Tag Archives: US

In the context of the New Great Game in Eurasia, the New Silk Roads, known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), integrates all of China’s instruments of national power – political, economic, diplomatic, financial, intellectual and cultural – to shape the 21stcentury geopolitical/geoeconomic order. BRI is the organizing concept of China’s foreign policy for the foreseeable future; the heart of what was conceptualized, even before President Xi Jinping, as China’s “peaceful rise.” The Trump...

Good read. The review is mostly about Russia, despite the title.The Duran Does the United States have a future? A new book by Gilbert Doctorow (book review)Alexander Mercouris

On Wednesday, the Hungarian Foreign Ministry summoned US envoy David Kostelancik to formally complain about Washington’s new $700,000 initiative to fund rural media outlets in the country. The program provides technical and financial assistance to these media outlets, granting them increased exposure as well as small grants.… Of course, there is some irony in the United States — a country that itself has experienced a precipitous drop in press freedom, from 20th in 2010 to 43rd in 2017...

Sputnik InternationalAnalysts Explain How China May Respond to US Push to Militarize Asia-Pacific Deutsche WelleNATO to beef up in face of 'assertive' Russia The Cipher BriefSecuring Orbit: Countdown to a Space Corps? Russia FeedCrimea has a shipyard ready to build a new fleet of Russian aircraft carriers USNIUPDATED: 7 U.S. Aircraft Carriers Are Now Simultaneously UnderwaySam LaGrone

Why the US works with respect to internal trade among states while the EZ doesn't.Pragmatic CapitalismThe Balance of Payments in the USA Cullen Roche

More twists and turns in the snake pit. Here we go again. Yesterday [Lebanese Prime Minister] Hariri was visited in Beirut by Ali Velayati, a top advisor of the supreme leader Khamenei of Iran. The Saudis did not like either. Thamer's plan was set into motion. They sent a private jet and hauled Hariri to Riyadh. There the Saudi clown prince Mohammad bin Salman gave Hariri his resignation statement (written by Thamer?) to be read by him on Saudi TV.  Irony alert: The Lebanese PM (with a...

A television interview of a top Qatari official confessing the truth behind the origins of the war in Syria is going viral across Arabic social media during the same week a leaked top secret NSA document was published which confirms that the armed opposition in Syria was under the direct command of foreign governments from the early years of the conflict. And according to a well-known Syria analyst and economic adviser with close contacts in the Syrian government, the explosive interview...

A loosely knit collection of Syrian rebel fighters set up positions on March 18, 2013, and fired several barrages of rockets at targets in the heart of Damascus, Bashar al-Assad’s capital. The attack was a brazen show of force by rebels under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, targeting the presidential palace, Damascus International Airport, and a government security compound. It sent a chilling message to the regime about its increasingly shaky hold on the country, two years after an...

U.S. President Donald Trump made it clear last week that he is close to withdrawing from the Iran accord unless Iran agrees to make changes. His chances for success are slim - and his blustering risks a dangerous escalation.… European diplomats are also concerned about the effects of a collapsed Iran accord might have on the conflict with North Korea. The Iran deal, after all, is the only blueprint available for how talks with the regime in Pyongyang might be initiated. "The worst thing...

The latest IMF Fiscal Monitor, “Tackling Inequality,” is out and it represents a direct challenge to the United States. Occasional Links & CommentaryTackle this!David F. Ruccio | Professor of Economics, University of Notre Dame