By: John Hulsman

Dr. John C. Hulsman is Senior Columnist at City AM, and Founder and Managing Partner of John C. Hulsman Enterprises, a global political risk consulting firm. More of John’s work is available on his substack

The West’s critical analytical flaw that spawned 80 years of Mid East failure

August 25, 2014

Once again in Iraq – like some diabolical version of Bill Murray’s predicament in the peerless Groundhog Day – Western countries are arming the locals, with the US launching air strikes to stabilise a situation unhinged at least in part by our own doing. And yet we are surprised. Why does this keep happening? Simply [...]
Maliki’s ignominious exit is good for Iraq – now let’s hope he goes quietly

August 12, 2014

As is often the case, Nouri al-Maliki’s Iraqi government found itself abandoned by even its oldest friends in the end. As the internal revolt within his Dawa Party to replace him as Prime Minister gathered pace, Maliki found his old buttresses of support had quietly buckled. The Americans had finally given up on him in [...]
Obama’s got it right: Why it’s in the West’s interest to help the Kurds out

August 11, 2014

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” For the second time in this doleful summer, the Islamic State (IS) has astounded the world. Following its stunning success in June – snatching and then consolidating territorial gains in eastern Syria and western Iraq into a terrorist state the [...]
Israel and Hamas both think they won in Gaza: This crisis is doomed to fester

August 5, 2014

After four weeks, the guns over Gaza have been stilled, at least temporarily, as a three-day ceasefire has gone into effect. Further, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) – satisfied that, in destroying 32 tunnels, it has significantly (if temporarily) degraded Hamas’s ability to directly strike Israel proper – has announced it is leaving the Palestinian [...]
Dagger in the Kremlin’s heart: Europe’s sanctions have revived a comatose West

July 30, 2014

“We live between the act of awakening and the act of surrender.” John O’Donohue, Irish poet MY GOD, they’ve finally done something. In the end, it wasn’t the horrific shooting down of MH17 – highly likely by Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine – that goaded a seemingly inert Europe into decisive action. Even after this [...]
Putin has exposed a chilling truth about the West: It no longer exists

July 22, 2014

Somehow Europe’s leaders have managed to undershoot even my subterranean expectations. Ahead of an EU foreign ministers meeting yesterday to plan a common response to the Malaysia Airlines atrocity, leaks made it all too clear that this whole process would not amount to much. But the results – even for the EU – are almost comically [...]
We’re staring into the abyss in Gaza: Only the US can halt this deadly cycle

July 21, 2014

“If you want to make peace, you don’t talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.” Moshe Dayan, Israeli politician and military leader IN GAZA, the inexorable logic of destruction continues apace. Since the Israeli ground incursion into the Hamas-dominated enclave began on Thursday, the death toll has risen tragically. Sunday was the worst [...]
There will be more Putins – and more Flight MH17s – if Europe fails to act now

July 21, 2014

“Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” – The Wizard in L Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz In her able, forthright way, Hillary Clinton has just painfully called Europe’s bluff. Speaking just after the horrific details of the Malaysian plane disaster became clear – where it looks increasingly likely that murderously clueless [...]
This Middle East tragedy will become a catastrophe if Obama missteps now

July 14, 2014

My wife recently passed along to me an almost unutterably beautiful video from the Royal Shakespeare Company. In it, Camille O’Sullivan performs “Daughter, Dear Daughter” from the Bard’s moving The Rape of Lucrece, giving voice to the universal anguish of a parent burying a child. It ends with the harrowing plea, “Then live, sweet Lucrece, [...]
How to defeat Isis: We already have a playbook for beating these extremists

July 6, 2014

MUNICH – As the Fourth of July comes and goes, I have been jokingly told by friends that I share a trait found more often in East Asian cultures; that of ancestor worship. One of my sons is named after both Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, so fervently do I believe in the civic religion [...]

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