Category Archives: Geopolitics by Geographical Regions

Arctic China (2) – The Chinese Shaping of the North

Over the last few years China has been multiplying commercial and political relationships with Arctic countries. Reciprocally, these countries have been deepening their Chinese bonds. For example, on 24 April 2014, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark paid a state visit to China, and was received by President Xi Jinping (Global Times, “China, Denmark eye closer relationship“, 2014-4-25). During this visit, a ceremony was held over the signature of several agreements, “involving maritime technology, energy conservation, and poverty elimination among other fields.” (Global Times, ibid). These new political and economic ties between Beijing and Copenhagen are being developed alongside new relations between China and Greenland (Viviane du Castel et Paulo Brito, Groenland, entre independence et recuperation géostratégique?, 2014), which, today, is partly autonomous …

Continue reading “Arctic China (2) – The Chinese Shaping of the North”

The remaining part of this article is for our members and those who purchased special access plans. Make sure you get real analysis and not opinion, or, worse, fake news. Log in and access this article.

The Red Team Analysis Weekly 155 – Narratives at War: EU-US vs Russia vs Crowdsourced?

Editorial – Narratives at war: There is a fascinating discrepancy at work between narratives found in the news. They vary according to the type of actors upon which one focuses. Actually the difference between some of them is so huge that one wonders if they describe the same world. Furthermore, if those narratives are rooted in the conflict in Ukraine they do not stop there but interact with and impact other areas and dimensions.Narrative One originates from the U.S. and Europe, with slightly varying emphases according to American or European origin. It runs somehow as follows: The conflict in Ukraine is (almost) over, thanks to legitimate democratic elections and the new Ukrainian President elect Poroshenko, who has outlined his peace plan. The next step is thus, …

Continue reading “The Red Team Analysis Weekly 155 – Narratives at War: EU-US vs Russia vs Crowdsourced?”

The remaining part of this article is for our members and those who purchased special access plans. Make sure you get real analysis and not opinion, or, worse, fake news. Log in and access this article.

Conflict in Ukraine – State of Play – The Oligarchic System

This article is the second of the series on the conflict in Ukraine and starts a review of the various domestic actors. It focuses on the oligarchic system, its dynamics and challenges.On 15 May 2014, steelworkers working for oligarch Rinat Akhmetov took over the city of Mariupol in the Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, as reported by Andrew Kramer for the New York Times, even if the People’s Republic of Donetsk seems to have kept power (e.g. Roza Kazan, 18 May 2014, deleted tweet twitter.com/rozakazancctv/status/467949602902405121), after Akhmetov released a first statement video (see original 14 May, with subtitles). Meanwhile, Kim Sengupta for The Independent, writing on the 9 May attack on Mariupol mentions that “An assortment took part in the assault, including a private army supposedly bankrolled by an oligarch – the “men …

Continue reading “Conflict in Ukraine – State of Play – The Oligarchic System”

The remaining part of this article is for our members and those who purchased special access plans. Make sure you get real analysis and not opinion, or, worse, fake news. Log in and access this article.

Arctic China (1) – The Dragon and the Vikings

On 15 March 2013, China and Iceland signed a bilateral free trade agreement (Ministry for foreign affairs, Iceland). This agreement was signed three months before the Republic of China became a “permanent observer”of the Arctic Stephen Blank, “China’s Arctic strategy“, The Diplomat, 20 June 2013), while the “Snow Dragon”, the first Chinese icebreaker, has already made five trips in the Arctic, in 1999, 2003, 2008, 2010 and 2012, at which occasion it sailed the Northern Sea Route. This political and economic move by Beijing reveals a deep evolution of the grand strategy of the People’s Republic of China, as well as the shifting balance of power in the north-Atlantic region and in the Arctic. Over the last twenty-five years, with a …

Continue reading “Arctic China (1) – The Dragon and the Vikings”

The remaining part of this article is for our members and those who purchased special access plans. Make sure you get real analysis and not opinion, or, worse, fake news. Log in and access this article.

Conflict in Ukraine – Setting the Stage

The crisis in Ukraine started on 21 November 2013 with the Euromaidan protests in Kiev. Six months later, it is threatening to become a full-blown civil war with severe global impacts, unless the situation is stabilised. As for any conflict it is important to assess possible futures and impacts at all levels.  Image: Mstyslav Chernov/Unframe – CC BY-SA 3.0This article starts a series on the conflict in Ukraine, which aims at providing the most possible useful analysis of the situation. As we did with Syria, the series will focus on the states of play for the actors and the situation on the ground, a necessary foundation for any proper strategic foresight and warning regarding the conflict.After outlining our analytical framework to overcome the difficulties related to propaganda, we shall define and …

Continue reading “Conflict in Ukraine – Setting the Stage”

The remaining part of this article is for our members and those who purchased special access plans. Make sure you get real analysis and not opinion, or, worse, fake news. Log in and access this article.

