This article is the second part of our series focusing on the current development of the Russian Arctic region, while explaining and demonstrating the importance of using strategic thinking for governments as well as for business actors to understand current dynamical changes and to develop adequate strategies to face related geopolitical uncertainty. In the first part, we …
Continue reading “Strategic Thinking in the Russian Arctic: When Threats Become Opportunities (2)”
This series of two articles focuses on the current development of the Russian Arctic region, while explaining and demonstrating the importance of using strategic thinking for governments as well as for business actors. Indeed, the international dynamics of geopolitical and environmental changes, including their interactions, are becoming so rapid and powerful that political and business actors have …
Continue reading “Strategic Thinking in the Russian Arctic: When Threats Become Opportunities (1)”
In this article on the development of the energy, business and military nexus of the Arctic by Russia, the Red (Team) Analysis Society studies how the Russian Arctic is becoming a new crucial business and strategic “centre” in the world, through the creation of numerous energy and infrastructure projects and operations, which attract Chinese companies …
Continue reading “The Russian Arctic meets the Chinese New Silk Road”
This article is the second of our series on the Anthropocene and security. Previously, we presented the larger dimensions and general elements framing the new (in)security. Here, we shall focus on latest developments regarding Russian Arctic oil. Between April and July 2016, the current Russian energy conquest of the Arctic led to the shipment of more than 230.000 barrels of oil from the Russian Arctic. They came from two recent on-shore fields, and from the Gazprom Prirazlomonoye off-shore oil rig (Irina Slav, “Russia Ramps Up Arctic Oil Production”, OilPrice.Com, July 21, 2016). The latter is the first of the glacial Barents Sea. The 2016 flow from the Russian Arctic almost doubled compared with 2015. In the meantime, the Russian ministry of …
Continue reading “Russian Arctic oil: a New Economic & Strategic Paradigm?”
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)”
Modern societies, economies and businesses become increasingly unsustainable because of the convergence of their complex and in-built vulnerabilities with climate change. However, the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) has initiated a very interesting strategy: the experimentation with and promotion of sustainability on a national and international scale, in order to support an adapted way of life …
Continue reading “The United Arab Emirates: the Rise of a Sustainable Industrial Empire?”
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”
Three seemingly unrelated events occurred in April 2014. The IPCC, the international body of scientists tasked with monitoring climate change, released its fifth report, assessing that, between today and 2100, climate change could induce a rise of one metre of the sea level, and the radical necessity to start adaptation policies (IPCC, fifth report, 2014). Meanwhile, in Dubai, the immense beach, which has become the support for a gigantic tourist and real estate industry, welcomed the first open water swimming championships on 18 and 19 April 2014 (1st Dubai International Open Water Swimming Championships). While this sportive event was taking place, a gigantic iceberg, six times the size of Manhattan, was breaking off from an Antarctic glacier into the open ocean (Will …
Continue reading “The Antarctic versus Dubai – The Planetary Crisis Rules (5)”
Israel faces an unexpected and immensely dangerous strategic threat: climate change. This threat is shared with the rest of the world: it is the way climate change keeps getting stronger and how its effects are combining with pre-existing systems of vulnerabilities at country and regional level, the Middle East in the case of Israel (Dahr …
Continue reading “Israel and the Coming Long Threat – The Planetary Crisis Rules (4)”
A strange process is affecting the planet: the global life conditions, which have dominated the planet for thousands years are changing quickly, because of the massive impact of human activities and forms of development. Meanwhile, new life conditions emerge and they are not those that have supported the emergence and development of modern societies. On …
Continue reading “The Planetary Crisis Rules (3): Kazakhstan, a Case Study of the Anthropocene”
