This (long) post ends the current series of updates on the Syrian war. It focuses on the evolution within the National Coalition and the Supreme Military Council, the expected failure of Geneva 2 and the start of a new phase in the Syrian war. This will allow us, next, to finally turn to an evaluation of our scenarios and indicators.The National Coalition and the Supreme Military CouncilThe last alliance to emerge over the Autumn has been Syria Revolutionaries Front (SRF), created on 9 December 2013 (see Youtube video), which is composed of moderate or non-ideologically motivated groups, as detailed by Lund (13 Dec 2013) and mapped below (click on the image for a larger picture). It is a reaction to the Salafi-Nationalist re-organization as …
Category Archives: Geopolitics by Geographical Regions
The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly No140 – A new strategic configuration in the Far East and globally?
Editorial – Towards a new strategic configuration in the Far East and globally? Japan, China, the U.S. and Russia – As so many are focusing on the last round of global protests, now in Ukraine, in Venezuela, and in Thailand (although the situation there is much less emphasized in crowdsourced news), or on the seemingly …
Afghanistan at a New Crossroad: Resource Curse or Asian integration?
The first sentence of the 2006 US Quadrennial Defence Review is “The United States is a nation engaged in what will be a long war”. Any civilian, military or factious leader in Afghanistan, could have written almost exactly the same after thirty-five years of war. And this war still goes on, but it now faces a strange strategic, ecological and economic transition, that could be dominated by a new “Afghan resource and climate curse”. Failed state-building, climate and war From 1969 to 1972, Afghanistan went through a terrible drought and a harsh winter. A terrible famine followed, which ravaged the populations of central Afghanistan. The titanic scale of incompetence, mismanagement and corruption of the Kabul government aggravated it, and maybe …
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The Kurds and Rojava, State-Building in the Syrian War
During the Autumn 2013 and Winter 2014, we witnessed a major reconfiguration of forces in Syria, as seen previously, including with the rise of Salafi-Nationalists. This article looks at the evolution that took place in Western Kurdistan, notably the birth of novel political institutions, Rojava, and how and why the Kurds relate to the Geneva conference that took place in early 2014.Creating RojavaWe recall that on 10 July 2013, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) declared starting making plans to move towards some degree of autonomy for Rojava or the Syrian part of Kurdistan (see for detail 4 Nov 2013 update, 2.1.). News about Rojava and its “project” can be followed on its own website, created in August 2013 and maintained until 2017.The PYD moved forward on 11 November …
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Pakistan and the “Long Storm”
Events show that Pakistan is on the most advanced front lines of climate change. How thus should we re-read the already complex and interacting geopolitical, geostrategic and domestic situations of Pakistan and what does that mean strategically for the region and the world?
Facing the Fog of War in Syria: the Rise of the Salafi-Nationalists?
Since October 2013, much has been going on in Syria. We shall first review major changes in the state of play for the Syrian actors, starting with the Salafi-Nationalist groups, before to re-evaluate our scenarios and their indicators in the light of recent events, notably Geneva 2.As was already underway during September, the various groups opposing the regime of Bashar al-Assad have pursued their reconfiguration, while the relationships and interactions among them have evolved.The Islamic FrontA logical evolutionIf the “Islamic framework” (see update 21 Oct), created on 24 September 2013, was short-lived, as expected by many experts, it was nevertheless an important indication of the changes taking place on the ground, while its very composition foretold the current configuration.To facilitate the …
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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly – 23 January 2014 – The power of biases
Editorial – The power of biases: This week strikingly underlines the power of biases and how much beliefs and wishful thinking may overtake our understanding and lead human actions, constraining among other the timeliness of ideas and policies. First, we have the sudden realization by Davos participants that yes, war between China and Japan is …
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How to Analyze Future Security Threats (5): Scenarios and Crises
This article is the fifth of a series looking for a methodology that would fulfil the challenging criteria demanded by our time, notably in terms of speed and resources. The previous article focused on how to build scenarios for war.Here we look at scenarios for situations qualified as non-violent crises, taking mainly as example the crisis between China and Japan in the East China Sea over the Diaoyu (China)/Senkaku (Japan) Islands. War or crisis? It is important, first, to note that the words used in political discourses to qualify a situation may create an element of confusion when we think about an issue such as crisis, conflict and war. Actors may have many reasons for using euphemisms rather than factual, …
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Arctic Warming and Eurasian Grand Strategies
In May 2013, several Asian countries obtained the status of “permanent observer” at the Arctic Council, the body that gathers the eight countries bordering the Arctic. These new “observers” are China, India, South Korea, Singapore, and Japan (Russia Today, Northern exposure, May 15, 2013). This rush of Asian (some of them tropical and equatorial) countries to the Arctic is one of the most important dimensions of the current global race to the Arctic region (see Valantin, “Arctic, the New great game”), triggered by the combination of the rapid warming of the North and the global competition for natural resources (Klare, The Race for what’s left, 2013). The new grand strategies ruling over this race to the Arctic, which combine national …
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The Arctic Power Race: the New Great Game
This post opens a new series dealing with the Arctic, its environmental change and its evolving geopolitics and security. The Arctic death spiral, or “Melting is coming” Thanks to the widespread rapid melting of Arctic sea ice during the 2013 summer season, a Chinese freighter crossed the famous Northwest passage, shortening its journey from Dalian, China, to Rotterdam, by more than two weeks in August 2013. Between 22 and 26 September, the Nordic Orion, a bulk freighter going from Vancouver, Pacific Canada, to Finland, used the same passageway. It was transporting coal. The opening of this mythical passageway in summer over the last few years is the result of the way global warming is massively impacting the whole Arctic region. …
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