PUERTO NUEVO, Ecuador — Camaraderie may be the key to military morale, but the 24 Ecuadorian troops traveling towards the Colombian border by helicopter maintain an eerie quiet. The Amazonian jungle stretches out below, apparently undisturbed but for the odd small farm or oil well. But appearances in the jungle can be deceiving. Under the foliage, invisible from the air, are FARC guerrilla bases and cocaine laboratories. The soldiers’ mission over a five-day patrol covering around 25 kilometers will be to find and destroy them. “It’s a reality,” says Gen. Fabián Narváez, the commander of Ecuadorian forces in the border [...]
Have we really reached the end of American hegemony? For those who think so, the signs of America’s decline and the rise of emerging powers are everywhere. According to this line of argument, the world’s sole superpower succumbed to overstretch. U.S. failures in the “war on terror” revealed the limitations of American military power, while its role in provoking the global economic crisis revealed the shortcomings of American economic leadership. As a result, rising powers around the world feel suddenly emboldened by America’s visible weakness. Brazil’s president blames the worldwide recession on “white-skinned people with blue eyes,” and Russia and [...]
In the years since Arab countries proclaimed their infamous “Three Nos” policy towards Israel — no peace, no recognition, no negotiations — the official stance of most Arab governments has eased. A number of Arab leaders now openly speak of normalizing relations with Israel under certain conditions. But despite the change in policy at the top, hundreds of millions of Arabs continue to receive a steady barrage of anti-Israel, anti-Jewish and anti-American propaganda, much of it coming in the official government-sanctioned press. The quest for peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors faces no shortage of obstacles. Not least of [...]
