2014-08-01 By Harald Malmgren There is unspoken, but growing apprehension among central bankers that the Chinese financial market is vulnerable to serious, potentially systemic shocks. To put the measureable scale of debt exposure in perspective, China’s total debt to GDP ratio was 147% at the start of the Great Financial…
2014-08-01 By Dr. Mark Lewis I had the pleasure of serving as Chief Scientist of the U.S. Air Force from 2004 to 2008, including all of the time during which Mike Wynne was our Air Force Secretary. Working with Mike, and the USAF Chief of Staff, Gen Buzz Moseley, will…
2014-07-30 By Oscar Nkala French defense minister Yves Le Drian says his country will in early August deploy more than 3 000 soldiers to start military operations under its broadened trans-Sahel counter-terrorism initiative which is set to operate from a string of bases in Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Mali and…
2014-07-24 Earlier we published a piece addressed Norwegian participation in RIMPAC 2014. http://sldinfo.wpstage.net/norway-comes-to-rimpac-2014-for-the-first-time-a-symbol-of-21st-century-dynamics/ Norway was joined by China and India as first time RIMPAC participants. What follows below is the official Norwegian government explanation for its participation in the Pacific exercise by the Norwegian Defense Minister. Speech at RIMPAC 2014…
2014-07-20 By Robbin Laird It started with a crisis in Ukraine; it then became a Russian invasion of Ukraine and “taking back its legitimate territory” from the Putin-led Russian perspective. It has continued with an intermittently savage conflict on Ukrainian territory with Russia ratcheting up pressure and fostered in part…
2014-07-14 By Ed Timperlake and Robbin Laird When Americans hear Iraq, they think of a difficult country, far away, with a lot of recent history and little desire to revisit either the history or the country. When one adds to this a President who ran against his predecessor in part…
2014-07-19 By Stig Jarle Hansen, Associate Senior Analyst, Risk Intelligence Overview Since the French intervention early in 2013, the Mali conflict has been a defining one for regional security. The intervention itself was successful in the short run. Territorial integrity was more or less restored by the end of 2013,…
2014-07-16 By Kenneth Maxwell With the World Cup behind them President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil, President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, President Xi Jinping of China, and President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, met in Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil, this week for the sixth BRICS summit . BRICS is an acronym conceived…
