Category Archives: Conflict & peace

Kim and Trump in Singapore: extraordinarily ordinary? – not quite

Posted on June 14, 2018 | 1 comment

That was a surprise. The Sentosa Island summit on 12 June between President Trump and DPRK leader Kim Jong-un produced an undramatic yet hopeful agreement. Quite a turn-up for the books, coming from two leaders famed for unpredictability. But components of the summit outside of the signed agreement showed Trump continuing to be a disruptor in world politics. Continue reading →

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Posted in Conflict & peace, Northeast Asia, Trump,

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Trump and the summits: disruptor or destructor?

Posted on June 11, 2018 | 2 comments

As we wait for the summit meeting between US President Donald Trump and DPRK Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un to unfold on Sentosa Island in Singapore, everyone is in waiting mode and there are few takers for the challenge of forecasting the outcome. There is a widespread sense of a precarious balance between the epoch-shaping risks and opportunities available, uncertainty about what two unpredictable leaders would achieve together or, indeed, wreck. The uncertainty was only deepened by the US President’s rejection of the agreed communiqué at the G7 summit in a Quebec village three days earlier.

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Posted in Conflict & peace, Power, The State of the World, Trump,

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Syria: the mission and the alternatives

Posted on April 18, 2018 | Leave a comment

On Saturday 7 April came reports that chemical weapons (CW) were used in Douma, Syria. In the very early hours of Saturday 14 April the US, France and the UK launched 105 cruise and air-to-surface missiles against a CW research centre and two CW storage facilities. US President Donald J Trump tweeted “Mission Accomplished!” But what was the mission? Continue reading →

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Posted in Conflict & peace, Uncategorized

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Impressions from Moscow – MCIS 2018

Posted on April 9, 2018 | 2 comments

The seventh Moscow Conference on International Security (MCIS) was on Wednesday 4 and Thursday 5 April. Listening to the speeches and chatting with various people during and after it, my first thoughts concern three related issues: the growing confidence of Russian policy; soft power; and shared concern about the increasing risks in global politics, together with deep differences about where those risks come from.  Continue reading →

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Posted in Conflict & peace, Uncategorized

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Sackings, summits and somersaults in US foreign policy

Posted on March 27, 2018 | 1 comment

It’s not quite “All change!” at the top of US foreign policy but not very far from it. Three key positions have changed in the last two weeks: Rex Tillerson out at the State Department, with Mike Pompeo coming from the CIA, where his Deputy Gina Haspel replaces him, and HR McMaster is out as National Security Advisor, replaced by John Bolton. So, er, what’s going on?  Continue reading →

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Posted in Conflict & peace, Northeast Asia, The Middle East

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Munich insecurities conference 2018

Posted on February 25, 2018 | 1 comment

The 2018 edition of the Munich Security Conference (MSC), a top level meeting on peace and security issues, was held on 16-18 February. Among the participants were “more than 30 heads of state and government and over 100 cabinet ministers from across the globe”. There was not much sense of actual security to be found. Continue reading →

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Posted in Conflict & peace

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2 minutes to midnight?

Posted on January 30, 2018 | Leave a comment

On 25 January, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced the current time on its long lasting Doomsday Clock: two minutes before midnight, the Editorial Board decided, with midnight, of course, equalling apocalypse. The following day, The Economist, a magazine, carried a cover story on ‘The Next War: the growing threat of a great power conflict’. Are things really that bad? And if so, what can be done about them? Continue reading →

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Posted in Conflict & peace, Northeast Asia, nuclear weapons, Uncategorized

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