World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

There was a nationwide strike in India, in protest over economic reforms that reflect more openness to the process of globalization.  The governing party raised fuel prices and opened the door to global retailers like Wal-Mart, but many of the poor and small business owners believed that these reforms will only worsen their own economic position.  The protests only complicate an already unstable political situation in India which has been rocked by charges of corruption and a slowing economic situation.

As the Chinese-Japanese stand-off deepens, we all begin to look for historical parallels that might offer some insight into how other stand-offs evolved.  A creepy historical example is the French-German crisis in Agadir prior to World War I.  Let’s hope that history’s lessons are not applicable to the current case.

To deepen everyone’s apprehension, David Ignatius of the Washington Post (Ignatius is unusually well-connected to the Department of Defense), wrote a sobering analysis of the most recent wargame simulation by the Pentagon of a confrontation with Iran.  It doesn’t end well.