Biden “is expected to formally recognize the massacre of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during and after World War I as an act of genocide,” Reuters reported on Wednesday, April 21, 2021 (read story here), noting this is “likely to infuriate Turkey and further strain already fraye[...]
Archive for the ‘Foreign Affairs’ Category
April 15th, 2021 - 7:14 pm § in America, Biden, China, Donald Trump, Foreign Affairs, Politics, Russia
Biden’s foreign policy takes shape
Every nation’s foreign policy is driven by self-interest and domestic politics, and the U.S. is no exception. That reality is reflected in the foreign policy actions the Biden administration announced on Thursday, April 15, 2021. Keep in mind that President Biden has been involved in domestic [...]
Play the All-Star game in Taiwan!
Baseball’s poobahs missed a great opportunity when they (quite properly) fled the Undemocratic Republic of Georgiastan. A “great opportunity to seed new markets, build its brand, and address growing anti-Asian sentiment in the United States, … [and] help protect and defend global d[...]
April 12th, 2021 - 11:02 pm § in China, Foreign Affairs
China’s strategy to seize an ocean
The South China Sea is very valuable real estate. About a third of the world’s seaborne trade passes through there, and it’s rich in resources, including oil and fisheries. It’s also of great strategic importance; if China could control it, and keep other nations out, Southeast Asi[...]
Russia’s worrying moves against Ukraine
Russia is rapidly building up military forces on its Ukraine border and rebuffing diplomatic calls for de-escalation as fighting picks up between Ukrainian troops and Ukrainian-Russian separatists in the disputed Donbass region in eastern Ukraine. President Biden, through his press secretary, is [...]
April 7th, 2021 - 7:14 pm § in China, Foreign Affairs
U.S. needs 6th generation fighter
“The Air Force must field its Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter soon if it wants to compete with China,” Air Force Gen. Mark Kelly, the senior officer over America’s fighter fleets says. A prototype has already flown (see story here). But he wonders whether “our na[...]
8 years in prison for a door knock?
Yes. It’s possible, if you’re talking about Georgia, the defendant is black, and the door knock was a protest against a racist voter suppression law. Read story here. After all, that state’s racists just made it a crime to hand a water bottle to a black voter waiting hours in line [...]
March 30th, 2021 - 12:58 am § in Donald Trump, Foreign Affairs, Law and Courts, News Media, Politics, Racism
How bad a president was Trump?
That’s the title of an article by Chris Cillizza, who frequently writes about politics for CNN. The article quickly descends into statistics (More Republicans than Democrats like Trump) and scholarly rankings (ranging from near-last to dead-last). If you want to wade through those details, go [...]
March 23rd, 2021 - 9:25 pm § in Foreign Affairs
Is Australia’s parliament a whorehouse?
Sure sounds like it. “This week a whistleblower alleged that Coalition staffers were swapping videos of themselves engaging in sex acts in Parliament House, including on the desk of a female Coalition MP … [and] claimed that the building’s prayer room was often used for sex and sex wor[...]
China’s up to more no good in the South China Sea
China’s ongoing efforts to seize the South China Sea tend to fly under the radar because they’re piecemeal, incremental, and low-key. But their cumulative effect over time has major impact. The upshot is that China ignores international law and other nations’ rights, and asserts ra[...]