According to a recent Bloomberg poll, 61 percent of global investors see big trouble ahead for China. Here’s the story: Most global investors predict China will face a banking crisis within the next five years, paring their appetite for the nation’s shares and eroding confidence in its leadership, a Bloomberg Global Poll indicated.Sixty-one percent of respondents […]

Will Facebook bring down India?Of course not, but the Indian government seems to think differently, and has requested sites like Facebook and Google remove content that says cutting and wounding things about the government. Apparently, New Delhi believes that Facebook groups called “We hate Sonia Gandhi” or “Manmohan Singh is a puppet of Sonia Gandhi” […]

Several weeks after a political blitz through South and East Asia, Washington is seeking to reassure Chinese leaders that the US is not looking for an Asian cold war, not trying to contain China, and does not view China as an adversary. The WSJ has the story: Michèle Flournoy, the under secretary of defense for […]

We are well into Advent, the four weeks before Christmas in which believers prepare for the holiday.  To help you begin to get into the spirit of the season, here is a link to a YouTube performance of “The Little Drummer Boy” by Sean Quigley.  (h/t: Small Dead Animals, a blog from the Great White […]

Participating on book award juries takes a lot of time and is often emotionally difficult as you struggle to do justice to many fine books.  This year I was asked to serve as a juror for Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s annual book prize and as usual there were many more first class books […]

More countries are joining the West with new sanctions on Iran. Yesterday, it was Japan. The WSJ reports: With the new sanctions, approved by Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s cabinet Friday morning, Japan said it will freeze the assets of an additional 106 organizations, one individual and three banks, widening to more than 350 the circle […]

Despite the best efforts of Green unicorn hunters, and a last ditch effort to pull some kind of fuzzy pseudo-agreement from the ruins of the Durban meeting, the past year has seen climate treaty issues swept off of the front page in favor of more relevant and dramatic news about the European debt crisis, Iranian […]

I am returning to New York this morning from a speaking engagement in Columbus, Ohio.  Expect normal blogging to resume late in the day.

Creating a zone of democratic peace from Vancouver to Vladivostok.

What's behind it? And can it last?