Dr. James M. Dorsey

Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr. Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario, Shifting Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa, and the forthcoming China and the Middle East: Venturing into the Maelstrom.

A Real-Life Game of Risk: Why Civilizationism Is Biggest Threat to Human Rights in the 21st Century

True liberal values and human rights face their largest threat to date, a rapidly growing system of global governance based on opportunistic alliances rooted in populism and an unfettered bid for power argues Dr. James Dorsey.

Dr. James M. Dorsey
By Dr. James M. Dorsey
Hungary Israel

Many have framed the battle lines in the geopolitics of the emerging new world order as the 21st century’s Great Game. It’s a game that aims to shape the creation of a new Eurasia-centred world, built on the likely fusion of Europe and Asia into what former Portuguese Europe minister Bruno Macaes calls a “supercontinent.” For now, the Great Game

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From Tarrant to Breivik to ISIS: The Emerging Crisis of Civilisationalism

Blunt and crude language employed by leaders, politicians, some media and some people of the cloth helps shape an environment in which concepts of civility and mutual respect are lost.

Dr. James M. Dorsey
By Dr. James M. Dorsey

This week’s attack on two mosques in New Zealand reflects a paradigm shift: the erosion of liberal values and the rise of civilisationalism at the expense of the nation-state. So do broader phenomena like widespread Islamophobia with the crackdown on Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang as its extreme, and growing ant-Semitism These phenomena are fuelled by

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Saudi Plans to Bolster Gas Exports Shine New Light on Efforts to Undermine Iran

Saudi plans to become a major gas exporter within a decade raise questions about what the real goal of the kingdom’s policy is towards Iran.

Dr. James M. Dorsey
By Dr. James M. Dorsey
Saudi Arabia | Gas exports

Saudi plans to become a major gas exporter within a decade raise questions about what the real goal of the kingdom’s policy, and by extension that of the United States, is towards Iran. Officially both Saudi Arabia and the US, which last year withdrew from the 2015 international accord that curbs the Islamic republic’s nuclear program and imposed

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Attack on Iranian Soldiers Coincides with Saudi Crown Prince Visit to Neighboring Pakistan

Saudi funds have been flowing for some time into the coffers of ultra-conservative anti-Shiite, anti-Iranian Sunni Muslim madrassahs or religious seminars in Balochistan.

Dr. James M. Dorsey
By Dr. James M. Dorsey
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman meets with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis at the Pentagon in Washington, March 22, 2018. (AP/Cliff Owen)

This week’s suicide attack on Revolutionary Guards in Iran’s south-eastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan, the second in two months, could not have come at a more awkward moment for Pakistani prime minister Imran Khan. The assault on a bus carrying the guards back from patrols on the province’s border with the troubled Pakistani region of

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Nuclear Power: Saudi Arabia’s Coming Battle with Washington

Growing criticism and distrust of Saudi Arabia in the US are likely to strengthen efforts to thwart an agreement with the Kingdom to spearhead its own nuclear program.

Dr. James M. Dorsey
By Dr. James M. Dorsey
oil prices

When Saudi General Khalid bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz went shopping in the late 1980s for Chinese medium-range missiles capable of carrying nuclear, chemical or biological warheads he made no bones about keeping the United States, one of the kingdom’s closest allies, in the dark. it was “my task to negotiate the deal, devise an appropriate deception

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Global Watchdog Takes Saudi Arabia to Task over Terrorism Financing

The report puts Saudi Arabia in the position of the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to the 15-month-old Saudi-United Arab Emirates-led boycott of Qatar because it allegedly funds and supports militancy.

Dr. James M. Dorsey
By Dr. James M. Dorsey
Saudi Al-Qaida Islamic State Yemen

A Financial Action Task Force (FATF) report criticizing Saudi Arabia’s anti-money laundering and terrorism finance measures puts the kingdom on the spot 17 years after the 9/11 attacks and casts a shadow over its diplomatic and economic boycott of Qatar on the grounds that the Gulf state supports militants. In a nod to the kingdom, the

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Saudi Inc. The Arabian Kingdom’s Pursuit of Power and Profit

Ellen R. Wald’s new book provides a timely, well-written history of the Saudi national oil company, Aramco and how it has been used to flex political power throughout the world.

Dr. James M. Dorsey
By Dr. James M. Dorsey
Saudi Arabia Mike Pompeo

Ellen R. Wald’s timely, well-written history of the Saudi national oil company, Saudi Inc. The Arabian Kingdom’s Pursuit of Power and Profit (Pegasus Books, 2018), is as much the story of the Saudi oil industry as it is of the ruling Al Saud family’s reliance on black gold to ensure the survival of its regime. In painting a picture of the Al

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