The summer of 2016 has been a major pivot in the history of mankind. In effect, on 30 August, the definition of the current geological epoch as the “Anthropocene Era” has been officially validated, during the 35th International Geological Congress, in Cape Town, South Africa (Noel Castree, “An Official Welcome to the Anthropocene Epoch”, RD …
Continue reading “The Anthropocene Era and Economic (in)Security – (1)”
In April 2016, some important oil-producing Middle Eastern countries, as the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Iran, were present among the representatives of more than 155 countries headed to the U.N. in New York to ratify the international climate accord negotiated during the Paris COP 21 (“UAE vows to make climate deal work”, The National UAE, April 23, 2016). Less than a month later, from North America to Russia, places especially vulnerable to climate change are shaken by immense wildfires. Prominent among these extreme weather events, is the mega wildfire that devastates the region of Fort Mc Murray, in the Alberta state of Canada (Bryan Alary, “Fort Mc Murray blaze among “most extreme” of wild fires says researcher”, Phys.org, May …
Continue reading “Alberta Mega Wildfire and the United Arab Emirates Security”
Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… Read the 16 April scan → World – Two major developments should more particularly be underlined this week, the first related to world order and further threat to the U.S. Dollar supremacy and the second to the potential forthcoming anti-Bashar al-Assad Saudi-Turkish attacks in Syria. First, there is the impact of the lower oil prices on petrodollars, with potential second order effects on the supremacy of the U.S. dollars as international currency, and then again potential consequences on American power and world order. As underlined in Bloomberg’s article (see “Oil-Rich Nations Are Selling Off Their Petrodollar Assets at Record Pace” in the Weekly), currently analysts are divided in two schools of …
Continue reading “The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly 199 – Of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Petrodollars”
In his book Climate wars-the fight for survival as the world overheats (2010), author Gwynn Dyer proposes a “chronicle” of the coming decades, through a series of eight geopolitical scenarios going from 2019 to 2055 (“The Year 2045; Russia 2019; United States, 2029; Northern India, 2036; A Happy Tale; US and UK, 2055; China, 2042; Wipeout”). These scenarios are attempts to study the most probable political behaviours of governments, while climate change goes out of control. As the latter will affect the cycle of water, monsoons, seasons, thus food and water supply all over our world, whole nations will be faced with massive challenges and gigantic flows of “eco refugees”, while strategic tensions and risks of regional nuclear exchanges over …
Continue reading “Environment, Climate Change, War and State”
Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… Read the 5 March scan → World – This week featured article is Seumas Milne’s “The demonisation of Russia risks paving the way for war” for The Guardian. Milne, by emphasising how “Politicians and the media are using Vladimir Putin and Ukraine to justify military expansionism” and stressing how it is “a dangerous folly” – which we borrowed as title, perfectly summarises the tragic escalation towards war we are currently living. The anti-Russian sentiment has reached such a paroxysm, supported by analysts, who never use evidence, nor anymore footnotes to substantiate their claims or judgement, and mix good analysis with convenient ones, where inconvenient facts are forgotten, that any attempt to try coming back to better researched …
Continue reading “The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly 193 – “A Dangerous Folly””
Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… We present below some of the most interesting or relevant features for each section. Read the 12 February scan → World (all matters related to war, international and national security) – In terms of major issues, increasingly, one week looks very much like the next, as matters get entrenched. However, within each issue, problems emerge, evolve and sometimes coalesce. Joseph Nye, in his small but excellent book Understanding International Conflicts: An Introduction to Theory and History, wrote in a part aptly named The Funnel of Choices: “Events close in over time, degrees of freedom are lost and the probability of war increases. But the funnel of choices available to leaders might open up again, and degrees of freedom could …
Continue reading “The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly 191 – Minsk and the Probability of War”
Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… We present below some of the most interesting or relevant features for each section. World (all matters related to war, international and national security) – With the return of war to Eastern Ukraine, we are witnessing an interesting effort by some authors to try to make sense of a US-led foreign policy and analysis of the world that does not appear to make sense to them, besides, of course, the host of usual anti-Russian articles. The articles in The American Interest (“Putin’s World: In It To Win It” by Walter Russell Mead) and Salon (“Distortions, lies and omissions: The New York Times won’t tell you the real story behind Ukraine, Russian economic collapse” by Patrick …
The world oil flood is quickly rising. As we have seen in “Oil Flood (1): The Kingdom is Back”, the decisions taken by OPEC members and Russia not to curb oil production, while Saudi Arabia is forcing prices down, are much more about power politics and strategies than about economics and the “invisible hand” of the logic of “supply and demand”. We shall now focus on what the evolution of the current oil market reveals about current and future geopolitics. Since the end of November, especially since the 27 November OPEC meeting, prices have kept falling down, while the main producers, chiefly among them Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, and the private U.S. companies, have all decided, for reasons of their own, to maintain …
Continue reading “Oil Flood (2) – Oil and Politics in a (Real) Multipolar World”
Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… We present below some of the most interesting or relevant features for each section. World (all matters related to war, international and national security) – Some analysts seem to hail the move towards the normalization of U.S.-Cuba relations as an evidence that the U.S. is truly ending the Cold …
Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… We present below some of the most interesting or relevant features for each section. World (all matters related to war, international and national security) – Besides developments in the Islamic State War, and on the broader Jihadi front, continuing tensions between NATO and Russia, and related uncertainties for the situation in Ukraine, what stands out this week is, potentially, how much the U.S. and their supremacy are under threats and how they could fight back, or not. Interestingly, this perception of multiple threats to the U.S. only emerges if one considers various sections together, namely, world (of course), technology and armaments, energy and economy. We thus have together the decline of oil prices …
Continue reading “The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly 182 – The U.S. under Threats?”
