Things are not looking good for Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. The man who built arguably the most stable, authoritarian and centralized administration in the former Soviet Union is now struggling to maintain control. A forced currency devaluation last month wiped out the savings of ordinary citizens, who subsequently took to the streets, plunging Minsk into chaos. Throughout May, Belarus teetered on the brink of economic collapse, and Lukashenko was rumored to be plotting to flee the country. An emergency $3 billion loan package from Russia, technically administered through the Eurasian Economic Community, has stabilized the situation for now, but the [...]
Chinese foreign investment is often considered nonideological: Dictatorship or democracy, model state or pariah — if a country has natural resources, China is an eager investor. In Latin America the characterization rings true, as China has curried favor with left-leaning governments — in Venezuela and Ecuador — and right-leaning governments — in Chile and Colombia — alike. China’s relations with Cuba are a case in point, if a counterintuitive one. On a three-day visit to the island this week, Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping and Cuban President Raúl Castro signed 10 accords and began talks on a five-year plan for [...]
The Naval War College just completed its annual Current Strategy Forum, with this year’s topic being “Energy and U.S. National Security: Vulnerability and Opportunity.” Listening to the presentations, one could not help but be struck by the “chicken and egg” relationship between access to energy and U.S. grand strategy. Which should drive the other — and what are the various options? Rising energy costs, combined with economic austerity, means that “business as usual” is no longer an option for the U.S. military. A recent study by Deloitte noted (.pdf), “Warfare and combat operations are not the only variables driving [Defense [...]
