Strategic surprise: With Dec. 2 Taiwan call, Trump challenges China’s breakout from containment

Strategic surprise: With Dec. 2 Taiwan call, Trump challenges China’s breakout from containment

Special to WorldTribune.com By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs The Dec. 2, telephone conversation between Republic of China (ROC: Taiwan) President Tsai Ing-wen and U.S. President-elect Donald J. Trump very deliberately ushered in a new era in U.S. engagement in Asia, one designed to stop the rapid decline in U.S. credibility and […]

U.S. faces new spectrum of geostrategic options in a post-Obama world

U.S. faces new spectrum of geostrategic options in a post-Obama world

Special to WorldTribune.com By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs U.S. President-elect Donald J. Trump in many ways faces the most circumscribed strategic options of any modern U.S. President entering office. Not only has the global context changed — and will change rapidly even further — so also has the United States’ abilities, […]

China and Russia did what came naturally: Fill the vacuum of power created by Obama administration

China and Russia did what came naturally: Fill the vacuum of power created by Obama administration

Special to WorldTribune.com By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Revelations that the People’s Republic of China was developing a next-generation, long- range strategic bomber and a so-called sixth- generation fighter aircraft should have come as no surprise to Western defense leaders. The news has, however, been met with skepticism and incredulity. And […]

Behind the Clinton media avalanche projecting certain victory: A desperate message to Moscow

Behind the Clinton media avalanche projecting certain victory: A desperate message to Moscow

Special to WorldTribune.com By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Few U.S. Presidential election campaigns have been so heavily dominated by extreme, partisan propaganda — and so lacking in substance — as the campaign of 2016. The goal of the outgoing Administration and its designated successor, Hillary Clinton, has been to ensure complete […]

Turkex: Time for NATO to wake up and smell the coffee; Moscow was the winner in coup drama

Turkex: Time for NATO to wake up and smell the coffee; Moscow was the winner in coup drama

Special to WorldTribune.com By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs It is unsurprising that the world should be incredulous at the explanations given by the Turkish Government as to the origins, sponsors, and actions of the putsch which was attempted against it on the night of July 15-16, 2016. Indeed, the great difficulty […]

How China’s economic slowdown hit Brazil, other BRICS states

How China’s economic slowdown hit Brazil, other BRICS states

Special to WorldTribune.com By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Brazilian President Dilma Vana Rousseff’s impeachment on May 12, 2016, was clearly due to consistent missteps by the president and her colleagues, but the underlying contribution to the Brazilian crisis — and crises in other countries — of the slowdown in the People’s […]

The U.S., in a strategic crisis, barrels toward its most vital election without a plan

The U.S., in a strategic crisis, barrels toward its most vital election without a plan

Special to WorldTribune.com By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs U.S. voters and political parties were, by mid-February 2016, well down the path toward selecting the final candidates for the November 2016 Presidential election. This determines how the United States would face the most decisive challenges for more than a century to its […]

Migration of ISIL jihadists: Out of Syria . . . and into Libya

Migration of ISIL jihadists: Out of Syria . . . and into Libya

Special to WorldTribune.com By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs January 2016 saw an acceleration of the movement of Daesh (asad-Dawlah al-Islamiyah fi al-‘Iraq wash-Sham) — so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) — fighters out of Syria and into Libya. There were profound reasons for this “flight to safety” by Daesh, […]

Unprecedented U.S. Mideast strategy is ad hoc, disregards existing frameworks

Unprecedented U.S. Mideast strategy is ad hoc, disregards existing frameworks

Special to WorldTribune.com By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Senior-level sources in numerous Middle Eastern governments have privately expressed bewilderment at recent and current U.S. government strategies and policies toward the region. But a closer examination of U.S. policies, now almost entirely dictated by the Obama White House, shows no cohesive national […]

The strategic roots of the U.S. ‘defeat’ of Sept. 10, 2013

The strategic roots of the U.S. ‘defeat’ of Sept. 10, 2013

Special to WorldTribune.com Gregory R. Copley, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs There should be no ambiguity: the U.S. and the West suffered a transformative strategic reversal on Sept. 10, 2013, and Russia and Iran each separately made substantial strategic gains and consolidation as a consequence. But the pivotal decision of Sept. 10 by President Barack Obama […]