Egypt and Climate Security

Since 2008, when massive food riots took place, followed by the “Arab spring revolution” in 2011, Egypt has become a land of political, religious and social conflicts (Krista Mahr, “Bread is life: food and protest in Egypt“, Time Magazine, January 31, 2011; Georges Corm, Le Proche-Orient éclaté, 2012), some of them between armed militant and religious factions on the one hand, the police, the military and the secret services, on the other. Meanwhile the civil society strongly emerges. Beyond spectacular events, the causes of these domestic political and religious conflicts are rooted, among other factors, into international and climate change dynamics. In effect, Egypt’s society and politics are deeply affected by the entanglement of economic, political, environmental and climate change …

Continue reading “Egypt and Climate Security”

The remaining part of this article is for our members and those who purchased special access plans. Make sure you get real analysis and not opinion, or, worse, fake news. Log in and access this article.

Security and Sustainability: the Future of Egypt?

The new constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt, approved in January 2014, states, in four articles, the rights and duties of the state and of the citizens about the Suez Canal, the environment and natural resources, and the Nile.These articles have a political and strategic meaning in the current domestic security situation, dominated by rising tensions between the military, the Muslim Brotherhood, and a catastrophic economic situation, heightened by the environmental and international context of Egypt and of the Nile riparian countries.To understand the political and strategic situation of Egypt, today and during the twenty years to come we must consider the context of its current national sustainability crisis (Valantin, Egypt, climate change and the long resource civil warfare, …

Continue reading “Security and Sustainability: the Future of Egypt?”

The remaining part of this article is for our members and those who purchased special access plans. Make sure you get real analysis and not opinion, or, worse, fake news. Log in and access this article.

Actors and Factors In Future Threats Analysis (3) – The Crisis in Ukraine

(photo by Andrew Butko, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)This article focuses on a third analytical challenge at the core of the foresight and warning process, the fact that actors and “factors”, or rather variables, are often mixed together. Using the example of the unfolding crisis in Ukraine, the first article of the series explained how to map a strategic foresight and warning question, notably how to move from factors to variables and the second underlined the importance to define and name the actors relevant to the question as objectively as possible and suggested ways to do it.The “black box” actorAs we recall from the last post, during the first steps of a mapping for the future evolution of the crisis in Ukraine, both factors …

Continue reading “Actors and Factors In Future Threats Analysis (3) – The Crisis in Ukraine”

The remaining part of this article is for our members and those who purchased special access plans. Make sure you get real analysis and not opinion, or, worse, fake news. Log in and access this article.

The Red Team Analysis Weekly 148 – A strange bipolar world?

Editorial – A strange bipolar world? – As previously suggested (see the Weekly 142, 143 & 145), the crisis in Ukraine seems to be accelerating some of the profound transformations that are globally at work, as consequences spread to Asia, and as doubts are being cast about the U.S. real commitment to, interest or capabilities in the region. Yet, and interestingly, the rhetoric against Russia from “the West” is strong and quite unanimously spread across (Western) media. As other noteworthy changes happen according to their own specific domestic and regional dynamics, such as the possibility to see Israel forging new ties with Arab states, we may wonder if the return to a Cold War type of discourse is not actually participating in the acceleration of change. In other words, …

Continue reading “The Red Team Analysis Weekly 148 – A strange bipolar world?”

The remaining part of this article is for our members and those who purchased special access plans. Make sure you get real analysis and not opinion, or, worse, fake news. Log in and access this article.

Egypt, Climate Change and the Long Resource Civil Warfare

Since the “Arab spring” reached Egypt in January 2011, the political situation has evolved quite quickly (Georges Corm, Le Proche-Orient éclaté, 2012). Many observers analyse the Egyptian political landscape as a battlefield between the Army, the Muslim Brotherhood, and a growing number of people wanting to experience democracy, while the whole situation is being put under pressure by a very degraded economic situation (Seumas Milne, The Revenge of History, 2013). Moreover, those different actors are participating in the political tensions between Arab countries, especially Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and between these countries and the U.S. (Corm, ibid). Egypt has tremendous political importance in the Middle East, in Africa, and at the international and global level. Since the antiquity, this very singular …

Continue reading “Egypt, Climate Change and the Long Resource Civil Warfare”

The remaining part of this article is for our members and those who purchased special access plans. Make sure you get real analysis and not opinion, or, worse, fake news. Log in and access this article.

EN
FR ZH EN