The annual Valdai Club meeting has always been positioned as absolutely essential when it comes to understanding the non-stop movement of geopolitical tectonic plates across Eurasia. The ongoing 18th meeting in Sochi, Russia once again lived up to expectations. The overall theme was Global Shake-Up in the 21st Century: The Individual, Values, and the State.... Read More

Even interventionists are regretting some of the wars into which they helped plunge the United States in this century. Among those wars are Afghanistan and Iraq, the longest in our history; Libya, which was left without a stable government; Syria's civil war, a six-year human rights disaster we helped kick off by arming rebels to... Read More

…Punch line is, this AFP article (including the headline used as the title of this post) is datelined April 22, 2007, during Abe’s brief, first prime ministership. In 2007 PRC "assertiveness" was not on the table. In fact, at that time the George W. Bush administration was looking forlornly for the PRC’s help on the... Read More

The monstrous deliberate slaughter of over 330 parents and children in the Beslan school gymnasium by Chechen terrorists is not as the BBC claims a ?tragedy? ? but a vicious criminal act. To understand the nature of the conflict between the Russian state and the Chechen terrorists ? it is important to focus on the... Read More