As our decade draws to a close, several important developments are taking place that could have a major geopolitical impact in the 2010s. The first is obviously the foiled Christmas Day plot to destroy Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit. This was a firm reminder that international Islamist terrorism against Western countries is still very much… [Read more]
Eight years after the ‘9/11’ terror attacks, the outcome of the subsequent ‘War on Terror’ is still inconclusive. Overall, I have not really changed my view from the blog post I wrote on the seventh anniversary. Neither ‘the West’ and its allied governments nor al-Qaeda and its offshoots have scored a decisive blow. In any… [Read more]
One of the consequences of China’s crackdown on the Uighurs of Xinjiang Autonomous Region is that it could tarnish the country’s standing in the eyes of Muslim nations (and other countries for that matter, but the key point here is that Uighurs are Muslims). This would be a setback for Beijing’s hopes of emerging as… [Read more]
As we mark the seventh anniversary of the ‘9/11’ terror attacks, the only real conclusion I have is that the outcome of the subsequent ‘War on Terror’ is inconclusive. Part of the confusion stems from the fact that it is not clear what ‘victory’ is. For the West, is victory merely preventing further terror attacks,… [Read more]