The decision by Prime Minister Tsipras (e.g. The Guardian) on 26 June 2015 to consult Greek citizens in a referendum on their wish to accept or not the never-ending austerity measures demanded as part of the current bailout was obviously an unexpected move for Greece’s creditors. From the Greek government’s point of view, it was, however, a logical one considering …
Continue reading “Greece and the BRICS Bank, a Forgotten Scenario?”
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”
Numerous Chinese cities go through what is now dubbed an “airpocalypse” mainly due to the explosion of coal plants and transport by cars. In the meantime, Russia is renewing and expanding its network of oil and gas pipelines toward China. Meanwhile, the Arctic and subarctic region is going through a major atmospheric warming of more …
Continue reading “The Arctic, Russia and China’s Energy Transition”
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) – An excellent article by Prof Anatol Lieven for BBC News on “How can the West solve its Ukraine problem?” addresses – at long last – most problems related to the Ukrainian crisis in a masterful, objective and constructive way, not shying away from the very difficult situation into which Ukraine now is. The fact it is published by BBC News is positive and might signal that we could enter a healthier period regarding the way the crisis in Ukraine is handled. In turn it might give more hope to see the crisis …
Continue reading “The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly 181 – The West’s “Ukraine Problem””
Each week our scan collects weak – and less weak – signals… We present below the most interesting or relevant features for each section. World (all matters related to war, international and national security) – This week, we can point out, besides many other signals and articles, a must read article on “Putin’s Great Gamble” by Pr Nikolas K. Gvosdev, …
Continue reading “The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly 176 – Europe Unexpected Power Waiting to be Used”
A powerful paradox lies at the heart of the current oil and gas global rush (Michael Klare, The Race for what’s left, 2012). On the one hand, the energy global demand necessitates to find and exploit oil and gas deposits, while looking for new ones, even in extreme environmental and political situations, as in the Arctic or the Niger river Delta (Al Jazeera, “Who is stealing Nigerian oil?“, 13 Sept. 2014). On the other hand, 97% of climatologists have developed a consensus in establishing that the current uses of oil and gas are changing the Earth climate (IPCC, fifth report, 2014) at such a speed and rate that basic life conditions could be altered for the whole of the human …
