Asia

By Kelly Sims Gallagher and Fang Zhang | – As the effects of climate change become more widespread and alarming, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has called on nations to step up their plans for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Every country has a part to play, but if the world’s largest emitters fail to meet their […]

Afghanistan

Reflections on “Peace” in Afghanistan; Leaving a Misguided War and Choosing Not to Look Back

Andrew J. Bacevich

( Tomdispatch.com) – When the conflict that the Vietnamese refer to as the American War ended in April 1975, I was a U.S. Army captain attending a course at Fort Knox, Kentucky. In those days, the student body at any of our Army’s myriad schools typically included officers from the Army of the Republic of […]

China

China’s Struggle for Green Electricity

China Dialogue

By Feng Hao | – ( ChinaDialogue ) – Using electricity for everything will help lay the groundwork for lowering carbon emissions, but it won’t be easy As the world belatedly sets about reducing carbon emissions, the struggle between coal power and renewables for the future of China’s electricity system has garnered a lot of […]

Afghanistan

Trump-Taliban Talks like those with N. Korea– a Photo Op on the Deck of the Titanic

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Afghanistan government has been miffed and apprehensive for some time that the Trump administration has been talking to the Taliban in Qatar without any representation from Kabul. Government officials were therefore happy about Trump’s abrupt cancellation of what he depicted as a summit with the Taliban at Camp David […]

China

Israeli PM Netanyahu’s Himalayan Miscalculation on Iran: Bringing China into the Mideast

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu is one of the world players who pushed Trump to breach the 2015 treaty with Iran. Trump then slapped the severest economic sanctions on Iran ever imposed on any country in the absence of war. Trump went around the world menacing other countries into […]

Afghanistan

Will Trump Bring Peace to Afghanistan? Don’t Hold your Breath

Reese Erlich

( 48hills.org) – Washington, DC is buzzing with talk of troop withdrawals and the impact on peace talks in Afghanistan. The US may start withdrawing troops within months, the start of what would be a gradual withdrawal of all 14,000 US troops from the country. President Donald Trump wants to leave the impression that he […]

China

China Defies Trump on Iran Big time with $400 bn Belt-and-Road Investment, 5000 Security Personnel*

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was in Beijing recently for what turns out to have been the biggest triumph of his career. China has decided it has nothing further to fear from the Trump administration, and has decided to incorporate Iran into its One Belt, One Road plan with […]

India

Kashmir: How Modi’s Virulent Hindu Nationalism Brought India & Pakistan to the Brink, Again

The Conversation

By Abdullah Yusuf | – August is immensely important in the history of the Asian subcontinent, marking the month that India and Pakistan gained independence from the British in 1947. Now, in 2019, it has once again proved momentous, when, ten days before India’s Independence day celebrations, prime minister Narendra Modi’s government revoked the autonomy […]

Afghanistan

That time Trump Spoke of Nuking Afghanistan, Killing 10 Million

contributors

By Janelle Carlson (Informed Comment) – Lost in the constant stream of shock and awe that characterizes Donald Trump’s Presidency, he states that he could end America’s 19 year war in Afghanistan in ten days. The catch, as it were, is that he would have to kill 10 million Afghans to do so. That killing […]