» Government Foreign Policy And Government
The Greatest Game - US And China Seek Influence In Burma And The Koreas
Editor's Note - Journalist Anthony C. LoBaido has spent the past two and one half years traveling between South Korea, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Taiwan and Sri Lanka and in a quest to understand the emerging dynamism of Asia. LoBaido has also spent the last several years teaching 25 courses involving topics such as Advanced Global Journalism, Advanced Globalization Studies, Strategic and Crisis Communication as well as Psychology of Communications. He also worked as a radio reporter for e-FM in Seoul while broadcasting reports from Thailand and Cambodia, trained high-level South Korean Army officers up to the rank of General, appeared in the definitive Korean documentary on U.N.. » read more
How Realistic Is a Change of US Policy Regarding Israel?
How Realistic Is a Change of US Policy Regarding Israel? Whoever said “it’s all about the economy, stupid,” got it only partially right. It is indeed all about the economy, or at least half of it is about the economy. The rest is about a country’s national interest. Typically, nations act or react to situations involving one of the above-mentioned reasons; either to safeguard their economies or to protect their national interests. So when the president of the United States says, as Barack Obama said several months ago that solving the Middle East crisis was in the national interest of the United States the people concerned should have stood up and listened before it was too late.. » read more
The Middle East is Changing, and Ankara Knows It
"Even despots, gangsters and pirates have specific sensitiveness, (and) follow some specific morals." The claim was made by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a recent speech, following the deadly commando raid on the humanitarian aid flotilla to Gaza on May 31. According to Erdogan, Israel doesn’t adhere to the code of conduct embraced even by the vilest of criminals. The statement alone indicates the momentous political shift that’s currently underway in the Middle East. While the shift isn’t entirely new, one dares to claim it might now be a lasting one.. » read more
US War Ships off the Chinese Coast
More and more Chinese citizens are incensed that the United States and South Korea will hold joint military drills in the Yellow Sea at the end of this month. The feelings of Chinese people must be respected if the United States sincerely wishes to safeguard the stability and prosperity of the western Pacific. The latest online survey by the Web site of the Global Times shows 96 percent of Chinese netizens believe it poses a threat to China that the U.S. aircraft carrier George Washington, as a symbol of the country's military power, may take part in the joint drills.. » read more
The US-NATO "Arc of War" Stretches From Afghanistan to the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates arrived in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, on June 6, meeting with President Ilham Aliyev on that day and on the following with Defense Minister Colonel General Safar Abiyev. Gates was the first cabinet-level American official to visit the strategically positioned nation – located in the South Caucasus with Russia to its north, Iran to its south and the Caspian Sea to its east – in five years and the first U.S.. » read more
Time to Look at AIPAC Contributions and Take American Foreign Policy Back
In the wake of Israel's bloody attack on American and other international peace activists of the Freedom Flotilla, now is a good time to examine what makes American policy toward Israel tick, which is embodied in one word: AIPAC. AIPAC is the right-wing lobby which directs millions of dollars toward congressional candidates in order to keep Israel's billions in American tax dollar assistance coming, and to keep the blank check on human rights violations from being questioned. If we are to believe the Israeli government's spin, IDF Special Forces commandos were just minding their own business rappelling armed-to-the teeth onto the ships, when they were forced to defend themselves. Let there be no mistake: Had North Korea committed a similar act in international waters against a humanitarian mission, resulting in a slaughter of activists, this morning in Congress there would be calls for war. That what we would expect from Congress, just moral condemnation of an atrocity against unarmed people by a crack unit wielding the latest automatic weapons, is not forthcoming, is a tribute to the power of AIPAC money and an excellent illustration of what is expected in return for it.. » read more
Kyrgyzstan's "Rose Revolution": Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and the Geopolitics of Central Asia PART II
China’s growing economic ties to the cash-strapped regime of former Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev was a major reason Washington decided to dump its erstwhile ally Akayev after almost a decade of support. In June 2001 China, along with Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, signed the Declaration creating the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Three days later Beijing announced a large grant to Kyrgyzstan for military equipment.[1] After 11 September 2001, the Pentagon began what has been called the greatest shake-up in America's overseas military deployments since the end of the Second World War. The goal was to position US forces along an 'arc of instability' going through the Mediterranean, Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia and southern Asia.. » read more
Kyrgyzstan as a Geopolitical Pivot in Great Power Rivalries Washington, Moscow, Beijing and the Geopolitics of Central Asia PART I
Part I: Kyrgyzstan as a Geopolitical Pivot The remote Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan is what Britain’s Halford Mackinder might call a geopolitical ‘pivot’—a land that, owing to its geographical characteristics, holds a pivotal position in Great Power rivalries. Today the tiny remote country is being shaken by what appears to be an extremely well-planned popular uprising to topple US-backed president Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Preliminary analysts suggested that Moscow had more than a passing interest in promoting regime change there and that the events unfolding might be Moscow’s attempt to stage its own ‘reverse’ version of Washington’s ‘Color Revolutions’ -- Georgia’s Rose Revolution of 2003 or Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004, as well as the 2005 Tulip Revolution that brought the pro-US Bakiyev to power. In the midst of this ongoing power shift in Kyrgyzstan, however, who is doing what to whom, is far from clear. At the very least, what is playing out has huge strategic implications for military security throughout the Eurasian Heartland -- from China to Russia and beyond.. » read more
Let Them Eat Twinkies
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Why We Won’t Leave Afghanistan or Iraq Yes, We Could... Get Out!
Yes, we could. No kidding. We really could withdraw our massive armies, now close to 200,000 troops combined, from Afghanistan and Iraq (and that's not even counting our similarly large stealth army of private contractors, which helps keep the true size of our double occupations in the shadows). We could undoubtedly withdraw them all reasonably quickly and reasonably painlessly. Not that you would know it from listening to the debates in Washington or catching the mainstream news.. » read more
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