2012-07-14 By Richard Weitz Iraq’s oil industry is indispensable to the country’s economic growth. The oil sector provides more than 90 percent of the government’s revenue and 80 percent of Iraq’s foreign exchange earnings. Iraqi officials have tendered bids and recently awarded ten contracts to international oil companies. These investments…
2012-07-14 By Lt. General (Retired) Gaviard Last June, in the backdrop of the growing number of casualties in Syria, the French President did not rule out the possibility of a military intervention. As a recent poll showed, the majority of the French public is in favor of an armed solution to…
2012-07-14 by Richard Weitz Bombing in Northern Afghanistan Confirms The IMU’s Return The suicide bomber who today killed a prominent Afghan MP, a former warlord, and some two dozen other people at his daughter's wedding party in northern Afghanistan probably belonged to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a key…
2012-07-12 by Scott C. Truver, Director, TeamBlue, Gryphon Technologies LC
[email protected] As tensions between the United States and Iran increased in early 2012, with threats from Teheran to close the Arabian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz––exacerbating concerns in jittery world petroleum markets––countered by increasingly draconian U.S. and UN sanctions, a U.S. Navy…
2012-07-11 By Richard Weitz The preoccupation with the current Turkey-Syria crisis needs to be placed in context of the evolving global situation. With much of Europe paralyzed due to the Euro crisis, and with U.S. attention drifting eastward, Turkey has the opportunity to emerge as one of NATO’s new leaders.…
2012-07-11 The East China Sea has been contested for decades by South Korea, China and Japan, all seeking to tap huge oil, gas and mineral reserves believed be buried under the seabed. With their extended continental shelves overlapping in the northeastern part of the ocean, the Asian powers are laying formal…
7/10/12: by Michael W. Wynne 21st Secretary of the USAF In his new Book, The Price of Civilization, Jeffrey Sachs decries the cost of defense; assuming that it is not his role to evaluate how America achieved its freedoms; simply accepting that the world will permit its continuation. http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903703604576589090204327736.html?mg=reno-wsj Although…
07/6/12: by Richard Weitz A team of Russian defense analysts at the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) in Moscow have produced the most comprehensive and comprehensible study of the Chinese defense industry in any language. In Shooting Star: China’s Military Machine in the 21st Century, Mikhail…
