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“Everyone has a plan,” the American boxer Mike Tyson once quipped, “that is, until you get punched in the face.” Policy-makers, strategic planners, corporate leaders, and analysts from all industries would do well to remember “Tyson’s Law”. Once you add Moore’s Law – the doubling of computing power every two years or so – to Tyson’s Law and you throw in a dash of geopolitical uncertainty, regulatory risk, and Fourth Industrial Revolution technological advances, it becomes evident that punches will come at all of us over the next few years with even greater speed than imagined. ... Continue reading at emerge85

Whether springing up in the U.S., Europe or Asia, populists are predictable. Immigrants and elites are usually the first to be targeted by these groups. Populists appeal to "true" citizens to reclaim their homeland, through border walls and trade protectionism. The free press will also come under assault, described by populists as "fake news" and enemies of the truth. Next, the populist will turn his fire on the judiciary and legislative mechanisms responsible for checking executive power. ... Continue reading at The Globe and Mail

“It’s confusing,” said Vali Nasr, dean of Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. “Here you have a populist president who stands in opposition to everything Davos stands for. It’s not easily understood why he’s going. Is it just perennial vanity because he’s heard over the years it’s where the billionaires hang out? Or is it because there’s a larger economic, political, and ideological message at play?” ... Continue reading at International Business Times

“That would be a diplomatic incident that would work in no one’s favor,” said Jenny Town, assistant director of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. ... Continue reading at USA Today

However, not everyone abroad understands understands the concept of shutdown or its implications, said Randa Slim, director of Track II dialogue at the Middle East Institute. Some twitter users in the Middle East are interpreting the shutdown as a complete termination of US government activities. ... Continue reading at The National

BERLIN — German rapper-turned-militant Denis Cuspert is most likely dead, according to three German security officials and one person close to him. Also known as "Deso Dogg" and later by the nom de guerre "Abu Talha al Almani," Cuspert was one of Germany’s most notorious Islamic State members and a high-profile figure behind the group’s propaganda efforts. ... Continue reading at The Washington Post

This piece was originally published by Gulf News on January 19, 2018. View it here. Positive reinforcement towards its private sector could alter Kim Jong-un’s conduct The world has marvelled that South Korea and North Korea have had their first dialogue in two years, paving the way for the North’s participation in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang County, South Korea. But few seem struck by the obvious lesson: a dose of incentives alongside the disincentives of sanctions championed by the US and passed unanimously by the UN Security Council, may well be the policy mix to pursue with Kim Jong-un. Without overstating the impact a changed prescription along these lines might have on Kim’s con

LONDON — The passengers stepping off the Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt, Germany, last month head straight for the passport-scanning machines that allow European residents to enter Britain quickly and without any human interaction. ... Continue reading at The Washington Post

Recent protests in numerous Iranian cities and towns caught the world by surprise, and embarrassed Iran’s government and ruling political establishment. But the expectation that the protests would escalate into a popular uprising and unravel the Islamic Republic did not come to pass. Iran’s rulers could take heart from that, but they cannot avoid the broader debates about the future of the Iranian economy and politics that the protests have set in motion. ... Continue reading at The Atlantic

If you were a newly married couple in China in the early 1980s, there were three aspirational items on your wedding list: a bicycle, a radio and a sewing machine. Today, replace the bicycle for a car, add a couple of upgraded smartphones, and possibly a foreign travel honeymoon. The wedding will also likely be live-streamed. Welcome to the new China. ... Continue reading at The National

Pakistani officials are “going to become much more forceful in terms of their rhetoric towards the United States, especially because there's an election coming up, probably in May,” said Shamila Chaudhary of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, in an interview with Slate's Isaac Chotiner. “They're going to double down on their kind of anti-U.S. sentiment, and they're going to focus on their relationship with China.” ... Continue reading at The Washington Post

“If Trump wants to increase troop levels, I’m not sure he can engage in this back-and-forth with Pakistan,” said Shamila N. Chaudhary, who served as Pakistan director on the National Security Council during the Obama administration. “They’re going to need those routes.” ... Continue reading at LA Times

Isaac Chotiner: This move of the Trump administration has already proven controversial, but what’s actually the argument against it given Pakistan’s behavior? Shamila N. Chaudhary: Giving Pakistan military aid is a tool that Americans have used to get access to the military. It’s not aid just for the things that they need to buy with it. It’s really a tool that gained us access to have an audience with the Pakistani military, and we used that audience to send more U.S. military officials to be embedded with the Pakistani military, and learn about the environment in which they work, and to have exposure essentially. That’s how it started. ... Continue reading at Slate

Relations between Russia and the West are at their lowest ebb since the Cold War. “What to do about Russia” is a matter of daily debates among Europeans and Americans. Few of those debates directly include Russian views on contemporary challenges. This volume fills this gap by featuring authors from Russia, as well as non-Russian experts on Russia, who present Russian views on relations with Western countries. Read the book or specific chapters here: Full Text Introduction – The Russia File: Russia and the West in an Unordered World by Daniel S. Hamilton and Stefan Meister Chapter 1 - Russia’s Changing Relations with the West: Prospects for a New Hybrid System by Andrey Kortunov Chapter 2 -