Geopolitics / International

• Economic Strategy of Turkmenistan

  In April 2010, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov of Turkmenistan made public his newly released “Economic strategy of Turkmenistan: Relying on the people, for the sake of the people.”  “…The entire country is covered by construction scaffolding and a network of utilities and gas pipelines, one of which has already reached China, becoming a modern symbol of the Great Silk Road.  Moreover, it broke all records of extent and became the standard of regional infrastructure, having passed the territory of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and initiating the whole network of super-large gas refineries, distilleries and storages.” The basis of the industry in the…

• Tension Builds in the Gulf of Guinea as Competition for Economic Resources Increases

  The strategic framework and the correlation of forces in the Gulf of Guinea — one of the most significant and growing energy resource regions of the world — is changing rapidly. A new era in security arrangements for the region is beginning. The region is moving from an area of low technology defense and security systems, and minimal command and control at national levels, to one of growing sophistication, higher mobility, and the potential for military confrontation. The five-year, $250-million Equatorial Guinea maritime security program - essentially the build-up of an integrated naval and air capability - announced on February…

• 10 Geopolitical Predictions for 2010 & Short Term Strategic Outlook

  A great - and still growing - divergence appeared in 2009 between public statements by leaders and their public performance. The politicized, romanticized theater of increasingly populist “democratic” leaders and media seemed to be of a different planet from activities taking place in the real world. While a large part of the global population appears still transfixed by words, there is a growing perception that great fissures already rend the global strategic architecture. This is a trend which will compound during 2010. There is a widespread belief that the world has “ducked the strategic bullet” of global economic collapse, but…

• Changing the Balance of Power: 16 Geopolitical Megatrends Affecting Every Aspect of your Life

  Substantial and unmistakable signs of profound change in the global strategic framework have become concrete in the past year. The stress in the structure has already developed into fissures. The transformation, in reality, has been underway since the end of the Cold War, and will continue and compound for at least another decade. The balance of power is changing. Apart from the wave of globalization, which was really a precursor event, what is now emerging is the first truly fundamental change since the end of the Cold War, and, in global terms, it is a change which may redefine entire…

• Oil, Politics and Power

  Oil and politics have always gone together for a simple reason; since oil became an indispensable commodity without which the world as we know it today would not function, countries that produce oil have learned how to use it as a weapon. And who says weapons, says politics. The power of oil as a political weapon became evident during the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict that became known as The October War in the Arab world and the Yom Kippur War in Israel. Hoping to sway Western sentiments in favor of the Arab cause Arab oil producing countries such as Saudi Arabia…

• The Great Oil Grab! How the Major Powers are Dividing the World's Resources

  China and Russia will stay on tenterhooks for decades to come, on the question of sufficiency of energy supplies, notwithstanding the oil grab they have indulged in over the past years.  According to energy security pundits, both China and Russia have unique problems and are unable to shake off the shackles of the modern open energy market. “Even though China seems to be rushing to buy oil resources and production supplies, it still has to buy its oil in open markets. A rough calculation of its production and consumption units in bpd show it would not be using more than…