US decline theorists are having a field day (year?), thanks to America’s worsening economic crisis. Among those predicting that the US will lose its superpower status are Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, and German finance minister Peer Steinbrück. Last week, even the US National Intelligence Council seemed to hint at the loss [Read more...]

One useful indicator of when countries will slip into recession or economic downturn is the completion dates of major skyscrapers. I’ve checked lists of major tall buildings, and almost all countries were entering a bleak period economically when prominent towers were completed or nearing completion. (The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat provides a [Read more...]

Last Saturday was a sad day for world trade, with Somali pirates seizing a Saudi-owned tanker carrying US$100 million worth of oil. The Sirius Star was hijacked 450 miles off the coast of Kenya, becoming the largest vessel ever hijacked.

If you thought that piracy was the stuff of old swashbuckling tales, think again. Indeed, [Read more...]

Now that the initial euphoria surrounding Barack Obama’s election as US president has dissipated somewhat, it is time to take a more sober look at the geopolitical implications of his presidency.

One of Obama’s biggest tasks will be to shore-up the United States’ global position in the wake of its financial meltdown, and years of anti-Americanism [Read more...]

On the eve of the US elections, the Middle East is asking itself which candidate would best suit its interests? As I have said before, I think the election will make less difference to foreign policy than people expect. Certainly it has become a less important question in the eyes of voters, especially now that [Read more...]

We are living in extraordinary times, and this makes predicting the nature of the post-credit crunch landscape increasingly difficult. Unfortunately, unlike the Isaac Mendes character from the US TV drama Heroes, I do not have the ability to paint visions of the future on canvas by going into a kind of hypnotic trance. However, what [Read more...]

One noteworthy aspect of the current global financial crisis has been the lack of coordinated international action by emerging nations. The G7 swung into action last week to deal with their own concerns, but there has not been a similar coordinated response from the world’s leading emerging markets – China, India, Brazil, Russia, Korea, et [Read more...]