The question of how to handle Russia is a pressing one. In inverse proportion to the weakness of its economy, demographics and armed forces, Russia seems determined to ratchet up its confrontation with the West and break the international system for good. Now, for good measure, explicit threats of nuclear war are being made. Dealing […]
Saudi Arabia’s policy of low oil prices is, as I have argued for a while now, primarily geopolitical in its aims of countering Iran and Russia. The Saudi elite is obsessed with denying Iran the leadership of the Muslim world, and the US rapprochement with Tehran is deepening their sense of encirclement. Russia, by shoring […]
The following joke is doing the rounds in Moscow: what do Putin, the ruble and a barrel of oil have in common? They all hit 63 this year. Amusing as this is, Russia faces a serious problem. The further oil prices fall, the further the ruble falls. The further the ruble falls, the more expensive […]
As oil prices remain depressed, my Centre for Policy Studies paper from March, ‘Deploying the Saudi Oil Weapon’, appears prescient. The aim of this article, however, is not to crow, but to examine the reasons for falling oil prices, and to look at why we need cheap oil for as long as it is feasible to […]
