US President Barack Obama’s formal declaration of the end of US combat operations in Iraq on August 31 is a good a moment as any to reflect on the war, the United States’ global position, and Obama himself.

Iraq War: Have The Goals Been Achieved?

First, let me address the Iraq War itself. There were several publicly [Read more...]

For some years now, social scientists and some economic historians have spoken about how cities are displacing nation-states as the most important actors on the world stage. The latest edition of Foreign Policy magazine carries an article along these lines, with the tag ‘The age of nations is over. The new urban age has begun’. [Read more...]

Infrastructure has shown resilience in the face of the economic downturn, and investment in the sector was used to boost aggregate demand during the global recession of 2009. However, governments around the world are now moving from stimulus to austerity. As the dust settles on the new initiatives used to attract private (rather than public) [Read more...]

At long last, the Iraq War appears to be over.

The US has been winding down its troop presence in Iraq for many months now, and will have reduced this to 50,000 by the end of August from a peak of 170,000 at the height of the ‘surge’ against the insurgency there in 2007. Under a [Read more...]

Corruption is a major problem for most emerging markets, and in truth, quite a few developed states. Time and time again in BMI’s analysis on emerging markets, my colleagues and I have written on how governments need to crack down on corruption, if they want to attract greater foreign investment and prosper. However, this is [Read more...]

On this week’s podcast, we return our attention to emerging markets, highlighting opportunities beyond the BRICs in EMEA- Europe, Middle East and Africa. Business Monitor’s Head of Country Risk and Financial Markets Justin Patrie, discusses the outlook for Egypt, Ghana and Turkey with Mark Schaltuper, Head of Europe Analysis, Liz Martins, Head of Middle East [Read more...]

 

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Last year, I mentioned that if Emerging Markets are truly to dominate the 21st century, then they would have to capture the world’s imagination through ‘soft power’, which I defined to mean cultural appeal. While I expect this will be a long-term process, evidence of Emerging Markets’ ability to transform Hollywood was apparent in a [Read more...]