Category: Blogs

Behind Sino-Japanese Tensions

By Robert Manning

It just won’t go away—and it may be Asia’s contemporary equivalent to Archduke Ferdinand, whose assassination sparked World War I.

Tet by a Thousand Cuts

By Robert Bracknell

The United States is engaged in a counterinsurgency in a faraway Asian nation. The language, climate, social and political culture, religion, and terrain are foreign to the American generals, their units, and most of the diplomats, civilians, and contractors advancing American interests.

Top News: Morsi: Egypt has Changed; Israel Will Pay for Gaza Aggression

By Egypt Source

Egypt will continue to support Gaza against continued attacks from Israeli armed forces, President Mohamed Morsy reiterated on Friday. "The price will be high if the aggression continues," Morsy said.

NATO seeks to improve partnership with South Korea

By Kim Eun-jung, Yonhap

Caveat Lector: Loose Determinism

By Kenneth Weisbrode

Josef Joffe has labored in the transatlantic vineyard for so long that the muddled judgment in his article in the latest issue of Commentary, comes as a surprise. Joffe has given the familiar reasons behind America’s resetting of priorities elsewhere: Europe is no longer the “strategic fulcrum of the world;” it is stagnating, even declining, […]

Sweden and Finland discussing unarmed air patrols over Iceland

By DPA

From DPA:  NATO welcomed plans by non-NATO members Finland and Sweden to patrol airspace over Iceland, the head of the defence alliance said Thursday.

NATO and Finland discuss further strengthening of partnership

By NATO

From NATO:  NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on a visit to Helsinki on Thursday (15 November) called for a deepening of the Alliance’s partnership with Finland. The Secretary General discussed NATO-Finnish cooperation with President Sauli Niinistö and thanked him for Finland’s continued commitment and contribution to the NATO-led missions in Afghanistan and Kosovo.   […]

Xi Jinping: China’s Gorbachev?

By Julian Lindley-French

Watching Xi Jinping being anointed as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party I could not help but recall that old Confucian saying, “Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life”.

Rasmussen and Ivanishvili discuss Georgia’s democracy and relationship with NATO

By NATO

From NATO:  Excerpts from joint press conference by NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and the Prime Minister of Georgia, Bidzina Ivanishvili.