BLOG Post #388: Evaluating Three Peace Plans for the Ukraine War 7 Sep 20233 Oct 2023 Ideas about how to end the Ukraine war abound. None come from Ukraine. None have gained traction. Here, nevertheless, are three examples of what knowledgeable people are thinking, along with…
BLOG Post #387: China’s Rise Hits a Wall 31 Aug 2023 Over the last decade or so, the tendency among China watchers has been to see China’s rise as an endless upward progression. Just as happened during the Cold War…
BLOG Post #386: The Fukushima Tragedy Resurfaces 25 Aug 202325 Aug 2023 Releasing the Water Just as all Americans remember 9/11, Japanese remember 3/11, the day in 2011 that an earthquake and tsunami overwhelmed the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, destroying…
BLOG Post #385: No Free Lunch: The Hidden Costs of EVs 20 Aug 202319 Aug 2023 The Hidden Costs In his pathbreaking 1971 book, The Closing Circle, Barry Commoner proposed four laws of ecology: Everything is connected to everything else; Everything must go somewhere; Nature…
BLOG Post #384: China’s (Un)popularity 4 Aug 2023 One of Xi Jinping’s signature initiatives is the idea of China’s renaissance—“the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” as he puts it. Part of that effort is to arouse the loyalty…
BLOG Post #383: Russia, Niger, and Coup Politics in Africa 31 Jul 20231 Aug 2023 If head counting is any indication, Russian diplomacy in Africa is slipping. A Russia-Africa summit meeting held in St. Petersburg drew only 21 African heads of state, far fewer than…
BLOG Post #382: The Widening Breach, in Israel and in Israel-US Relations 24 Jul 202324 Jul 2023 The Growing Divide Israel’s Knesset, or parliament, has passed the first law to scale back judicial independence, in line with the ambitions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s largely far-right, ultra-religious cabinet.…
BLOG Post #381: Assessing Treasury Secretary Yellen’s Beijing Journey 12 Jul 202316 Jul 2023 Updated version now available on my podcast: https://www.podserve.fm/episodes/106476/87-assessing-treasury-secretary-yellens-china-trip.mp3 Rhetoric and Reality “I believe that my bilateral meetings — which totaled about 10 hours over two days — served as a…
BLOG Post #380: Who Needs Chinese Scientists? America Does 9 Jul 20239 Jul 2023 This blog is also available in my podcast at https://www.podserve.fm/episodes/105809/86-who-needs-chinese-scientists-america-does.mp3 Unfair and Dysfunctional Xie Xiaoliang is one of Harvard’s premier scientists, a biophysical chemist known for his work on DNA.…
BLOG Post #379: The Coup that Wasn’t 30 Jun 202329 Jun 2023 A Narrow and Costly Escape Tensions between the Russian defense ministry and the head of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, had been running high for months, mainly because of…
BLOG Post #378: Modi’s Game, and Ours 25 Jun 202324 Jun 2023 China on Their Minds President Biden welcomed India’s prime minister Narendra Modi with much pomp and ceremony the other day. One senior US official said “there is no partner more…
BLOG Post #377: Trump Indicted 17 Jun 202317 Jun 2023 I dedicate this blog to the memory of my friend and former colleague, Daniel Ellsberg, who passed away Friday. He and I were among the authors of the top-secret…
In the Human Interest - Mel Gurtov 
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