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Portugal’s prime minister announced €43 billion of public infrastructure investment on Thursday (22 October), including a high-speed rail link between Lisbon and the country’s second largest city, …

Portugal’s prime minister announced €43 billion of public infrastructure investment on Thursday (22 October), including a high-speed rail link between Lisbon and the country’s second largest city, Porto, to be carried out by 2030.

Investments will focus on transport and energy, Prime Minister Antonio Costa said, with a total of €21.7 billion earmarked for transport projects and €13 billion directed towards clean energy projects largely centred around hydrogen production.

The much-anticipated high-speed rail connection is projected to cost €4.5 billion, with another two billion euros set aside for expansion of deepwater ports in Sines, Leixoes and Lisbon.

As the presidential election nears, the risk of violence appears to be growing. Increasingly heated presidential rhetoric, political polarization, COVID-19-related anxiety, mobilization and counter…

As the presidential election nears, the risk of violence appears to be growing. Increasingly heated presidential rhetoric, political polarization, COVID-19-related anxiety, mobilization and counter-mobilization related to Black Lives Matter protests, and other concerns all pose risks for election security and public safety. Law enforcement agencies, social media companies, and others anxious to preserve the peace are scrambling to identify, and disrupt, possible threats, but their efforts may not be enough. Much depends on a wild card—the actions of the president of the United States—and the prognosis there looks quite grim.

Back in 1986, now-fabled Democratic strategist James Carville was working on Bob Casey Sr.’s first successful bid for Governor when the ever-quotable Cajun observed that Pennsylvania was basically …

Back in 1986, now-fabled Democratic strategist James Carville was working on Bob Casey Sr.’s first successful bid for Governor when the ever-quotable Cajun observed that Pennsylvania was basically Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west and Alabama in between. (Left unsaid? It’s a very white rendering of Alabama.)

Carville’s is a phrase that has rubbed Pennsylvanians raw since, but it’s become sort of a shorthand for political operatives and journalists alike. In fact, the part that doesn’t fit neatly around the two major cities forms something of an upside-down tophat. “Winning the T” has been the Republican playbook for decades, while Democrats try to run up the score in the cities. Then the parties routinely scrap over a few swing suburbs.

That seems to be playing out once again in 2020.

The strategic and geopolitical intent of Chinese incursions, its place, time, information and force application needs to be seen beyond the myopic tactical territorial canvas. Chinese geopolitical …

The strategic and geopolitical intent of Chinese incursions, its place, time, information and force application needs to be seen beyond the myopic tactical territorial canvas. Chinese geopolitical intent is to stymie and retard India’s rise as a competitor, its ways are through coercion and diminishing India’s regional and global stature, and thus forcible alteration of LAC is just one of the means with attendant high visibility strategic communication.

These define the “Ends, Ways and Means” of the Chinese strategic power play, which merits greater insight by the Indian national security decision-making apparatus. Thus the counter strategic and operational narrative by India needs to go beyond the present predictable tactical attrition model and adopt an unpredictable low-cost high payoff operational and strategic manoeuvreistic approach to raise the geopolitical cost of incursions by the Chinese.

Strength must be pitched against the adversary’s weakness especially when combat asymmetry prevails both in quantum and technology.

According to military terminology, a two-front war occurs, when opposing forces encounter on two geographically separate fronts. The forces of two or more allied parties usually simultaneously enga…

According to military terminology, a two-front war occurs, when opposing forces encounter on two geographically separate fronts. The forces of two or more allied parties usually simultaneously engage an opponent to increase their chances of success. The opponent consequently encounters severe logistic difficulties as it is forced to divide and disperse its troops, defend an extended front line and is at least partially cut off from access to trade and exterior resources.

The term has widely been used in a metaphorical sense, for example, to illustrate the dilemma of military commanders in the field. Two front war situations are brought about by geopolitical factors and while armies must be ready to fight it, politics has to ensure that it is avoided. All possible alliances must be explored if a two-front war is unavoidable. Wars are fought for political and economic objectives.

Which candidate in America’s presidential race would be better for Latin America? The question is being asked across the hemisphere, further abroad and in the United States, where Washington’s rela…

Which candidate in America’s presidential race would be better for Latin America? The question is being asked across the hemisphere, further abroad and in the United States, where Washington’s relations with Latin America are a major domestic issue for many voters, with the power to tilt election results.

The answer, of course, depends on your personal views. There’s hardly unanimity, but when a Colombian student asked me recently whether President Donald Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden would be better for her country, it wasn’t difficult for me to reach a conclusion.

Biden has the political philosophy, the background and the track record to help Latin America grapple with the growing challenges it faces today, which are becoming much tougher as the result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The seven-year financial framework and the recovery budget of the European Union have been taken hostage by a bitter dispute over the rule of law. The European Parliament (EP) asserts itself as a g…

The seven-year financial framework and the recovery budget of the European Union have been taken hostage by a bitter dispute over the rule of law. The European Parliament (EP) asserts itself as a guardian of EU values, imposing its requirements at last on the spending machinery of the Union.

The declaration by the four leaders of major political groups in the EP could not be clearer: they are challenging the Council, where representatives of the Member States sit, focusing on their own national interests, and where the German presidency is trying to steer the process towards a compromise. But that is exactly what infuriates the majority in the EP: the endless and increasingly unprincipled compromise in which the values of the community eventually get lost.

