Photo: Pepe Escobar The coming decade could see the US take on Russia, China and Iran over the New Silk Road connection May 18, 2020 Pepe Escobar The Raging Twenties started with a bang with the targeted assassination of Iran’s General Qasem Soleimani. Yet a bigger bang awaits us throughout the decade: the myriad declinations […]
Jonathan Power May 13, 2020 The war in Syria has dropped out of the news, like almost everything else, in a time when the Coronavirus seems to dominate all discourse and reporting. But the regime of Bashar al-Assad continues to strangle its own country. The Russians continue to bomb on his behalf, terrifying civilians and […]
📌 We know that many of our readers would like to see some short, pointed posts here. So, in contrast to the longer, more analytical articles we usually publish – normal for an academic institution – an Oberg Comment is a short text by the editor of The Transnational, Jan Oberg, which alerts you to […]
By Jonathan Power April 21, 2020 The greatest American foreign affairs columnist since Walter Lippmann was William Pfaff of The International Herald Tribune. He wrote in his path-breaking book, “Barbarian Sentiments” that the US political atmosphere was full of “exhausted ideas, like a dead star”. Nevertheless, “these ideas remain central to the way certain subjects […]
PhotoPainting by the author Diagnosis, prognosis and treatment in the light of Turkey’s invasion and the risk of a larger catastrophic war. By Jan Oberg March 7, 2020 Diagnosis The world looked at the violence but didn’t have the capacity to analyze the underlying conflicts in and around Syria. For sure, it is a civil […]
February 21, 2020 By Garikai Chengu Much like Al Qaeda, the Islamic State (ISIS) is made-in-the-USA, an instrument of terror designed to divide and conquer the oil-rich Middle East and to counter Iran’s growing influence in the region. The fact that the United States has a long and torrid history of backing terrorist groups will […]
By Jan Oberg About 37,000 soldiers from 18 countries are to participate in the U.S.-run manoeuver dubbed Defender Europe 2020 in May and June. This is “the largest deployment of U.S. troops to Europe in more than 25 years,” NATO’s Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg tells us. I assume, proudly. But wait … What on Earth is […]
By Gordon M. Hahn January 30, 2020 The apparent overreaction by the U.S. to Iranian provocations represented by the assassination of Revolutionary Guards Corps Commander Qassem Soleiman is one of the stronger blows to hit one of the most important nails in the coffin of U.S.-Russian relations: the revival of Russian-Western geopolitical competition outside Russia’s […]
Photo – Eastern Aleppo, December 2016 – © Jan Oberg By Gordon M. Hahn January 17, 2020 If Western leaders are able to put aside the now worn-out cliches such as Russian Vladimir Putin ‘punching above his weight,’ ‘Trump handing Putin a victory on a silver plate’, not to mention ‘Trump as Putin agent’, there […]
By Jonathan Power Januar 14, 2020 The struggle for the Donbass region in the eastern and southern Ukraine goes on, seemingly never ending. It’s now six years since dissident militias threw off the yoke of the central government in Kiev and declared their de-facto independence. They were supported by Russian troops which at first president […]
