The question is whether any government has benefitted from the Gulf War that began on 28 February when Israel and the USA attacked Iran. How do the costs and benefits stack up politically? Whose national interests have been enhanced by the war so far?
Continue readingSyria
Attack on Iran: unclear motives, unknown outcomes & energy vulnerability
In my previous post about the onslaught on Iran by Israel and the USA, I used the metaphor of a coin toss to say how hard it is to forecast the outcome. I left it to others to work out the motive for the attack, unpicking the incoherent contradictions in what the US President has said, weighing the various statements and retractions others have made. Instead, I pondered the question of regime change. It was once derided as a US goal by Trump but now he has adopted. Or maybe not since some of his recent statements boil down to saying the war is won though it is not over.
Anyway, as to regime change, I saw three possible outcomes: the hoped for democratic transition; an even more repressive state; and civil war. News that the CIA has been getting ready to support a Kurdish insurgency makes it seem that civil war is the likeliest.
Continue readingAnd 2019: what could/should happen next?
2018 was another year of uncertainty and a spreading feeling of insecurity. What could turn that round in 2019? Here are some thoughts:
Syria: the mission and the alternatives
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
Impressions from Moscow – MCIS 2018
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
Is the US preparing to engage on two fronts?
It has been a disturbing few days. On Tuesday 4 April, Syrian aircraft allegedly used nerve gas against civilians. On Thursday 6, the US responded by attacking Syrian forces for the first time. On Friday 7, there was a truck attack in central Stockholm, the city’s first terror incident since December 2010. On Saturday 8, a US naval task force set out for northeast Asia to strengthen US sea power near the Korean peninsula. A small bomb was discovered in Oslo. On Sunday 9, nearly 50 people died from bomb attacks at two churches in the Nile delta.
Amid the uncertainties of the time, it’s worth asking if the US is about to get engaged in armed conflict on two fronts. Continue reading
European security in its winter of discontent
This year’s Munich Security Conference was held amid an atmosphere of deep foreboding. It became a meeting that was not so much about western security as about the West itself. Continue reading
Whither Peace?
Today is the UN International Day of Peace and it comes at a time when many people seem to feel peace is taking a horrible worldwide kicking. Is it so bad? Continue reading
Syria – myth and argument about non-intervention
Last week an article in the Washington Post stirred what seemed like quite a Twitter buzz, lamenting the effects of “the disastrous nonintervention in Syria“. The article is angry and vivid about the misery and destruction wrought by war in Syria. It blames the war’s continuation largely on the US deciding not to intervene in the war. It is an argument that could become influential so it’s worth examining. Continue reading
European security. Crisis? What crisis?
The tone of this year’s Munich Security Conference – the Davos of global security – was captured by the Munich Security Report’s theme: ‘Boundless chaos, reckless spoilers, helpless guardians.’ The front page headline on The Security Times, a conference special edition from the stable of Die Zeit, featured a box of matches and urged an appropriate response: ‘Don’t do stupid stuff.’ Continue reading
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