The refugee crisis is very interesting. Not quite “Camp of the Saints”, but it’s a huge acceleration of frictions I expected to take much longer to play out, and not really hit the fan so soon.
Chinese economic troubles? Recessions are big things, but they happen. Economies go up, they go down.
Russian intervention in Syria. Russian satellite state getting military support. Shrug. Turkey seems much more interesting to me. I suppose the Russians intervention does make it possible for some serious confrontation with the US, but I don’t see Putin or Obama having much interest in that.
There are some complicated wrinkles to this one, including the observation that the (current) legitimacy of the Communist Party rule to a great extent depends on it being able to provide visibly and rapidly rising standards of living. And, of course, the question whether China is done with its growth spurt or it’s merely a hiccup has major geopolitical consequences a decade or two away.
Russian satellite state getting military support.
The first time post-Soviet Russia puts boots on the ground outside of the former USSR. The overarching theme is the global assertiveness of Mr.Putin and Middle East is always an… interesting place. And there is Iran nearby :-/
I agree that Turkey is interesting, too, but nothing “big” happened there recently and were were talking about events.
No, Russia started providing it’s bombers with fighter escorts with orders to shoot in self-defense. This is a situation that can easily escalate the next time one of these planes passes through Turkish airspace.
The refugee crisis is very interesting. Not quite “Camp of the Saints”, but it’s a huge acceleration of frictions I expected to take much longer to play out, and not really hit the fan so soon.
Chinese economic troubles? Recessions are big things, but they happen. Economies go up, they go down.
Russian intervention in Syria. Russian satellite state getting military support. Shrug. Turkey seems much more interesting to me. I suppose the Russians intervention does make it possible for some serious confrontation with the US, but I don’t see Putin or Obama having much interest in that.
There are some complicated wrinkles to this one, including the observation that the (current) legitimacy of the Communist Party rule to a great extent depends on it being able to provide visibly and rapidly rising standards of living. And, of course, the question whether China is done with its growth spurt or it’s merely a hiccup has major geopolitical consequences a decade or two away.
The first time post-Soviet Russia puts boots on the ground outside of the former USSR. The overarching theme is the global assertiveness of Mr.Putin and Middle East is always an… interesting place. And there is Iran nearby :-/
I agree that Turkey is interesting, too, but nothing “big” happened there recently and were were talking about events.
Um, shooting down a Russian plane.
And… nothing happened.
No, Russia started providing it’s bombers with fighter escorts with orders to shoot in self-defense. This is a situation that can easily escalate the next time one of these planes passes through Turkish airspace.