Editor’s Note: The following piece, exclusive to GPS, comes from Wikistrat, the world's first massively multiplayer online consultancy. It leverages a global network of subject-matter experts via a crowd-sourcing methodology to provide unique insights.
Is the Arab Spring over? Or are there other countries that might rise up in the year ahead? Wikistrat asked its global community of analysts to consider this question. Here’s what they came up with:
1) Algeria
Up to now the regimes that have fallen - Libya, Tunisia, Egypt - have been led by strongman dictators who kept a lid on religious extremism. With Syria in flames and Yemen undergoing gradual reforms, that leaves only Algeria’s strongman Abdelaziz Bouteflika. FULL POST
Editor’s Note: The following piece, exclusive to GPS, comes from Wikistrat, the world's first massively multiplayer online consultancy. It leverages a global network of subject-matter experts via a crowd-sourcing methodology to provide unique insights.
In last year’s parliamentary (Duma) elections, current Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party had to stuff ballot boxes just to avoid falling too far below the 50 percent mark. Now, as Putin presents himself to voters this Sunday as the once-and-future president, there’s clearly a bottom-up backlash brewing among the urban young and middle-class. Will it prevent a Putin win? Hardly. The only uncertainty here is how far Putin’s United Russia party will have to go to ensure a respectable victory margin. Whether anyone - at home or abroad - will actually respect the process is another thing.
So, stipulating that Putin 2.0 is a given, here’s Wikistrat's weekly crowd-sourced examination of what all this may mean for Russia and the world at large. FULL POST
Editor’s Note: The following piece, exclusive to GPS, comes from Wikistrat, the world's first massively multiplayer online consultancy. It leverages a global network of subject-matter experts via a crowd-sourcing methodology to provide unique insights.
The great Troika of the European Union, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund has engineered a second bailout of Greece, once again saving Western Civilization as we know it. But as anyone following this long-running melo-drachma may attest, it ain’t over ‘til Chancellor Merkel says so. This week’s Wikistrat drill looks at possible future pathways for the eurozone. FULL POST
Editor’s Note: The following piece, exclusive to GPS, comes from Wikistrat, the world's first massively multiplayer online consultancy. It leverages a global network of subject-matter experts via a crowd-sourcing methodology to provide unique insights.
Either Israel and the United States are engaged in a brilliant psychological operations campaign against Iran or the two long-time allies really are talking past each other on the subject of Tehran’s reach for a nuclear bomb. Either way, all this Bibi Netanyahu said, Leon Panetta said chatter is producing some truly jangled nerves over in Iran on the subject of Israel’s allegedly imminent attack on that country’s nuclear program facilities.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu keeps publicly implying that his nation can’t wait on Iranian events for as long as the Obama administration – with its looming embargo of Iranian oil sales to the West – would like. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta keeps tripping over his own tongue, saying one day that America is doing its best to keep Israel’s attack jets grounded and the next offhandedly remarking to reporters that Tel Aviv is inevitably going to pull that trigger sometime this spring. FULL POST
Editor’s Note: The following piece, exclusive to GPS, comes from Wikistrat, the world's first massively multiplayer online consultancy. It leverages a global network of subject-matter experts via a crowd-sourcing methodology to provide unique insights.
This Sunday, the historically disorganized Venezuelan opposition movement is holding its first-ever presidential primary to decide upon a single candidate to challenge long-time strongman Hugo Chavez. With regional governor Henrique Capriles expected to prevail, the aging Chavez faces a younger version of himself: namely, a dynamic rising star promising to transform the political landscape. This time, however, the figure is moving it away from the heavy-handed populism initiated by Chavez after he swept into office in 1998.
Over the course of his tenure, Chavez’s pursuit of “21st century socialism” in Venezuela has propelled him to self-declared “president for life” status. Among his accomplishments are the systematic and brutal persecution of political opponents and critical journalists, the stacking of parliament with his supporters, various cash-payment programs to the voting poor to ensure his popularity, and - in a related dynamic - the general undermining (aka, looting) of the country’s primary economic engine, the national oil company known as PDVSA. Chavez has also turned Venezuela into one of the most crime-ridden nations in the world with the annual inflation averaging close to 30 percent. FULL POST
Editor’s Note: The following piece, exclusive to GPS, comes from Wikistrat, the world's first massively multiplayer online consultancy. It leverages a global network of subject-matter experts via a crowd-sourcing methodology to provide unique insights.
