World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

Israel and the group, Islamic Jihad, have been exchanging military attacks in the Gaza and southern Israel.  The Islamic Jihad, the group firing rockets into Israel, is a group in the Gaza which competes for political control with Hamas.  Israel, however, holds Hamas responsible for any activity in the Gaza which threatens Israel.  Right now, the exchanges seem to be limited to tit-for-tat, but there is always the danger that violence might escalate.

The rhetoric over the Crimean referendum has become incredibly heated–almost to the point of incomprehension.  The Asia Times has published as essay by Pepe Escobar who is usually a very articulate critic of US policy.  There are parts of the essay which are very insightful, but also parts that are incoherent:

Would the Khaganate of Nulands [a reference to the Mongol Golden Horde rule in the region (1241-1259) conjoined with a reference to Victoria Nulands, a US State Department official] gang in Washington have the balls to force Obama to sanction “communist China” because they illegally occupy Tibet and Xinjiang, without the consent of their original Tibetan and Uighur inhabitants, which will never be offered even the dream of a referendum?

The interesting thing about Escobar’s analysis is that no one in their right mind believes that China would allow a secessionist referendum in either Xinjiang or Tibet.  Perhaps if that possibility were more genuine in the world some would take the possibility of such a referendum in Crimea more seriously.  With such wild rhetoric flying around, it is difficult to keep a clear head.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has published a study on the historical patterns of the rise and fall of civilizations that concludes that our current industrial civilization is likely to experience a similar pattern. The study identifies the critical variables that may lead to the collapse of a civilization: Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy.  In many respects, the conclusions are remarkably similar to the conclusions of the Limits to Growth study conducted in the early 1970s by Dennis and Donella Meadows.