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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The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly – 19 December 2013 – Pivot, center and epicenter

Editorial – Pivot, center and epicenter – First of all, let me wish you all a Merry Christmas, and send this wish especially to those who are prey to war and disaster, whatever their faith. This week, the epicenter or the pivot for the turmoil of change seems very much to be located around the …

The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly – 12 December 2013 – Russia, the Arctic and … Syrian uncertainties

Editorial – Russia, the Arctic and … Syrian uncertainties – If you were looking for a new tense area to monitor, here it is: the Arctic. We had known it was coming for a few years, but now it is definitely on the agenda, besides, mainly, the Middle East, North East Asia and a struggle for …

The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly No128, 28 November 2013

Editorial – Si vis pacem para bellum (If you want peace prepare for war) and biases – The continuous escalation in East Asia is worrying to say the least. We have increasingly stronger signals pointing towards the possibility of war, including considering Japan’s challenging domestic situation. Windows of opportunities to de-escalate are most likely to open too in …

The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly No124, 31 October 2013

A new world order in the making: America, Britain and Russia – The world is changing and the decisions taken by the various actors are not only reactions to those changes and their anticipated direction and impact, but also contributions towards the very evolution of the system. We thus see the U.S. revising – rather …

The Red (team) Analysis Weekly No123, 24 October 2013

Japan, an exemplary case for a complex world? The situation of Japan can be seen as a perfect case that exemplifies the complex dynamics into which we are taken. Absence of foresight and warning as well as refusal to consider the reality of environmental risk – and to act accordingly – plays a large part …

The Red (team) Analysis Weekly No122, 17 October 2013

One of the most important signals of the week was not only, unsurprisingly, the last episode in the never-ending politician American infighting over the debt ceiling, but also, the perceptible fatigue across a wide range of world actors, who were being taken hostage by representatives they had not elected over issues that did not concern …

The Red (team) Analysis Weekly No121, 10 October 2013

This week among the major clusters of signals that emerge, we have those about Turkey, its geopolitics and growing Islamism, then the chronicles of an environmental catastrophe in the making, including resources depletion, with the rising importance of a “Gold Rush to Space” as one counterweight. In this framework, if we look at another – …

The Red (Team) Analysis Weekly No120, 3 October 2013

Besides other issues, the agreement between the U.S. and Japan to modernize their security cooperation, implying among others a larger role for Japan, is most likely to have ripple effects, notably considering the tense situation with China and unhealed regional wounds stemming from World War II. Energy security then is very much to the fore, …

The Red (team) Analysis Weekly No119, 26 September 2013

Horizon Scanning for National Security – Batman’s Gotham City with an international twist? The world is being profoundly reshaped: China’s global land grab, the battle for the Arctic and the importance of extreme environments for resources, a fast changing unsettled Middle-East, the importance of Central Asia, the return of a pre-World War I type of capitalist world, …

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