It’s hard to gauge just how strong the Free Syrian Army really is. It’s clearly growing in size and in its ability to control ever-widening swaths of territory. But at the same time, Russian and Iranian guns pour into Bashar al-Assad’s government. And Bashar al-Assad has a steely will to power.
Given the mounting tension, it’s worth thinking through exactly how regime change may unfold and what it’s consequences would mean for the region.
Wikistrat, the world’s first massively multiplayer online consultancy ran an online simulation on what could go down in Syria. Here are the results:
1) A military coup ousts al-Assad but retains control
The military regime could hold on to power while dumping al-Assad. Iran would like this scenario. A militarized dictatorship in Syria would keep its supply lines open to Hezbollah and Hamas.
The renewed regime would have to enter into some pro forma negotiations with the Free Syrian Army and two competing opposition groups (the Syrian National Council and National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change).
The West would hope for a not-too-bloody handover to civilian rule, mimicking Egypt post-Mubarak. As for al-Assad, he’d probably take a bullet to the brain on this one. FULL POST
Editor’s Note: The following piece, exclusive to GPS, comes from Wikistrat, the world's first massively multiplayer online consultancy. It leverages a global network of subject-matter experts via a crowd-sourcing methodology to provide unique insights.
Upsetting both conventional wisdom and the party establishment’s preferred narrative, New Gingrich’s big win in South Carolina’s Republican primary last weekend has dramatically energized the GOP race. While it suddenly feels like a two-man fight between Gingrich and the previously presumptive nominee Mitt Romney, in truth, the party’s three main wings (country-club moderates, Reaganites, and the farthest-right social conservatives and libertarians) remain deeply divided, suggesting a lengthy and drawn-out battle across the remaining GOP primaries. Taking that as our starting-point assumption, Wikistrat polled its global network of strategists for scenarios as to how this might unfold and what it could mean for the November general election.
1) True bell-weather Florida delivers a quick knockout next Tuesday
All the primaries so far have been predictably weird: sanctimonious Iowa narrowly going for Rick Santorum, independent New Hampshire favoring favorite son Romney, and the forever insurgent South Carolina jump-starting Gingrich. None of these states carry the representative cross-section of electoral pillar Florida, where the crucial Hispanic vote will be felt most clearly for the first time. Since all sides know it’s a real race now, the four remaining candidates (Gingrich, Romney, Santorum, Ron Paul) are all placing maximum bets on the Sunshine State and its notoriously volatile electorate. If Newt wins, the party establishment will be sorely tempted to dump Romney and talk of a late entrant will once again spike. But if Romney can pull it off, he’ll snuff out the last serious threat to his preferred storyline. FULL POST
Editor’s Note: The following piece, exclusive to GPS, comes from Wikistrat, the world's first massively multiplayer online consultancy. It leverages a global network of subject-matter experts via a crowd-sourcing methodology to provide unique insights.
The Obama Administration recently released a military strategic guidance document, which calls for a strategic “pivot” from the Middle East to East Asia. This bold move replaces President George W. Bush’s “long war” against violent Islamic extremism with a new, ongoing effort to shape China’s military rise.
What are the strategic, military trade-offs of this historic shift? Wikistrat, the world’s first massively multiplayer online consultancy, recently tapped its global network of several hundred analysts to ponder this question. This online network offers a uniquely powerful and unprecedented strategic consulting service: the Internet's only central intelligence exchange for strategic analysis and forecasting, delivered - for the first time - in a real-time, interactive platform. Exclusive to GPS, here are Wikistrat’s top ten strategic, military issues to bear in mind as this “pivot” unfolds:
Editor’s Note: The following piece, exclusive to GPS, comes from Wikistrat, the world's first massively multiplayer online consultancy. It leverages a global network of subject-matter experts via a patent pending crowd-sourcing methodology to provide unique insights.
Reuters reported that North Korea’s government will shift – for now – to rule by committee instead of by an all-powerful leader. Most likely, a factional truce was worked out in advance of Kim Jong-il’s death.
This deal splits power among successor-son Kim Jong-un, a couple of regents from Kim Jong-il’s elderly generation and the North Korean military. It’s a generational split with the military as the fulcrum. This makes it inherently unstable. Young Kim’s coterie of supporters will want to expand their control over time, and Old Kim’s aged cohort won’t give up without a fight.
Kim Jong-il so mortgaged himself to the generals in his “military first” policy that they already hold most levers of power, including the all-important relationship with China regarding North Korea’s nearly $7 trillion’s worth of mineral wealth. FULL POST
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