D. Finkelstein, Times of London
hey promised. There are lots of reasons why not concluding a trade deal after Brexit would have been a political problem for ministers, but the biggest one is that they made a promise.
Ido Vock, New Statesman
Bobby Ghosh, Japan Times
For much of 2020, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan relied on foreign-policy adventurism to divert attention from Turkey's economic crisis and his AK Party's political travails. His aggressive forays in Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh and the Eastern Mediterranean helped overshadow the political reversals of the previous year, when the AKP lost local elections in major cities — none more embarrassing than that of Erdogan's old stronghold of Istanbul — and a significant decline in membership. Читать дальше...
James MacHaffie, Jamestown
Recent clashes between India and China over the Line of Actual Control (LAC) have created a potential existential crisis for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). The dispute flared up in May of this year, escalating in June and resulting in the first deaths of Indian soldiers at the hands of Peoples' Liberation Army (PLA) soldiers since 1967. Both China and India are members of the SCO cooperative security framework, which faces pressure to resolve the stand-off. Читать дальше...
Sergey Radchenko, M. Times
Even as the Soviet Union withered and declined, the KGB and the GRU seemed both more competent and, oddly, cleaner than the current security forces.
Brahma Chellaney, Project Syndicate
China has never hesitated to use its hydro-hegemony against its downstream neighbors. With its planned new mega-dam on the Yarlung Zangbo river, it is taking this approach to the next level.
James Holmes, 1945
The closer the U.S. and its allies come to fielding a cohesive democratic armada, the better their chances of deterring agressors like China
