Der G-20-Gipfel in Delhi hätte zum bedeutungsvollen Schritt Indiens im Aufstieg zu einer globalen Grossmacht werden sollen. Doch das nüchterne, rein geostrategische Urteil fällt anders aus. Die Durchführung des G-20-Gipfels vom 9. und 10.September 2023 in New Delhi soll dem Vorsitzenden Narendra Modi triumphal gelungen sein, wenn man die Weltpresse liest. Die Hymnen steigern sich…
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Geopolitics in the Middle East
[ ... ]A bit under the shadow of the war in Ukraine and the increasing tensions between the US vs. China, some remarkable developments have started in the Middle East. Main developments Iran and Saudi Arabia have resumed diplomatic relations, Bashar al-Assad’s Syria has been officially rehabilitated and Arab autocrats appear to govern with renewed vigour, brutality…
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India’s “Western” future
[ ... ]India’s most conspicuous political move of late is certainly its refusal to join the West’s condemnation of Russia’s war against the Ukraine and to comply with its sanctions against the aggressor. India has even, together with China, become Russia’s main buyer of oil and is, thus, indirectly funding Putin’s war. India may not be known…
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Die Arktis – ein neuer geostrategischer Fokus
[ ... ]Vom Ukrainekrieg aus gehen Schockwellen um die Welt. Russlands Aussenminister Lawrow definiert in diesen Tagen eine neue Weltordnung als ausdrückliche Zielsetzung eines Krieges, der anfänglich „nur“ die militärische Unterwerfung des Nachbarn Ukraine zum Ziele hatte. Der bündnisähnliche Zusammenschluss mit China hat diesen Nachbarn, soweit erkennbar, noch nicht zum Kriegseintritt veranlasst. Aber er weist auf eine…
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Taking Xi seriously
[ ... ]As the Ukraine disaster shows, an internally undisputed autocrat’s words have to be taken seriously. This goes for Putin – the demise of the USSR as ‘the biggest disaster of the 20th Century’, thus his fight to restore it – as it does for Xi Jinping. The latter’s rhetoric, political initiatives and actions since his…
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An important year for India’s Government
[ ... ]Throughout 2023, India will play a prominent role in world politics. It will be chairing the G-20, the grouping of the world’s 20 largest economies. The G-20 is not an international organisation, nor a group sharing common values, and even less an alliance, but it is a setting in which the world’s most important economic,…
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The UK and Switzerland: EU non-members trying to get in
[ ... ]Mutual agreements between the UK and Switzerland are an attempt to overcome the evident disadvantage of not being a formal participant in the European single market. But the Swiss case cannot be a template for the UK to overcome its Brexit woes. A mutual recognition agreement (MRA) in the financial sector, ‹aimed at facilitating or…