Winston Spencer Ghani

Last month when Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu made his ill-advised plea to Congress to scuttle the nuclear negotiations with Iran, fringe Republican elements in Congress, along with right wing fellow travelers, called Bibi the 21st century’s version of  Winston Churchill.  Clearly they must have been referring to Churchill’s flip-flops to and from the Conservative Party as Netanyahu would do vis a vis opposing the two state solution.  Possibly they may have been referring to Churchill’s tenure as First Lord of the Admiralty and the disastrous Gallipoli assault he initiated in 1915 or his five years as Chancellor of the Exchequer after World War I and the monumental economic blunder [...]

Spre o federalizare a Ucrainei?

Ca reacţie la anexarea Crimeei şi a sprijinului acordat de Federaţia Rusă separatiştilor din Ucraina, la începutul anului 2014, SUA au anunţat măsuri fără precedent: nu statul rus va fi sancţionat, vor fi sancţionaţi cetăţeni ruşi prin îngheţarea conturilor bancare şi a proprietăţilor, dar şi prin interzicerea vizelor de intrare pe teritoriul american. Flota a 6-a din Mediterană nu a fost chemată să intre în acţiune, exporturile către Rusia nu au fost blocate, schimburile culturale şi cele educaţionale nu au fost oprite. Oficiali ai cabinetului Putin au fost ţinte (Karen Dawisha, Cleptocraţia lui Putin, Editura Simon&Schuster, 2014) Care este explicaţia acestui nou model de sancţiuni? Ele se datorează sistemului (cartea [...]

Criza ucraineană, între Matrioşka şi Intermarium

Imediat după colapsul URSS, în 1991, liderii europeni au socotit că Moscova poate deveni un partener viabil într-o Europă în schimbare. Să nu credeţi cumva că, peste noapte, Washingtonul şi aliaţii occidentali şi-au imaginat că Rusia va deveni un partener de încredere. Au crezut, poate, că Rusia va împărtăşi aceleaşi obiective strategice de politică externă şi, treptat, va adopta stilul de viaţă al democraţiilor occidentale cu o economie de piaţă consolidată. Dar, imediat ce problemele au apărut – programul nuclear al Iranului, situaţia din Irak şi din fosta Iugoslavie – lunile de miere s-au încheiat şi Rusia a revenit, treptat, la vechile obiceiuri imperial-sovietice. A urmat un interludiu, odată cu [...]

A hundred’s year war in and with Islam ?

Are we, meaning the billions of citizens on earth today, faced with an enduring war in and with Islam and Islamists?  Or have seemingly exploding and spreading conflicts in what has been properly called the crescent of crisis extending from the Bay of Bengal in the east to the Levant and Mediterranean in the west a temporal phenomena that in due course will topple of its own weight?  The answers to these questions obviously will have profound consequence on the future geostrategic landscape. The emergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, al Qaeda, the Islamist State and other Islamist groups has put these questions in sharp perspective.  The persistence [...]

Needed: Realistic foreign policy priorities for Barack

In foreign policy as well in virtually every human endeavor, how do you know how well or badly you are doing.  Most smart people have annual physicals to check on their health.  Scorecards for hedge fund managers and CEO’s are measured in return on investment or share value.  And in sports, overtime is the ultimate measure of winning or losing.   Unfortunately, foreign policy has no universal or even partial scorecard except to the extent that White Houses, Congresses, critics and the media pass judgments on what appears to be working and what does not.  The starting point for making these assessments regarding foreign policy rests in analyzing the priorities [...]

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