Every ten years it is decline time in the United States. The declinist vision is so recurrent that it seems a constant countermelody of American exceptionalism. The paper offers an appraisal of the recent American debate on U.S. decline.
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As the withdrawal of international troops approaches, the cooperation of Pakistan appears as one of the keys to the stabilisation and consolidation of the gains made in 2011 in southern Afghanistan.
And yet, recent surveys show that the Pakistani establishment contin-ues to be dominated by geostrategic priorities that emerged in the 1970s, and that lack of mutual trust continues to characterise the three main actors involved in the Afghan quagmire – the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The East China Sea, encompassing roughly 1,250,000 square kilometres, situated between the eastern coast of China and the Pacific Ocean, is troubled waters.
We all wish that “Europe 2012” will be different from the one we have experienced in 2011.
Exactly 20 years after the signature of the Maastricht Treaty, foundations have been laid for a more solid and durable “fiscal compact” going beyond the current members of the euro zone – a move that is expected to fill the well-known gap left by Maastricht’s “unfinished business”.
What is going on in Japanese politics these days? Finance Minister Yoshi-hiko Noda was elected as the sixth prime minister in five years. Why does Japan cannot bring stability into poli-tics? It will be argued in this essay that is not just the problem of leader-ship but also one related to structural impediments of Japanese politics.
The six-month Libyan civil war that raged from February resulted in re-markably little field damage. A full recovery to pre-war Libyan output of around 1.6mn b/d should be achiev-able by mid-2012. But destruction at some export terminals are causing a bottleneck for further increases. Cleary the biggest restraint on the future of energy sector in Libya is political instability.
Nel 2012 l'Iran continuerà a essere al centro del vortice d'instabilità mediorientale.
In Tunisia la “rivoluzione della dignità” ha prodotto una svolta di portata storica con una nuova dirigenza islamico-laico-progressista che potrebbe risultare di valenza esemplare se non fosse condizionata dal limitato peso specifico del paese.
La protesta sociale ha fatto progredire il Marocco in chiave riformista apertasi ora a una coalizione tra forze islamiche e progressiste, ma il suo ruolo nella regione è appannato dalla questione del Sahara occidentale dove è insabbiato con l’Algeria, in debito di ossigeno riformatore e di leadership malgrado la ricchezza energetica.
Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani è probabilmente l’uomo più influente e, insieme, meno conosciuto del mondo arabo. L’emiro del Qatar, piccolo paese del Golfo ricco di giacimenti di gas tanto da farlo uno dei maggiori produttori mondiali, è salito al potere nel 1995 scalzando il padre con un colpo di stato incruento. Le promesse di parziale apertura democratica sancite nella Costituzione emanata dieci anni più tardi, e che prevedevano l’elezione diretta di due terzi del parlamento, in realtà non si sono mai concretizzate.
Just about at the time that climate negotiators started packing their suitcases and boarding planes to Durban for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s seventeenth Conference of the Parties (COP17), the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) released troubling figures. Data published by the agency earlier in November showed greenhouse gas emissions were at record levels in 2010: 30.4 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide escaped into the atmosphere last year – 1.6Gt (5,3%) more than in 2009, pushing carbon levels to their highest levels yet...