Section: Ron Paul Institute (USA)
Choke Point: The Global Economic Consequences of The Persian Gulf Shutdown
The Persian Gulf is the most consequential body of water in the global economy. Its narrow exit — the Strait of Hormuz, just 33 kilometres wide at its narrowest point — acts as a valve through which flows an extraordinary share of the world’s energy and agricultural inputs. A sustained closure of that valve by Iran will trigger an economic...
Republicans Prefer War to the US Constitution and to Truth
The Republican-controlled House and Senate rejected a war powers vote that would have granted Congress the ability to decide whether Trump could continue serving Israel’s conflict with Iran. Apparently 77% of Republicans have fallen for the propaganda that Iran is a terrorist state developing nuclear weapons. The same Republicans fell for...
Russia Serves a Cold Dish to the GCC and India
The proverb “revenge is a dish best served cold” traces to French (“La vengeance se mange froide”), appearing in English literature by the 19th century. Most Americans do not know the French orign of the proverb… It entered popular culture thanks to Star Trek. In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Khan Noonien Singh delivers the line during...
The $300,000 Question Nobody in Washington Can Answer
LNG shipping rates have gone from $40,000 to $300,000 per day — a 650% vertical climb in less than a week — and the men who ordered the strikes that caused this are still strutting around the Oval Office talking about “strength.” That is not strength. That is the economics of catastrophe unfolding in real time, and it will reach every kitchen...
Wars and Rumors of Wars
So now the die is cast and the United States has joined Israel in an unprovoked attack on a non-threatening Iran to destroy its military capabilities and to bring about regime change. This is a major mis-step that could easily turn out very badly as it is a pointless war of choice that could easily escalate to neighboring states and become...
Big League War
“What the West has, and has had for some time now, is a single-shot military. One serious campaign, whether finally won or lost, would disarm the West for a decade.” — “ Aurelien” This, folks, is the simple truth of the matter. The US simply could not, at this moment — nor at any time in even the medium-term future — mount and sustain a campaign...
Who Can Halt the ‘America First’ Ambition Rolling Across the Globe? – China Can
We now can see more clearly the Trump Administration’s chosen path: In the wake of Davos and Munich, we have some light – both on Trump’s towering ambitions, and the means by which he hopes to achieve them. It may nonetheless be too late. Past policies shackle America’s future. Russia acting alone may not be able to burst...
With Shaky Reasoning, Trump Weighs Limited Initial Strike On Iran To Force A Deal
Having amassed the heaviest US air power in the Middle East since the disastrous 2003 Iraq invasion, President Trump is now considering an initial, limited strike on Iran to force it to bow to the maximalist demands of Israel and the United States. The idea is based on two deeply questionable premises: that air strikes alone will compel Iran to...
Trump Kabuki Theatre in Ukraine: Nothing of Substance Gets Resolved
It is not a glitch (that nothing gets resolved). It’s a feature. For it opens rather, a path for “Business” to be done – for “stakeholder” deals to be cut, and for billions to be shared out in payoffs. This is Trump’s geo-political transactional model: Business displaces traditional negotiation (at least while the money flows); Money...
Biden Revives Axis of Evil Propaganda Ploy
Joe Biden’s approach to international issues increasingly resembles George W. Bush’s disastrous foreign policy. One key tendency in common is that both men view complex world affairs in dangerously simplistic terms as an existential struggle between good and evil. In Bush’s case, the bitter fruit of that perspective became...
