Category: miscellaneous

  • Fukuyama on Europe’s Identity Crisis and Islam

    Quick Post – Francis Fukayama on Europe’s Identity Crisis and IslamEurope, Muslims, Demographics and Eurabia On Slate Magazine today, Francis Fukayama’s “Europe vs. Radical Islam” takes to tasks the rash of “decline of Europe, raise of Eurabia” books that have been hitting American shelves lately, specifically “The West’s Last Chance” by Tony Blankley and “While…

  • Needed in Asia: Security and Energy Cooperation

    SummaryMany commentators have discussed the possibility of the Six-Party Talks on North Korea – which consist of China, Japan, US, Russia and the two Koreas – as the future basis for a security forum for Northeast Asia. East Asia is an important and dynamic region with growing economies and equally growing security needs, yet formal…

  • What’s at Stake with the UAE Port Deal: US Bases, Force Projection, Defense Contracts

    Spook86’s “In From the Cold” is a blog folks need to check out. Spook86 mentions some possible motives behind Bush Administration’s support for the UAE port deal: From Port Call: Cancelling the port deal could mean the end of U.S. basing rights in the UAE, strained relations with other regional partners, and the potential loss…

  • Quick Links: Hamas Votes, Psiphon and State Power, Japan in Central Asia, John Woo on FISA, and Beer

    Today’s Quick Links 1. Hamas: Winning the Candidates, not Votes? Via Chief Wiggum and Coming Anarchy, comes this interesting story: A close look at the final results of last month’s Palestinian election shows that the apparent landslide that gave Hamas 74 of the 132 seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council and only 45 to the…

  • “Netwar Nightmare: Mexican Narco State” – Update

    Introduction Back in November, StrategyUnit wrote on the “War on Drugs” escalation in Mexico and the great danger it poses for US security: The U.S. and its “War on Drugs” is partially the cause of the escalation of the drug war. The US and other states have escalated the war, only to encourage the development…

  • Obesity and Health as an Economic Security Issue (Part II)

    In military strategy, its trendy to talk about Fourth Generation Warfare (4Gw) and the notion of the “multi-dimensional battlefield”, where understanding religion, social dynamics, culture, economics is as important as counting a state’s number of tanks and airplanes. Back in November 2005, StrategyUnit discussed posed the question of obesity as a security threat and pointed…

  • Quick Post: Nukes, New-Core, and New Realities

    Introduction Tom Friedman’s recent NYT column, “Axis of Order?”, is a very interesting article not because of its main topic, dealing with Iran, but its recognition that we need to adjust to new realities of the new-core states. In essence, the need for bringing in the new-core states like China, Russia and India into the…

  • Market-States, Challenge of Changing Demographics, and The Netherlands

    Summary Declining birthrates in places like Europe, Japan and Russia and increasing immigration in once homogenous states (like France) is becoming an issue of mainstream discussion. Just last week (January 04 & 05), the WSJ and the Economist both ran articles on the issue of demographics, commenting on the opposite ends but equally faulty premises.…

  • US and the New Allies?

    As in update to my previous posting “Barnett’s Path to a U.S. Grand Strategy in Three Paragraphs“, Curzon at “Coming Anarchy” has an excellent post (”The New Allies”): The United Kingdom is our main ally inside the EU. Althouh a part of the union, Britain does not use the Euro and emphasizes the “one market”…

  • Barnett’s Path to a U.S. Grand Strategy in Three Paragraphs

    Too many people are stuck in the old ways of thinking, be it ideaologues like neoconservatives to International ANSWER or jingoism of the Anti-China folks. Thomas Barnett is not one of them. In his blog posting today, Thomas Barnett succinctly offers a very different perspective and game plan on what the U.S. must pursue to…