26 February 2004 Train Wreck By Gwynne Dyer History has been derailed. It was chugging along quite satisfactorily until the end of 2000: the Cold War long over, no threat of a major war anywhere, democracy spreading even to the most unexpected places by non-violent means, and a growing commitment to multileralism in all the …
18 January 2004 What The Terrorists Want By Gwynne Dyer I have always admired Edward Luttwak, one of the clearest American thinkers in the strategy/security game, and I have nothing but contempt for the US Homeland Security Department (Heimatsicherheitsabteilung, in the original German) and its ridiculous colour-coded threat levels. So I started reading a recent …
26 December 2003 Afghanistan: Two Years On By Gwynne Dyer Two years after American troops arrived in Kabul, how is the Bush administration’s project for a democratic and prosperous Afghanistan coming along? Well, the opium crop is booming: 3,600 tonnes this year, almost back up to the peak production of 4,600 tonnes that was reached …
5 September 2002 Why Did the Target Change? By Gwynne Dyer Beyond grief and anger, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States should raise a question in the minds of Americans: when and why did the target change? Later this year or early next, unless the Bush administration changes course radically, there …
14 May 2003 Terrorism and Patience By Gwynne Dyer The bomb attacks on foreigners’ residential compounds in Riyadh on 12 May were about as surprising as rain in Ireland. There was no surprise in President George W. Bush’s response, either: “The United States will find the killers and they will learn the meaning of American …
16 February 2003 The Question of Pakistan By Gwynne Dyer When the National Security Council does the worst-case analysis in a US attack on Iraq, what do its members tell themselves about Pakistan? You know, the world’s second-biggest Muslim country, the one with the nuclear weapons. Do they ever worry that the backlash elsewhere against …
5 September 2002 Why Did the Target Change? By Gwynne Dyer Beyond grief and anger, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States should raise a question in the minds of Americans: when and why did the target change? Later this year or early next, unless the Bush administration changes course radically, there …
February 03, 2001 Afghanistan and the Gods of the Little Things By Gwynne Dyer God’s preferences on dietary matters are well-known: no pork for Jews or Muslims, no beef for Hindus, and no saturated fats or refined sugar for the Western upper-middle class. But this is the first time he has taken such a strong …