Asia Opinion

Mike Hanna is the project manager for a trucking company called Afghan American Army Services. The company, which still operates in Afghanistan, had been trucking for the United States for years but lost out in the Host Nation Trucking contract...

On October 29, 2001, while the Taliban’s rule over Afghanistan was under assault, the regime’s ambassador in Islamabad gave a chaotic press conference in front of several dozen reporters sitting on the grass. On the Taliban diplomat’s right sat his...

The war that erupted between the United States and China in 2013 was a classic case of miscalculation by both parties. Neither Beijing nor Washington thought that the other side would escalate the long-standing tensions over Taiwan to the point...

THE DANGER OF A COLLISION COURSE On the surface, America’s relations with China seem to be rather cordial. Tensions spiked in April 2001 over the incident in which a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter plane, but that quarrel...

CONTENTS Introduction 2013: How the War Began The Origins of the Taiwan Problem, 1895-1979 The Taiwan Problem Evolves: 1979-2000 Some Ominous Trends in Taiwan Some Ominous Trends in the PRC Washington’s Muddled Policy The Dynamic Military Balance Avoiding Calamity ...

By Abbas Milani The Washington Quarterly, April 2009 Two countries, “both alike in dignity,” have for too long been the Capulets and Montagues of our days. Grudges like the 1979 hostage crisis and the U.S. role in the overthrow of the popular...

The US needs to make it clear it will not tolerate a first strike By Walt Rodgers Christian Science Monitor, 24/04/09 The new Israeli prime minister recently appeared to give President Obama a blunt ultimatum: Stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons-or we will. ...

Israel’s failure in Lebanon, and the dismal performance of Bush’s Republican party in the mid-term Congressional elections in November 2006, put in doubt the ascendancy of the neocons for the first time. With the Democrats taking decisive control of the...

There was no debate in Israel about which country should be targeted after Iraq; it was taken for granted that Iran should be next. The question was simply one of how to isolate Tehran and neutralise its threat to Israel’s...

The neocons’ chance to create their own reality in the Middle East-and one more suited to both the US and Israel-came with the 9/11 attacks. The Administration’s first task was to exploit the resulting deaths to create a new political...