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Conn M. Hallinan is a columnist for Foreign Policy In
Focus, “A Think Tank Without Walls, and an independent journalist. He
holds a PhD in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley. He oversaw the journalism program at the University of California at Santa Cruz for 23 years, and won the UCSC Alumni Association’s Distinguished Teaching Award, as well as UCSC’s Innovations in Teaching Award, and Excellence in Teaching Award. He was also a college provost at UCSC, and retired in 2004. He is a winner of a Project Censored “Real News Award,†and lives in Berkeley, California.
SHARE Monday, March 18, 2013 Egypt: A Coup In The Wings?
Are the statements by Egypt's opposition concerning the possibility of a military takeover simply a political maneuver aimed at forcing the Morsi government to be more inclusive, or are they laying a foundation for a coup? Loose talk about an Army takeover in Egypt is a little like hand-feeding a crocodile: a good way to lose a body part.
(1 comments) SHARE Thursday, January 1, 2015 Dispatch Awards 2014
And the awards go to...Over a period of 12 years, the U.S. detonated some 67 nuclear warheads with an aggregate explosive power of 42.2 megatons in the Marshalls. The Hiroshima bomb was 15 kilotons. The Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal found the U.S. liable for $2 billion in damages, but so far Washington has only paid out $150 million.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, May 2, 2016 Baiting The Bear: NATO and Russia
From Moscow's point of view, the U.S. is continuing to spread its network of anti-missile systems in Europe and Asia, which the Russians see as a threat to their nuclear force (as does China). And as far as "reneging" goes, it was the U.S. that dumped the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, not Russia.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, December 5, 2017 Rolling Snakes Eyes in the Indo-Pacific
Asia looks like a pretty scary place these days. A right-wing Hindu fundamentalist government in India and a revanchist Japanese Prime Minister are allied with an increasingly unstable administration in Washington to surround and contain the second largest economy in the world.
(1 comments) SHARE Tuesday, January 2, 2018 2017 Dispatches "Are You Serious"Awards
Each year Dispatches From the Edge gives awards to individuals, companies and governments that make reading the news a daily adventure.
(1 comments) SHARE Saturday, July 22, 2017 The Tortured Politics Behind the Persian Gulf Crisis
Erdogan is the Middle East leader who most resembles Donald Trump: He shoots from the hip and holds grudges. The difference is that he's far smarter and better informed than the U.S. president and knows when to cut his losses. The Russians have been carefully neutral, consulted with Turkey and Iran, and have called on all parties to peacefully resolve their differences.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 25, 2013 The White House's Flawed Korea Policies
The North is well aware of the fate of the "axis of evil": Iraq was invaded and occupied, and Iran is suffocating under the weight of economic sanctions and facing a possible Israeli or U.S. attack. From North Korea's point of view, the only thing that Iraq and Iran have in common is that neither of them developed nuclear weapons.
(5 comments) SHARE Monday, April 16, 2012 The U.S. and The Afghan Train Wreck
How the U.S. managed to get itself into this mess needs to be closely examined. The State Department under Hillary Clinton has become little more than an arm of the Pentagon, and the White House has shown an unsettling penchant for resorting to violence. In the meantime Afghanistan is headed for a terrible smashup.
SHARE Tuesday, August 27, 2013 The Kurds: Opportunity and Peril
Autonomy for the Kurds is out of the bag and not about to go back in, regardless of what the final outcome in Syria and Turkey are. Sooner or later, Iran will have to confront the same issue that governments in Damascus, Ankara and Baghdad now face: recognition and autonomy, or war and instability.
(2 comments) SHARE Saturday, January 28, 2017 How Trump Could Blunder Into War with China
Washington charges that the Chinese are playing the bully with small countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, and there is some truth to that charge. China has been throwing its weight around with several nations in Southeast Asia. But it also true that the Chinese have a lot of evidence that the Americans are gunning for them.
(2 comments) SHARE Monday, June 22, 2015 Toward A New Foreign Policy
"The American Century" Has Plunged the World Into Crisis. What Happens Now? U.S. foreign policy is dangerous, undemocratic, and deeply out of sync with real global challenges. Is continuous war inevitable, or can we change course?
(3 comments) SHARE Wednesday, May 13, 2020 Military Spending and the Pandemic
There is a hypersonic arms race going on among China, Russia and the US, and, according to the Pentagon, the Americans are desperately trying to catch up with its two adversaries.
(2 comments) SHARE Friday, June 6, 2014 Europe: The Sky's Not Falling
No, Britain is not about to toss its immigrant population into the sea. No, France's Marine Le Pen is not about to march on the Elysee Palace. And, as repulsive as the thugs of Hungary's Jobbik Party and Greece's New Dawn are, it was the continent's left to whom the laurels went in last month's poll.
SHARE Friday, March 27, 2020 How Austerity and Anti-Immigrant Politics Left Italy Exposed
As the viral blitzkrieg rolls across one European border after another, it seems to have a particular enmity for Italy. The country's death toll has passed China's, and scenes from its hospitals look like something out of Dante's imagination.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, April 19, 2018 The Great Game Comes to Syria
The appointment of National Security Adviser John Bolton, who openly calls for regime change in Iran, has to have sent a chill down the spines of the Iranians. What Tehran needs most of all is allies who will shield it from the enmity of the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia. In this regard, Turkey and Russia could be helpful.
(4 comments) SHARE Tuesday, June 13, 2017 The Long Term Threat to Europe Isn't Le Pen. It's Capitalism.
Macron's new centrist party, En Marche, did win big in France's recent legislative elections -- but mostly due to the anti-Le Pen vote. His program of austerity, restraints on unions, and corporate tax cuts is not embraced by most French people.
SHARE Tuesday, June 9, 2015 Middle East Plots
Why is the Israeli military talking about a war with Lebanon? The border is quiet. There have been a few incidents, but nothing major. Hezbollah has made it clear that it has no intention of starting a war, though it warns Tel Aviv that it's quite capable of fighting one. The most likely answer is that the Israelis are coordinating their actions with Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
SHARE Wednesday, January 24, 2018 Nuclear War: A Thousand Buttons
The very nature of nuclear weapons requires that the power to use them is decentralized and dispersed. And while it is sobering to think of leaders like Kim and Trump with their finger on the trigger, a nuclear war is far more likely to be started by some anonymous captain in an Ohio-class submarine patrolling the Pacific or a Pakistani colonel on the Indian border.
(2 comments) SHARE Thursday, December 19, 2013 "Are You Serious?" Awards 2013
Every year Dispatches From The edge gives awards to news stories and newsmakers, both national and international, that fall under the category of "Are you serious?" Here are the awards for 2013.
SHARE Thursday, November 13, 2014 The Big Chill: Tensions in the Arctic
you don't have to be next to the ice to want to be a player. China may be a thousand miles from the nearest ice floe, but as the second largest economy in the world, it has no intention of being left out in the cold. This past summer the Chinese icebreaker Snow Dragon made the Northern Sea Passage run, and Beijing has elbowed its way into being a Permanent Observer on the Arctic Council.