ISIS has told Americans it wants to “drink their blood” in a twisted message promising attacks on the US.
Circulating on pro-Islamic State messaging channels the statement follows warnings of attacks on the major sporting events this summer including the T20 World Cup and Paris Olympics.
Europe’s biggest economy is struggling to cope with a rapidly changing geopolitical environment. Chancellor Scholz has yet to provide the necessary leadership.
Since the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany seventy-five years ago, the country has rested on four pillars. Today, none of them can be taken for granted.
Osama bin Laden founded al-Qaeda during the latter stages of the Soviet-Afghan War with the goal of waging global jihad. Since its founding in 1988, al-Qaeda has played a role in innumerable terrorist attacks, and is most notoriously responsible for the multiple attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. The 9/11 terror attacks—the deadliest ever on American soil—left nearly 3,000 people dead and provoked the United States to wage war against al-Qaeda in the group’s home bases in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other sanctuaries worldwide. Since then, the group has established five major regional affiliates pledging their official allegiance to al-Qaeda: in the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, East Africa, Syria, and the Indian subcontinent.
L’Union Européenne est présentée comme nécessaire à notre économie et au maintien de notre pouvoir d’achat, on a l’impression qu’il est impossible d’en sortir au risque d’un cataclysme financier. Et pourtant c’est une machine à fabriquer de l’inégalité et de l’appauvrissement qui a été d’ores et déjà sciemment mise en place. Où est la vérité ?
L’Occident a maintenant un grave problème avec ses élites.
Le bon sens permettait déjà de s’en douter, les observations s’accumulant dans le sens d’une déconnexion de plus en plus importante et aux conséquences de plus en plus graves des élites du reste du peuple. Une étude récemment menée par Scott Rasmussen (fondateur de l’institut Rasmussen Reports) permet d’apporter des éléments factuels à ces intuitions.
Drawing on his extensive experience as a historian and diplomat, Philip Zelikow warns that the United States faces an exceptionally volatile time in global politics and that the period of maximum danger might be in the next one to three years. He highlights lessons from the anti-American partnerships developed by the Axis powers in World War II and Moscow and Beijing during the early Cold War. Zelikow reminds decision-makers who face Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea today to remember that adversaries can miscalculate and recalculate and that it can be difficult to fully understand internal divisions within an adversary’s government, how rival states draw their own lessons from different interpretations of history, and how they might quickly react to a new event that appears to shift power dynamics.
Forget the “Pax Americana.” The unipolar moment, that brief interlude where the United States reigned supreme, is over. China’s rise, coupled with a growing discontent with the American-led rules-based international order, has ushered in a new era: a multipolar world with multiple power centers jostling for influence.
What would become of the world if the United States became a normal great power? This isn’t to ask what would happen if the United States retreated into outright isolationism. It’s simply to ask what would happen if the country behaved in the same narrowly self-interested, frequently exploitive way as many great powers throughout history—if it rejected the idea that it has a special responsibility to shape a liberal order that benefits the wider world. That would be an epic departure from 80 years of American strategy. But it’s not an outlandish prospect anymore.
With Russia pressing from the east and Trump polling well in the west, the EU needs a dramatic increase in its defense capabilities.
European strategic autonomy, strategic independence, and emancipation—these concepts have been ambiguously defined and, consequently, unconvincingly operationalized since they became buzzwords after the publication of the 2016 EU Global Strategy. While the Trump presidency may have awoken Europe to the transatlantic partnership’s fragility, particularly as the U.S. under different administrations seems keen to redefine its global leadership, the current turbulent European security landscape renders the EU’s ability to defend itself more relevant and challenging than ever. Greater strategic autonomy will require rapid defense integration among EU member states, an emphasis on understanding the perceptions and requirements of its Central and Eastern member states, and a commitment to a strong European pillar in the NATO structure that can at least maintain a first line of defense in case of strained U.S. capabilities.