We’re very happy to introduce WPR’s newest regular columnist, Thomas P.M. Barnett, appearing every Monday beginning next week. Most of you are probably already familiar with Barnett’s work, but for those of you who aren’t, you’re in for a real treat. In addition to being a New York Times best-selling author and a sought-after public speaker, Barnett is a challenging and iconoclastic thinker, who combines intellectual creativity with clarity of analysis. The result is a far-reaching vision of U.S. grand strategy that somehow manages to be both provocatively novel and intuitively obvious at the same time. If you like big [...]
In the years since Arab countries proclaimed their infamous “Three Nos” policy towards Israel — no peace, no recognition, no negotiations — the official stance of most Arab governments has eased. A number of Arab leaders now openly speak of normalizing relations with Israel under certain conditions. But despite the change in policy at the top, hundreds of millions of Arabs continue to receive a steady barrage of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish and anti-American propaganda, much of it coming in the official government-sanctioned press. The quest for peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors faces no shortage of obstacles. Not least of [...]
Hundreds of Somali pirates have transformed the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean into the world’s most dangerous waters. But this Sunday, on the Indian Ocean, a group of Somali pirates didn’t know what they were getting into. The 11 young men — armed with rockets, guns and explosives and riding in three small boats — spotted a vessel on the horizon and moved to attack. The “victim” vessel maneuvered into the sun, partially blinding the attackers. When their vision cleared, the pirates probably realized they’d made a huge mistake: rather than the defenseless merchant vessel they apparently thought [...]
