With the presidential elections this year, the exciting primaries including characters like Trump and Sanders, and now the dead or judge Scalia, possibly allowing Obama to nominate another Supreme Court judge, American politics could change along a number of interesting paths. Yet, the most pressing issue is often forgotten amongst partisan rhetorics – the tedious political struggle accompanied by bipartisan governments. Continue reading Who is partisan now?
Since 2011, the Middle East has been shaken by democratic movements, backlashes against them and outright civil war. The relatively stable powers in the region, namely Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, have been trying their best to benefit from the upheavals, intervening in various ways and getting embroiled in these conflicts. With one notable exception – Israel has been exceptionally hesitant to pursue any policy whatsoever towards the Arab spring. Continue reading Israel may be successfully sleeping through the Arab spring
When rocks become a matter of national security
The Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, including five uninhabited islands and three rocks, each smaller than 3.5 km² (Shaw 1999, 9), have caused diplomatic tensions between China and Japan for the last four decades. Most recently, an increase in Chinese vessels approaching the islands (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2015), currently under Japanese control, as well as an increase in intercepted chinese aircrafts in the area (Japanese MoD 2015) have raised concerns about an escalation of the conflict. The declaration of an East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) by China has further caused the US to send B-52 bombers to fly through the zone (Danner 2014), a move accompanied by similar reactions from Japan and South Korea.
How did islands which China described as „economically and strategically insignificant“ in 1990 (Downs and Saunders 1999) and whose ownership was ignored by both sides until the 70s (Shaw 1999) become such a major issue in the relations between the two countries? Continue reading Competing for the Sea: Historical origins of the territorial dispute over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands
Iran’s nuclear deal has the potential of changing US-Iranian relations as well as regional power dynamics – finally, after decades of disruptive clashes. Continue reading Stopped the Bomb
“Don’t stop… Believing…” Pardon my bad sense of humor. If you have ever read this blog, or talked to me in person, you are probably not thinking about that song right now, but rather something along the lines of “wait, stopped? When did he start believing in Economic Liberalism?” Continue reading Why I stopped believing in Economic Liberalism