The last European Council raised “strategic autonomy” to the level of a central concept for a new phase of the European project. The implications will be multiple not only for external, but also fo…

The last European Council raised “strategic autonomy” to the level of a central concept for a new phase of the European project. The implications will be multiple not only for external, but also for internal policies. The Covid-19 crisis has exposed multiple weaknesses of European integration: failures in supply chains in vital products, public health cooperation, the functioning of the European internal market as well as its dependence on the outside world in key economic products. All this at a time when international cooperation and the multilateral system are undermined from the inside, as many world political leaders mentioned in their speeches at the recent United Nations General Assembly to commemorate its 75th anniversary.

We are on our way to a new world order, but it remains to be known which one. Two major developments will determine this new world order: the emergence of nationalist and authoritarian leaders, including in the US, and China’s emergence as a global hyperpower.

China is raising the level of the geo-strategic game with a full toolbox to develop global influence.

The global health,climate and economic crises have led to a deterioration of the world order as we knew it. The gap between current global challenges and global governance is widening and weakening…

The global health,climate and economic crises have led to a deterioration of the world order as we knew it. The gap between current global challenges and global governance is widening and weakening the multilateral system. A new, fair and inclusive multilateralism for the 21st century must be invented, write Maria João Rodrigues and Conny Reuter.

Reforms of the UN will be under discussion at the 75th UN General Assembly (UNGA) starting on 21 September, a unique opportunity to rebuild the multilateral system. This historic GA will be the scenario of a big confrontation between those who are against international cooperation, those who want to keep it as it is and those who want to change it. This is a make-or-break moment for international cooperation, and it will probably be a turning point in shaping the emerging new global order.

The European Union has a vital interest in this but cannot act alone.

Americans found themselves grappling with existential threats on two fronts. The first was economic. Starting in the summer of 1971, the Richard Nixon administration enacted a series of economic re…

Americans found themselves grappling with existential threats on two fronts. The first was economic. Starting in the summer of 1971, the Richard Nixon administration enacted a series of economic reforms designed to stabilize the dollar. At that time, inflation and unemployment rose to about 6 per cent.

The subsequent ‘stagflation’ that resulted was fuelled further by the 1973 oil crisis. When Gerald Ford replaced Nixon as US president in 1974, inflation had risen to around 10 per cent, unemployment to around 5.6 per cent, and a powerful recessionary wave hit the US and rippled outward through other countries’ economies. Not captured in bloodless statistics, however, is the surge in divorce rates, mortgage foreclosures, repossessed cars and other personal hardships and humiliations. I grew up outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and have distinct memories of food banks, shuttered mills and handouts of ‘government cheese’ that began during the Jimmy Carter years and continued into the 1980s.

The second push toward pessimism flowed from Americans’ anxiety about the deteriorating quality of the environment in the US and throughout the world.

The EU has the power to execute a potential breakup of global Big Tech giants, but it is not currently the “right thing to do,” the European Commission’s Vice-President for Digital Affairs, Margret…

The EU has the power to execute a potential breakup of global Big Tech giants, but it is not currently the “right thing to do,” the European Commission’s Vice-President for Digital Affairs, Margrethe Vestager, has said.

Vestager’s position puts her at odds with Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton, who has recently been quoted as saying he would like to keep the option of ‘structural separations’ of the Big Tech giants on the table, under certain conditions.

“When it comes to breaking up of companies, I think this would indeed be doable in Europe – if we had a case that would take that as a remedy,” Vestager said in response to a question from German leftist MEP Martin Schirdewan.

“But so far, we have not had competition cases that would lead us to think that this is the only remedy that would be the right thing to do in this situation.”

The United States of America is a race-plural nation – the American middle class is no different If we define the middle class as those in the middle 60 percent of the household income distri…

A little more than a year ago, China had almost no diplomatic presence on Twitter. A handful of accounts, many representing far-flung diplomatic outposts, operated without apparent coordination or …

Americans clearly do not agree about the best solutions to the country’s biggest problems. But while those disagreements are fierce, they are not as strong as their feelings of distrust, dislike an…

The ongoing deployment and parleys between military commanders in Eastern Ladakh have held center stage for five months since the Chinese occupation of disputed areas along the LAC. Despite the rec…

#india

In the 20th century, alphabetical order appeared to be immortal. No longer could anyone at home in an alphabetic writing system remember a time when the automatic response to ordering had not been …

#alphabetical

As the U.S. presidential election campaign comes down to its frenetic closing days, the divisions that have wracked the country for the past four years of Donald Trump’s presidency have come into e…

As the U.S. presidential election campaign comes down to its frenetic closing days, the divisions that have wracked the country for the past four years of Donald Trump’s presidency have come into even sharper contrast. The resulting atmosphere of mistrust and suspicion has only magnified what’s at stake in the election, for the U.S. and the world.

Whether Trump or Democratic nominee Joe Biden wins, they will face a global landscape characterized by great power competition, says Edward Luce, columnist and U.S. national editor for the Financial Times, in which America’s relative power is declining and the appeal of its model is no longer always prevailing.

#election

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