Once upon a time, when all security policy eyes were on Afghanistan, there was an international conference (one of many) on the theme of “Rule of law in Afghanistan” in which legal experts pondered upon what it would take to introduce RoL in Afghanista…
Kategoriarkiv: Omvärldsläget
Gaza locked in a Catch 22 Stranglehold
Entering the end of May, the Middle East dramaturgy keeps boiling, with very real risks of boiling over. At the moment of writing, focus of the dramaturgy is, obviously, on the Iran war (or peace) war of nerves: escalation versus de-escalation, althoug…
Fragile ceasefires in the Middle East – Pending escalation or de-escalation over Iran
At the time of writing the world is holding its breath in anticipation of the next step in the ongoing action-reaction process between the US and Iran – and Israel, not to forget. Acutely, the issue at stake is what will be Iran’s answer to the latest …
Trump’s US and today’s “Forever wars”. What about Iran?
At the point of writing, the whole world is asking, not without great anxiety, how long the current US-Israel-Iran war will last, anxiety because of the immense global effects this war has already proved to entail, and the longer the duration the more …
Svansen som viftar på hunden”: USA, Israel och Iran mellan krig och… vapenvila
När detta skrivs, torsdag kväll 9/4, ett par dagar efter natten då parterna i Trumps och Netanyahus självvalda och alltmer bisarra krig mot arvfienden Iran stirrade ner i avgrunden men i sista stund valde att backa tillbaka och låtsas en överenskommels…
In the shadow of Gaza, Iran, Ukraine et al: Disasters remain in Sudan and South Sudan (et al)
It is – again – time to take a deep breath and remind that as much as there are superbly strong reasons to be concerned and alarmed by the seemingly never-ending crises elsewhere, indeed expanding crises as in the new case of Iran there remain the trag…
Trump vs Iran after one month of war: To escalate or de-escalate, that is the question
The Trump/Netanyahu war of choice against Iran and its contested regime has arrived, after a full month of large-scale but inconclusive warfare, at a point of no return, literally a dead end with apparently only bad options offered to the uniquely bell…
Quo Vadis US, On War (Iran) and Peace (Ukraine), et al – Anticipating Donald J Trump’s “most consequential” State of the Union speech
“It is going to be a long speech, for I have a lot to say”, said Donald Trump hours before this year’s tensely anticipated State of the Union speech, expected to be much of a protracted, more or less scripted, and triumphant account of the state of aff…
Strategic Stability at the Abyss: The Post–New START Nuclear Landscape – (“85 seconds before midnight”)
On 5 February 2026, the New START treaty expired. For the first time since SALT I negotiations began in 1969, no binding agreement constrains the strategic nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia—states that together hold roughly 90 per cent o…
Palestinian and Kurdish Dreams of Nation – and Statehood – a Nightmare? (“Hypocrisy is the homage paid by vice to virtue”)
At the time of writing, two important events occurred in the troubled Middle East, the two referring to one important historical feature in the region, the notoriously unfulfilled dreams of nation- and statehood by the two major peoples that remained p…
Venezuela och Trumps vidare ambitioner
Lagom inför årets Folk och Försvar i Sälen – och dagens (när detta skrivs Trettondagen) västliga toppmöte i Paris, om Ukraina – bjuder Trump-administrationen, d v s Trump själv och det fåtal handplockade lojalister som numera styr amerikansk politik, i…
The Cyprus issue in (mild) winds of change?
”Tomorrow I shall see Denktas, the day after I shall see Klerides, and the day after that I shall see a psychiatrist”. Do you remember that famous statement by Richard Holbrooke, the famous US diplomat-cum-peace negotiator connected with the Dayton acc…
Silence fell over Gaza – International attention moved on
Not much mention in mainstream international media of the fate of Gaza and its more than two million-size suffering population these days, some months or so after Donald Trump’s triumphant declaration of his 20-point, phased peace plan, linked to a wid…
Headwinds starting to blow against Trump one year ahead of the Mid-terms
Is the triumph march to ever-increasing personal power of Donald Trump starting to be affected, even slowed down, by clear and present headwinds, after soon one year in the White House, in his second presidential term? That is the question. Could it be…
Trump’s Gaza plan: The troublesome step from Phase 1 to Phase 2
It took a long, long time for the stakeholders of the management of the Israel-Hamas war to arrive at a much, much needed ceasefire, a sine qua non for both desperately needed humanitarian assistance to the suffering civilian Palestinians, and for the …
Gaza after 2 years of destruction: On the verge of peace, but what kind of peace?
2 years after Hamas initialed its brutal surprise attack, October 7 2023, and Israel launched its retaliation campaign with many names, the world is holding its breath in anticipation of “final” negotiations being held on the tip of the Sinai peninsula…
The UNGA turns 80 – A last chance (or sigh) for effective multilateralism?
This week almost all world leaders will, again, gather in New York for the annual UN General Assembly, a remarkable manifestation of multilateralism. Among the absent friends is Mahmud Abbas and some 80 Palestinian representatives, for – contrary to th…
Om krig, fred och eldupphör i vår tid, Trumptid
Kring de geopolitiska och militärstrategiska hoten och utmaningarna kretsar mina tankar för dagen denna dag. ”Time is out of joint” (ur led är tiden), sade redan Hamlet, påstod Shakespeare. Och låt mig, som illustration i nuläget, erinra om vad som ske…
Partition as peace model, last resort? History and prospects
Partition, sometimes peaceful, sometimes not, may be universally feared as a way out of persistent territorial conflicts, except in rare cases (Sudan, Ethiopia) where partition was instead finally facilitated by the international community, but amongst…
Ukraina, Gaza, Sudan: The damned illusive ceasefire continues to haunt Donald Trump
What does it say about conflict and warfare in our time that it is so hard, in spite of often desperate humanitarian needs, to arrive at a ceasefire – or truce, or armistice or cessation of hostilities, denominations and legal ideas have varied over ti…