Financial Markets

Quite complex . .  and risky ! Syria, Iran, and the Balance of Power in the Middle East November 22, 2011 By George Friedman U.S. troops are in the process of completing their withdrawal from Iraq by the end-of-2011 deadline. We are now moving toward a reckoning with the consequences. The reckoning concerns the potential for a massive [...]

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Paul Yingling has spoken up before . . .   ISAF Exit Strategy: Neither International nor an Exit nor a Strategy Colonel Paul Yingling, U.S. Army Based on remarks delivered at International Security Assistance Force, Afghanistan: 2001-2011-2014, the Roles and Capabilities of South-East Europe Countries Zagreb, Croatia October 12, 2011 Willy Brandt famously said of [...]

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Tom Barnett, one of my favourite thinkers on geopolitics . . . The New Rules: The Rise of the Rest Spells U.S. Strategic Victory By Thomas P.M. Barnett | 12 Sep 2011 The 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has garnered America almost as much schadenfreude from the world as the original events did. Back in [...]

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  Interesting thinking . . the kind I like the most http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/76739/qa-edward-luttwak/ Q&A: Edward Luttwak The military strategist talks about Israeli security, Henry Kissinger, the Arab Spring, and the death of Osama Bin Laden By David Samuels|September 6, 2011 12:01 AM   Edward Luttwak is a rare bird whose peripatetic life and work are the envy [...]

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Not one of my favourite people . . but worth reading . . . 09/05/2011 01:16 PM SPIEGEL Interview with Gerhard Schröder ‘Europe Needs to Wake Up’ In a SPIEGEL interview, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, 67, discusses the German government’s learning curve in the euro crisis and his idea of a United States of Europe. He [...]

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George Friedman’s perspective . . . .   9/11 and the Successful War Created Sep 6 2011 – 03:54     By George Friedman It has been 10 years since 9/11, and all of us who write about such things for a living are writing about it. That causes me to be wary. I prefer being [...]

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A nice thought peice . . Keeping America’s Edge JIM MANZI The United States is in a tough spot. As we dig ourselves out from a serious financial crisis and a deep recession, our very efforts to recover are exacerbating much more fundamental problems that our country has let fester for too long. Beyond our [...]

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Moscow Just before Christmas in 1997, as a tumultuous stock-market crisis ravaged emerging markets in every corner of the globe, readers of the Wall Street Journal were treated to some good news: Russia was going to emerge from the mess unscathed. While conceding that “few debt markets outside Southeast Asia were hit harder by recent financial [...]

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Letter From Kabul What the United States Must Overcome in Afghanistan Kim Barker KIM BARKER is Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Part I: Corruption In his inauguration speech, Afghan President Hamid Karzai stressed the importance of the country’s fight against corruption and spoke of his commitment to ending “the [...]

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Agree with Willem Buitler . . . stay tuned as 2010 could be another year of volatile financial markets as the difficulties spread to nation-states. Willem Buitler : Professor of European Political Economy, London School of Economics and Political Science; former chief economist of the EBRD, former external member of the MPC; adviser to international organisations, [...]

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