#China

Jan 29, 2020

The Three Dictateers

https://images.app.goo.gl/htpzw3n3u6QfwsoR9 I do not easily subscribe to the idea that men/women make history. I am much more at home with the notion that history shapes the environment in which people act and react. There are moments, however, when individuals’ destinies can play a decisive role in determining historical outcomes. We may be at just such a juncture. The three strategically most important countries in the world – the countries with the most lethal weapons and

Aug 8, 2019

Ciber-Especulación

Foto de Buenos Aires el 16 de junio, disponible en la página web de Desdémona Despairs. El “apagón” en el sur de Sudamérica El 16 de junio, casi toda Argentina, Uruguay y partes de Paraguay, Brasil y Chile quedaron en la oscuridad como resultado de un colapso del sistema argentino de redes interconectadas que produjo un corte masivo de energía eléctrica en la región. Por supuesto, se habían experimentado fallas eléctricas en el pasado. Esta es la primera vez, sin embargo, que

Jul 9, 2019

Cyber-Speculation

Photo of Buenos Aires on 16 June, available on website of Desdemona Despairs The Meltdown in the South American South On 16 June, almost all of Argentina, Uruguay, and parts of Paraguay, Brazil and Chile were plunged into darkness as the result of a system-wide shut-down of the interconnected parts of the five countries’ electricity grids. Of course, the region has experienced electrical breakdowns in the past. This is the first time, however, that it has had to contend with

Jun 10, 2019

¡Como No Derrocar a un Dictador!

Foto: Los presidentes de Cuba y de Venezuela, Miguel Díaz-Canel y Nicolás Maduro (Cortesía de Nuestro País) Es bastante claro, por ahora, que a pesar de la colosal mala gestión e inmoralidad del régimen de Maduro y de los valientes esfuerzos de la Presidencia alternativa liderada por Guaidó, la dictadura venezolana no se apartará del negocio en lo inmediato. Y esto, por varias razones: Deponer una dictadura es un proceso de gran desafío, en especial una vez que ha mantenido e

May 30, 2019

On Dumping a Dictator

The Cuban and Venezuelan-Presidents, Miguel Díaz-Canel y Nicolás Maduro (courtesy of NUESTRO PAÍS) It is fairly clear now that despite the colossal mismanagement and immorality of the Maduro regime, and the valiant efforts of the Guaido-led alternative presidency, the Venezuelan dictatorship is not going to being going out of business anytime soon. There are several reasons for this. Deposing a dictatorship is a hugely challenging process, especially once it has held power fo

Mar 31, 2019

Defending Canada in a Changing Strategic Environment

Photo: Courtesy of Bing and Business Insider Recently, Canada has been challenged by three countries that were hitherto considered either to be an ally or a country that Canada could partner with economically, even if it did not share its approach to human and political rights. In 2018, US President Trump, arguing that Canadian steel and aluminium exports to the US posed a strategic threat, imposed tariffs of 25% and 10% respectively. After Ottawa’s criticism of its human rig

Aug 1, 2018

Towards Yalta Two

1024px-Yalta_Conference_(Churchill,_Roosevelt,_Stalin)_(B&W) This blog was posted on the CDA-Institute at https://cdainstitute.ca/law-towards-yalta-two/ on 9 August. In February 1945, as it was becoming increasingly clear that Hitler Germany was about to lose World War Two, the leaders of the victory camp – US President Roosevelt, UK Prime Minister Churchill and USSR Communist Party General Secretary and Premier Stalin – met at a much-celebrated meeting in Yalta. Yalta, a res

Jun 9, 2018

What if (almost all) the Experts on North Korea have Got it Wrong?

(An earlier version of this draft was posted on the website of the Canadian Defence Association Institute on 15 May 2018 at https://cdainstitute.ca/law-what-if-almost-all-the-experts-on-the-korean-question-have-got-it-wrong/) Photo courtesy of CNN There is, of course, plenty that could still go wrong between Washington and Pyongyang in the lead-up to and at the Trump/Kim Jong-Un summit. Everything points to the fact, however, that it will now proceed as planned on 12 June. I

Mar 22, 2018

Global Futures and their Underlying Drivers

(The view of the globe is from The Great Globe Galley.) On June 21 2018, the TopLink site of the Word Economic Forum posted a sightly revised version of this post under the title of Three Scenarios for the Future of Geopolitics To understand events in the international arena, it helps to distinguish whether our current period is essentially stable or in significant flux. In an article written a quarter of a century ago, during another time of rapid and relentless change, my c

Feb 11, 2018

North Korea 101

(With my apologies to the person who produced this juxtaposition – I have lost the link and cannot credit you.) This post appeared on the website of the CDA-Institute on 9 February. There are five pivotal issues that we need to be thinking about when it comes to North Korea. The first and perhaps most important one is that North Korea is an economic basket case. The hermit kingdom, which at the end of the Korean War in 1953 was roughly at par economically with the South, now

