POLITICS | OIL AND DEMOCRACY: In 2001, Michael L. Ross raised an important question: Does oil really have antidemocratic properties? Ross, like many other political analysts, noticed that most of the oil rich states are undemocratic. Middle Eastern Islamic kingdoms and tyrannies, African states such as Nigeria and Libya, countries in Latin America such as Venezuela - all have abundant oil resources. The anti-democratic governments in these countries rely heavily on the revenues from the oil trade and this fact evokes a reasonable question how important the oil is for the longevity of authoritarian regimes... | read more |
POLITICS | OIL AS A WEAPON: The conception of oil as a weapon appeared in 1935-1936 when the League of Nations was considering oil sanctions against Mussolini's Italy. The League did not use the oil embargo against Italy because it was not able to stop the supply from third-country sellers. The U.S. used oil sanctions for the first time against Japan in 1941. The reason for the embargo was Japan's occupation of China... | read more |
WORLD | THE OIL SPILL IN THE GULF OF MEXICO - A DIFFERENT CHRONOLOGY: In March 2010, the Obama's administration announced its plans to open vast expanses of water along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling. This announcement passed unnoticed by the public, because the mainstream media barely mentioned it. In March the only group that was making a real noise about the decision of administration was the mob around Sarah Palin... | read more |
THE OIL SPILL IN GULF OF MEXICO: Politicians and oil companies resolved to continue offshore drilling. | read more |
WORLD | CRUDE AWAKENING: The Mineral Management Service and the consequences of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. | read more |
ECONOMIC FREEDOM INDEX 2010: The Asian countries are on the top of the index. North America remains the biggest territory with free economy. The European economic freedom leader, Ireland, is with the highest budged gap for 2010 among the European countries. | read |
THE POLITICAL CHANGE IN DEMOCRACY AND TOTALITARIANISM: We must be sure that if post-war Iraq were able to achieve an even partially democratic political system, like those in Turkey, it would be more stable than the present Iran under the ayatollahs. We also must be sure that the political and economic calamities in the United States that have started in the last year of Bush's presidency are an intrinsic and typical feature of democratic political system and there is no place for serious concern about the American future. And, actually, the present economic and political stability in China is more dangerous, because it shows all symptoms that were presented in historically failed states. China experiences a swift economic modernization but its centralized political system correspond entirely to the already depicted "oppressive elites," and according to our theory it can expect, soon or later, if not revolutionary change at least fractional battles within the ruling party that could bring unpredictable ends concerning not only the future of China but of the world as a whole. | read more |
THE WARS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN - IMPERIAL PROJECT OR SECURITY EFFORT? We hear many voices in media and Internet who argue that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which the U.S. is waging in the recent decade, are imperial offensives. The power and influence that America has today can be connected easily with the argument that the U.S. is a new imperial power. Actually, this argument is so popular that it is boring to repeat it again, and again. The idea of America as imperial power is a cliché. But what is America on the international stage is still an interesting question. If America is an imperial power, are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan an expression of imperial interest? | read more |
THE COURAGE TO CONFESS: WHY WAS VIETNAM WAR DOOMED TO FAIL? There are truths. One of them is that everything conceived in a lie has no future. Some believe in this simple pre-modern saying, others - not. But there is more: if a lie is a result of mistake it needs to be confessed in order to be forgiven and forgotten. Some are strong enough to confess, others - not. The war in Vietnam started, at least officially, as a lie with the adoption of Tonkin Declaration, later it turned out a mistake and the President Lyndon B. Johnson did not have the courage to admit if not the lie, at least the mistake. This weakness cost him the dream to stay along with Lincoln and Roosevelt in the pantheon of the greatest American presidents. But what is really tragic is that this unconfessed mistake cost nearly 60 000 American lives and more than a million Vietnamese. The story of Vietnam War such as many other stories about wars and conflicts shows how fragile is our world, how easy the human weakness can mix with political power in a deadly mixture... | read more |
IRAN - AN UNHAPPY FAMILY: The opening sentence of Nabokov's "Ada" is "All happy families are more or less dissimilar; all unhappy ones are more or less alike." We can apply this insight not only to the families, but also to the nations. Iran in 1979 was an unhappy family not so different from the others in the region of the Middle East and Central Asia. Iran before the Islamic revolution, such as most of the neighbouring countries, had a long, sad history of imperial dependence, dictatorial regimes, political violence, poverty, and forced cultural transformations. After the Revolution in 1979, the life of the country has not become happier. | read more |
THE FALL OF COMMUNISM: Twenty years ago, the Berlin Wall fell and Eastern Europe knocked off the irons of communism. This was a memorable time of hope and excitement. Many believed that the revolutions of 1989 would mark the end of world confrontation; many people believed that the time of great peace is coming and the danger of mutual annihilation is forever averted, Western political theorists hastly predicted that democratic capitalism would be the winning system of near future. They were wrong... | read |
THE PEACE THAT LED TO WAR: Why did Europe enjoy peace in the most part of 19th century? The school of political realism insists that the international system is always anarchic. The international system is not a hierarchical structure such as the domestic one, and it is not a subject of certain legal or predictable order. The liberal political thought does not contest directly this "realistic" approach. The 19th century international system was clearly an anarchic system distinguished with the levels of balance of power that the states in Europe achieved. This achievement was a result of the long period of insecurity and wars in the end of 18th and beginning of 19th centuries. French revolutionary wars undermined the European status quo and after the defeat of Napoleon, the European powers felt urgent need for creation of more secure European order... | read |
THE ABSURDS OF "LEGITIMATE SELF-DEFENCE": Jeffrey Goldberg, a former Israeli Defence Forces prison guard and now top staff writer for The Atlantic Monthly Magazine, wrote this week against the Goldstone report accepted by the U.N. Human Rights Council. In Goldberg's words, the report argues that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza. Actually, if we are exact, the document concludes that both Israel and Hamas militants committed war crimes during the 22-day Gaza conflict in December 2008 and January 2009. Yet the 574-page report, which the Council commissioned, is itself largely focused on Israel. | read and watch |
THE AUDACITY OF HOPE TO BEAT THE RECESSION: This week (October 12-16, 2009) Dow Jones jumped over 10 000 points. When the Dow Jones industrial average first closed above 10,000 it was on March 29, 1999, The New York Times writes. At that time, the American economy was in its eighth year of uninterrupted growth, and the jobless rate was only 4.2 percent. For comparison, the unemployment rate in U.S. is now at 9.8 percent, and the employment as a share of the population is at its lowest level since January 1984. | read |
THE THANKSGIVING WEEK OF 2009: The Thanksgiving week of 2009 was covered with stories about a surprising nomination for Nobel Peace Prize, Afghanistan strategic troubles, and "cultural" debates over a crime done decades ago. | read |
CHINA THREATENS AMERICA WITH ITS EXAMPLE: America and the West face a very serious challenge from the East, but not in terms of the conventional definitions of the China threat, says Stefan Halper from the American Spectator. | read |
IN TIME OF CRISIS THE SOCIALISTS SUFFER AS MUCH AS THE CONSERVATIVES: Is Europe's Left in crisis, asks Harold Meyerson in the American Prospect. Why this question? This fall the pre-eminent party of European socialism, the German Social Democrats (SDP), had their worst election since the end of World War II, winning a scant 23 percent of the vote. | read |
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