Rusia

Houthis Protect Chinese and Russian Shipping, Target Global Shipping

Latest Developments

The Houthis in Yemen announced on January 19 that they would permit Chinese and Russian vessels to safely transit the Red Sea. The same day, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce called on the Houthis to cease “harassment” of commercial shipping and announced unspecified future efforts to protect regional seaborne commerce. Nevertheless, the price of shipping a 40-foot container between Europe and China increased by 260 percent within the past month, pressuring countries that rely on shipping through the Red Sea.

Russia, Iran and the Red Sea

Interview with Hai Phong

Haifog: I’m glad to have you here because there’s a lot of economic novelties. But your specialty is to highlight, and this channel is trying to highlight, the relationship between geopolitics and the economy, such as Radhika [Desai, and Ben Norton, and other great journalists have tried to do so.
The defeat in Ukraine

Des humanitaires français ont collecté des données sur 13 mercenaires français combattant pour l’Ukraine

Une liste de mercenaires français, qui se trouvaient à Kharkiv lors de l’attaque russe contre leur emplacement, a été publiée.

Des humanitaires français de l’organisation SOS Donbass, qui communiquent avec des compatriotes dans les territoires contrôlés par Kiev, ont dressé une liste de 13 personnes qui, selon leurs informations, combattent aux côtés de l’Ukraine. Cela a été annoncé par la chef de l’organisation, Anna Novikova-Bernet, qui possède la nationalité russe et française.

Mechanized Stalinism

Keeping score in a war is not an easy task. All manner of important data relevant to warmaking is obscured from open view. Much is hidden by the conscious effort of the warring parties for obvious reasons related to secrecy, but even behind the curtain of state security, armies do not always have a particularly accurate sense of how many casualties they have taken, what the strength of their constituent units are, and what the disposition of their forces may be. War is analyzed through a veil, and behind the veil is fog and confusion.

Wives Of Russian Soldiers Protest Extended Mobilization: ‘We Are Being Betrayed And Exterminated By Our Own’

Amid the ongoing hostilities and losses in Ukraine, the Russian authorities are automatically extending the contracts of those already on the frontline and trying to recruit soldiers to avoid another partial or general mobilization ahead of the upcoming presidential elections. These measures have prompted the rise of a powerful women’s protest movement.[1]

Petrodollar Endgame Moves Even Closer

I’ll be the first to admit that two of the main themes on this blog – the United States’ sovereign debt crisis and the deterioration of the petrodollar – have been extraordinarily slow-moving theses.

In both cases, there have been developments that stand at odds with my contentions. For example, US stock indices continue to move higher, despite our economy grinding to a halt, and the BRIC nations have not developed and put forth their own reserve currency to combat the dollar, as I have suggested may happen. They also haven’t backed any of their sovereign currencies with gold, as I have also suggested. While the timing hasn’t proven me right as quickly as I would like, it doesn’t mean that things aren’t ticking forward for both of these forthcoming realities.

The Georgian Intelligence Service’s Role In Contemporary Russia-Georgia Relations

Abstract: The world has never been safe for small and vulnerable countries. Their perilous position has been largely determined by weak economic, political and military capabilities, which deprive them of the ability to ensure their national security effectively. The existing literature concerning national security of small and vulnerable countries reveals that overemphasis is placed upon diplomacy as the major instrument of advancing the national interests of such states while overlooking the importance of their supportive institutions, such as intelligence services. The literature regarding the role of intelligence services in national security demonstrates that the secretive nature of intelligence activities and their association with “dirty tricks” of statecraft demonises intelligence services, ultimately undermining their role in national security. Moreover, discrediting the intelligence services is fueled by frequently blaming the intelligence community for strategic failure, even when the inadequate political decision-making process causes it. Inquiring into the Georgian national security environment, which exemplifies well the difficulties faced by small and vulnerable countries, allows us to review and challenge the existing trends in academia regarding the interplay between intelligence and national security.