Gaza war: Israeli assassinations draws fiery rhetoric from Iran and Hezbollah – but regional escalation is unlikely: Two weeks ago, Sayyed Razi Mousavi was a ghost on the internet. He left no mark on search engines or in coverage of Iran’s military and the Middle East. But in the Syrian capital Damascus, Mousavi’s 30-year presence …
Hamas has achieved what it wanted by attacking Israel: terror, escalation, and disruption to the international order: In many ways Hamas’s attack on Israel sums up the essence of terrorism. The group’s mass incursions have seen its operatives storming Israeli towns, killing and kidnapping hundreds. This appears to have been done by the book when …
G20: Xi Jinping’s snub of summit the latest in escalation of ambition between two assertive powers: It might be tempting to connect Xi Jinping’s refusal to attend the G20 summit in India with continuing border tensions. These reached a peak recently when China released an “official map” claiming as its territory several areas that have …
Ukraine recap: fears of escalation after US drone downed over the Black Sea: There was another of those moments when the world held its breath this week when news broke on March 14 of an incident between a US drone and two Russian jets. The unmanned US Reaper MQ-9 drone, reportedly on routine surveillance duties …
Ukraine war: Moldova could be the first domino in a new Russian plan for horizontal escalation: One of the consequences of Russia’s war in Ukraine is the fact that the Kremlin has lost a lot of its influence in former Soviet countries. This creates opportunities to limit Moscow’s ability to leverage its once dominant role …
Ukraine war: another round of pointless and dangerous escalation as Putin blocks grain exports: Following an attack on the Russian Black Sea fleet’s base in the port city of Sevastopol in occupied Crimea, Moscow has suspended its participation in the Black Sea grain initiative. This was a deal to allow grain ships to depart safely …
Taiwan: Beijing reacts to Pelosi’s visit with live-fire exercises prompting fears of escalation: The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has reportedly fired several DF-15B ballistic missiles into the seas around Taiwan as part of large scale military drills announced in response to the visit this week by the speaker of the US House of Representatives, …
Ukraine: Nato exercises a happy coincidence ‘just in case’ of escalation: Military exercises are held regularly by armed forces throughout the world. An exercise can be seen as an act of diplomacy, a direct threat, a demonstration of military capability for deterrence or – in the case of Nato – an expression of unity. In …
Ukraine war: Poland’s failed deal to supply MiG-29s shows Nato’s fear of escalation: The Ukraine war has become to some extent a proxy conflict between Nato and Russia. The American president, Joe Biden – supported by other Nato leaders – made it clear even before the invasion that the US and Nato would not become …
Ukraine: world financial markets have not broken sweat since the Russian escalation – why?: The economic consequences of armed conflicts have received widespread attention at least as far back as when John Meynard Keynes wrote about them in 1919 in relation to the first world war. Yet as the world braces for a possible war in …
Ukraine: rapid escalation of conflict in 2014 has lessons for today: Reports that Russia has been moving large numbers of troops and military hardware towards the Ukrainian border have raised fears of a new escalation of violence in the region. Kyiv has accused Moscow of aggravating the security situation in Ukraine’s south-east. The Kremlin, meanwhile, …
Qassem Suleimani air strike: why this is a dangerous escalation of US assassination policy: The US government has killed Iranian general Qassem Suleimani, commander of the Quds Force, the elite wing of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards, in an air strike that took place in the early hours of January 3. This is the latest …