all these years since the end-of millennium armed confrontation between the Milosevic regime in Belgrade and the Western-supported i…
Winds of War (again) gaining momentum in the Eastern Mediterranean
Do you remember the Kardak/Imea crisis in the Aegean Sea back in 1996? The spiraling events of action-reaction then brought political mishandling of old Greek-Turkish issues, with roots from the time of the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, to the brink of open wa…
Sweden/Finland/Turqiye/NATO – On The Noble Art of Strategic Ambiguity
It was – apparently – a close call. But on the very day of the opening of the important NATO summit in Madrid there was to the relief of many a last-minute agreement between one member country, Turkey, and two Nordic membership applicants, Sweden and F…
Taking Turkey’s legitimate security concerns seriously
We hear a lot these days about the need to take Turkey’s (or Turkiye´s as the official name now reads, with proper dots over the u) legitimate security concerns seriously – to the extent that they are indeed legitimate. It was repeated by Jens Stoltenb…
An International Operation to Address the Impact of the Ukraine War on Global Food Security: Finding a way forward
Rapidly escalating food prices are already becoming the trigger for social unrest in multiple locations. When combined with the simultaneous increase in the price of fuel, the probability of social unrest leading to violence is growing. Finding solutio…
An International Operation to Address the Impact of the Ukraine War on Global Food Security: Finding a way forward
Rapidly escalating food prices are already becoming the trigger for social unrest in multiple locations. When combined with the simultaneous increase in the price of fuel, the probability of social unrest leading to violence is growing. Finding solutio…
Prospects for troubled Libya – fission or fusion? or partition? [1]
European and transatlantic security would suffer a big loss if in spite of all international efforts Libya were to descend into armed chaos and instability 11 troubled years after the fall of Ghadafi in 2011 and then prevailing Arab spring conditions. …
Iran JCPOA deal: To be, or not to be? And for how long? [1]
And then there is Iran and the JCPOA nuclear issue, the key to Middle East stability. “Time is running out” for a solution and an agreement, said State Secretary Blinken already in January this year before the eighth round of proxy talks in Vienna. And…
Boyd and Manoeuvre Warfare
The theoretical foundations of manoeuvre warfare goes back in time 2,500 years to China and text such as the “Art of War” by Sun Tzu and the “Thirty-Six Stratagems”. However, much of the modern theory was developed during the twentieth century through …
Saved by Putin’s Ukraine aggression? Erdogan’s balancing act on tightening rope [1]
The Ukraine crisis threatens an already hard-pressed Erdogan regime with a host of added economic and political burdens, with presidential and parliamentary elections looming. At the same time it is becoming increasingly clear that, nonetheless, the Ru…
The Basis of Ethics [1]
The two words “morals” and “ethics” have originally the same meaning, “morals” being derived from the Latin “mores” and “ethics” from the Greek “ethos”. The meaning is identical: custom. Moral and ethics are what we are accustomed to do when we act res…
Ukraine Crisis, the Brussels Summits, Regime Change and Red Lines [1]
President Biden wrapped up his extraordinary European tour, including NATO, EU and G7 summits plus a tour of refugee inundated Poland, with a powerful Warsaw speech – aimed at being on historical par with those of Kennedy and Reagan in Berlin – where h…
Russia’s war in Ukraine and Monty Python’s parrot
Once in a while really big things happen, things that have a great or long lasting impact on the trajectory of world events – think 9/11 or the fall of the Berlin wall. Russia’s war against Ukraine is such an event; it marks the definitive end of the o…