Sep 27, 2017

The Almost Perfect Ploy: how to understand the accelerated enhancement of the North Korean threat: P

This article was posted on the website of the Canadian Defence Association Institute on 19 September 2018. Photocredit: Time Magazine 20 May 2014 Part II: Seeing through the China Russia North Korea Agenda Western observers almost invariably claim that China is opposed to Kim the Third’s nuclear bombast, that Beijing means what it says when it criticizes North Korea, that it is determined to implement the sanctions it has systematically signed-up for in the United Nations Se

Sep 26, 2017

The Almost Perfect Ploy: how to understand the accelerated enhancement of the North Korean threat: P

Photo credit: Daily Telegraph, 31 August 2017. This blog was posted on the website of the Canadian Defence Association Institute on 14 September 2017. Part I: Rethinking the Threat Since 2012, North Korea has succeeded in significantly enhancing its capacity to carry out nuclear explosions and to launch medium- and long-range missiles capable of hitting U.S. allies in Asia and, more recently, U.S. territory itself. The missile that North Korea launched over Japan on 29 August

Aug 16, 2017

North Korea: rethinking the threat, one week on

The situation is indeed serious, but don’t expect Kim Jong-un to go over the strategic edge. (This blog appeared on the website of Open.Canada on 16 August.) The American Defense Intelligence Agency has recently assessed that North Korea has succeeded in miniaturizing a nuclear warhead. This would allow it to place a nuclear device on a ballistic missile, such as the two it tested successfully earlier this year. While North Korea probably does not yet have the capacity to att

Jul 31, 2017

NORTH KOREA – HIGH TIME TO GET REAL, PART I

On America’s Independence Day, North Korea successfully launched a missile that some experts assert can hit targets as far away as Alaska. Apparently, Pyongyang does not yet have the capacity to place a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile. That said, at the rate Kim the Third has been upgrading his country’s attack potential, this may be months as opposed to years away. The launch happened as the Russian and Chinese Presidents were meeting in Moscow, and

Jul 20, 2017

NORTH KOREA – HIGH TIME TO GET REAL, PART II

So for Kim Jung-un, or Kim the Third as I have called him, the support for his regime from Beijing and Moscow is absolutely indispensable. Kim came to power in 2011. He inherited a very bad economic situation from his father as did his father from his grandfather. At the end of the Korean War in 1953, the North Korean economy was roughly at par with that of the South. Now it is one of the weakest in the world while that of South Korea is in eleventh position, between that of

Jan 23, 2017

The Gathering Storm

With Donald Trump now sworn in as the American President and Commander–in-Chief, here are some thoughts on where the world may be headed. In 1948, Winston Churchill published The Gathering Storm, the first in his epic six-volume account about the lead-up to and the course of the Second World War. In this conflict, the British statesman would play a decisive role, leading his country and the then Western world to a hard fought and historic victory but one that was also hugel

Jun 30, 2016

Ukraine and the Sino-Russian Relationship

This piece served as the basis for a presentation transmitted via Skype from Kiev, Ukraine to Kingston, Canada for a conference organized on the militarization of Russian foreign policy in June 2016 Introduction A young state, founded only in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine has since gone from one crisis to another. Its growth pains assumed a new quality in 2014, however, with Russia’s seizure of Crimea and the incursion of Russian military elements into Eastern U

Jun 13, 2016

Ukraine and the Sino-Russian Relationship

How will the relationship between Russia and China affect the future trajectory of Ukraine? This article will appear in a book on the militarization of Russian foreign policy, to be published by the McGill University Press in the fall of 2016. Introduction A young state, founded only in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine has since gone from one crisis to another. Its growth pains assumed a new quality in 2014, however, with Russia’s seizure of Crimea and the incurs

Feb 20, 2016

Reflections on the Sino-Russian Relationship

This article originally appeared at http://www.cdainstitute.ca/images/on_track/On_Track_Winter_2016/On_Track_20.3_-_Law.pdf Whither the relationship between the Russian Federation (RF) and the People’s Republic of China (PRC)? Will the two countries continue on their current strategically ambiguous path? Will their competition in Central Asia lead them to conflict? Will they become full-blooded allies, goose-stepping in unison against the West? One way or the other, it would

Oct 21, 2015

Russia, Syria, Ukraine – and the Rest of the World

Putin’s objectives in Syria have as much or more to do with Russian concerns about developments in the former Soviet Union as with the situation in and around Syria. But the overall thrust of his Syrian campaign can have an impact well beyond that. First and foremost, Putin is trying to project power abroad in an effort to compensate for the fading effectiveness of the model of growth and governance that have been associated with his now fifteen years at and near the pinnacle

David M Law

The Way I See it

David M Law

The Way I See it