StrategyUnit:Foreign Policy & Security Issues Blog

“I must study politics and war that my sons many have liberty to study mathenatematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, navel architecture,navigation, commerce, and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.” - John Adams from Letter to Abigail Adams

Winter Break Reading at Strategy Unit

Winter work break is a good time to do some catch-up reading. Just in case youre curious, here’s the reading list. It ranges from the political stuff to Arthurian romances to SU’s obligatory readings in Slavic literature. If you have any suggestions, feel free to mention them in the comments section. “The ...

Happy Christmas-Hanukkah!

StrategyUnit will be back sometime later…nothing major until after the New Year. Happy Holidays and Have a Happy New Year

China as a Raising Superpower, but also Insecure? A look at Geography

Introduction Everyone is talking about China as the raising superpower, with growing voices of China as a threat to the United States. There is not doubt that if China’s economic course continues, it will be a regional than global challenger to the U.S. But what is generally never discussed or even ignored ...

Global Swarm: Explaining GWOT through Thomas Barnett, Huntington, Global Guerillas

Introduction I wrote a paper some years ago that I’d like to bring out to StrategyUnit, since I feel there is still a lot of room to discuss the (mislabeled) Global War on Terror (GWOT). Indeed, I believe that there is a supreme lacking in the mature development of a conceptual ...

East Asia Summit: A Future Without America

This week begins the first East Asia Summit (EAS) with over 16 countries invited, representing “3 billion people and one-fifth of global trade“. As the Washington Post writes: As proposed by Malaysia and championed by China, the summit was conceived as a way for the 10 countries of the Association ...

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 ...

Trans-Asia Energy Grid? (Mini-Post)

Sorry for the very late posting, work has been extra busy with the coming holidays. I am working on 2-3 articles, but for now here is an interesting development via AsiaTimes’s “The foundations for an Asian oil and gas grid“: Stung by the rising international price of oil and domestic shortages ...

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 ...

UN Reform by Competition?

Introduction Koffi Annan’s push for UN reform has come and gone. Indeed, as the Washington Post reported last week, there are already moves to push for candidates as Annan retires on December 2005. But it’s unlikely that Koffi Annan can make any reforms in his remaining tenure; and indeed, it must be ...

Al-Qaida, Salafi, Islamist - What’s in a Name? (A Quick Post)

NAZI! Communists! Hippies! Its easy to hate and focus on someone when you have a nice quick, short name for them. Lashing out against “Nationalist Socialist”, “Total Socialist System under Centralized Planning” and “Free Spirited non-Conformist” is not easy to do. (And yes, I know some of my descriptions are not ...

December 28th 2006
Tags: Commentary, Enviormental Security One Comment

Global Warming Preparedness and Security?

London Underwater, by the Telegraph 12/28/2006 Raising Water Levels on London and China's Drought/Grain Problem As we close 2006 and look to 2007, two global warming major reports - one from Finland and other from China - presents the increasingly dire environmental situation we are facing globally. And whether or not one ...
December 24th 2006
Tags: Commentary, Iran No Comments

The Strategy on Iran and The NY Times Retracted Op-Ed

Introduction: Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann's Retracted Op-Ed Many should know by the the issue involving White House censorship of the Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann's New York Times Op-Ed (see image on left). I have no issue regarding the prepublication review by the CIA's Publication Review Board to ensure to classified ...
November 28th 2006
Tags: Europe, Islamic Terrorism 3 Comments

751 No-Go-Zones in France: The Gap Societies

A "Zones Urbaines Sensibles" (No-Go-Zone) in Nice, France (PDF) . Via Thomas Barnett, Daniel Pipes discusses the 751 Zones Urbaines Sensibes (Sensitive Urban zones) demarcated by the French Government, which are "are conveniently listed on one long webpage, complete with street demarcations and map delineations." Daniel goes on to state: What are they? Those ...

The Mujahideen Network in Spain: Supporting Fighters in Iraq

Quick Post In Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Focus (11/21/06), there are reports that "agents of the Spanish National Police in Madrid arrested four men because of their involvement in a document falsification ring that had, as its primary mission, the objective of providing documentation cover to "mujahideen" leaving Iraq and trying to ...
November 25th 2006
Tags: 4gw, Iraq and Afghanistan One Comment

Iraqi Global Guerrillas and the Sustainable Ecology

Iraqi Guerrillas are now Financially Self-Sufficient Only last week did John Robb at Global Guerrillas noted that: Iraq's non-state guerrillas aren't mere proxies of Iran. Instead, they are largely autonomous. First, these groups don't rely upon Iran for their operating income since they can manufacture income through participation in black globalization's multi-trillion dollar ...

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