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Benedict Carey provides this fascinating account of one woman's experience in the U.S. Army's mission in Afghanistan. Lieutenant Courtney Wilson served in Kandahar in 2010 and experienced many of the stresses women face to a larger degree than men integrating into what is for the dominant part a male focussed culture. This is increasingly important as women now form about 15% of the force in Afghanistan and Iraq, and are likely to be an even larger part in the future tech driven force. With fewer women in the force Wilson had less opportunity to interact with women, and like other women in the army she felt the emotional bonding that men have with other men in the army is something they lack. Like women in male professions, and men at the margins of the dominant culture in other fields, women feel a higher level of psychic stress.

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A detailed look at the limits of the November 23, 2013 nuclear deal at Geneva negotiations with Iran. David Sanger of the NYT points out the limits of the deal and any future deal reached with Iran. Experts and negotiators of deals with North Korea point to the difficulties and the reversibility of such deals. Only a deal that takes the centrifuges and the nuclear fuel out of the country would be complete, say experts in Israel. In the period since 2009 when Obama took office Iran has increased the amount of low-enriched uranium to 9000 kilograms from 2000 and centrifuges from a few thousand to 18000, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, showing the difficulties of achieving such an agreement. The reactor at Arak is another pathway to nuclear weapons using plutonium. Any hidden facilities also present risks.

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For what a ruble buys in Russia , 2.7 times what a dollar buys in the US, Russia gets alot of bang out of its defense budget of $149 billion, about $401 billion (Purchasing power) compared to US $997 billion. Add to this Russia is now a war economy in the war with Ukraine and concentrates its forces in one theatre not four as the US spread out over Indo-Pacific, Europe and Middle East and Korean peninsula. This is the reason behind most of DJT's actions reflecting realities in defense. Shut down the Middle East theatre which is also what the American people want by moving everything in the direction of economic progress, turning down the revolutionary and sectarian ideologies that roiled Egypt of Suez, Iraq and Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 60's and dragged the world into costly insane wars. And do this with the consensus of Russia, China and India. Wind down the war in Europe- accept the Russians as a Northern European power with a settlement of the Ukraine conflict, and let Germany lead Europe's defense. Manage the relationship in the Indo-Pacific with India and South and Southwest Asian investments in economic infrastructure that will offset China's rapid growth of the last three decades by incentivizing South Asia and South western Asia parts of which were called the Middle East by the Britons and now can be rengaged in the South /Southwest Asian group of nations led by the US. This is the policy for the next 25 years to 2050 that a Russia, Germany, US, China, India consensus sees as a constructive future for the people of the world.   ...

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Chuck Hagel on the need to bring in more countries to handle difficult situations such as the one the US faces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He says thats why the world now has a G20 and not a G8. No country can face these situations alone especially when there is a mutual interest of many countries in these situations. He calls it a 20th century reaction to 21st century realities. He says the 2 wars cost more than a trillion dollars. One sees a new respect for international institutions such as the UN, World Bank, IMF, and GATT renamed WTO, even with Republicans. Chuck Hagel's point makes a lot of sense and is generally accepted in people's understanding of the situation from the Defence Department to the Administration, and among respected politicians. It is putting it onto practice that is the hard part. As Hagel puts it, it is important to remember what Lyndon Johnson told Senatior Russell, that he knew the Vietnam war could not be won, and yet he did not want to pull out and be the first American President to lose a war. This is a contradiction because if it can't be won its going to be lost under the next President or the one after that, in this case Gerald Ford. Hagel says it not ours to win and lose. Here he points to the interconnectedness and shared interests of all nations. Every great threat to the U.S., whether it is economic, terrorism, nuclear weapons proliferation, health pandemics, environmental degradation, energy or water and food shortages, is also a threat to global partners ansd rivals. So its wrong to view engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan through the lens that says its about winning or losing. And he asks win what? Too many cultural, ethnic and religious dynamics are involved for any one nation to control. Hagel concludes by saying that the US, the Defense Department, the Obama administration, must get this right, as it affects the global architecture for the next generation. Fresh thinking is needed. Single issue engagement is obsolete in the 21st century in dealing with global partners or rivals, or countries with aspects of both....

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Iranian missiles and drones flying low and close to the ground avoided detection by Saudi and American air defense systems. The missiles and drones hit Saudi oil facilities stopping about half of the Saudi oil production. Iranian cruise missile technology was used for the attack, according to U.S. officials. The attack also showed how vulnerable the oil supplies from this region are to disruption. The U.S. is not dependent on Saudis for oil as it has increased its production from shale. China, Japan, South Korea and India are dependent on Saudi oil supplies. Yet the U.S. is shouldering a greater burden for ensuring reliable supplies to Asian countries, something the Trump administration sees it should be compensated for. Tougher sanctions on Iranian oil hurt its economy, resulting in actions taken by Iran to disrupt Saudi oil supplies. The Saudi intervention in Yemen is another source of tensions in the region. The Trump administration says it is not interested in endless wars in the region, yet its tougher oil sanctions on Iran are pulling it into the conflict in unpredictable ways. China, India, and other countries had sought sanctions waivers to import Iranian oil, and see the sanctions as hurting oil supplies. India with limited supplies of its own was affected by the oil sanctions. ...

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A country smaller than the US state of Connecticut will host the first World Cup Soccer games in the Arab world from November 21 to December 18. England will play US , the day after Thanksgiving.

Group A  Netherlands with Qatar, Ecuador, Senegal

Group B   England with Iran, US, Wales or Scotland/Ukraine

Group C.  Argentina with Saudi, Mexico, Poland

Group D   France with Peru, Australia/United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Tunisia

Group E  Spain, Germany, Japan with Costa Rica or New Zealand

Group F  Belgium with Canada, Morocco, Croatia

Group G.  Brazil with Serbia, Switzerland, Cameroon

Group H   Portugal with Ghana, Uruguay, South Korea 

Defending champion France has it better in its group. 

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Lonely Planet and other travel books contributed to all the travel overcrowding we see today. Tony Wheeler a co-founder has some advice- "go two streets over" and you can avoid a touristy spot for other attractive options. The Washington Post's Andrea Sachs talks to Lonely Planet travel books cofounder Tony Wheeler who started the company with his wife Maureen in 1972 after trips from London to Turkey and Iran by car. Their first book was Across Asia on the Cheap and started a new period of travel using hostels and cheaper accomodations and distant locations not travelled before by earlier generations such as Brazil and Argentina, distant parts of Asia and Africa. Wheeler is now 76 and lives in Melbourne and London. He sold his company in 2011, and it is now run by Red Ventures.

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President Obama attends a filming of a show for "The View" hosted by Whoopi Goldberg and co-host Barbara Walters at ABC studios on Sept 24, 2012. This happens just as world leaders are greeted by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as they arrive for a meeting of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York. And just as Tim Arango reports in the NYT that the situation in the Middle East is seeing spillover affects from Syria that affect the entire region, and Middle East tensions are rising.

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Karen Elliott House, who has reported extensively from Saudi Arabia for a long time, says the Saudi succession to a younger generation is established, yet the different strains on the fabric of Saudi society continue. The parts of the society that are Islamic fundamentalist see the monarchy as too worldly compared to a militant Islamic State, and the western educated class sees the monarchy and religious clerics as not making enough room for modern ideas, for women and a free press. Inside the kingdom the very dichotomy that allowed the Saudi state to flourish from its beginnings in the feudal period of the late eighteenth century with Wahhabbi given the role of religious authority in exchange for guaranteeing political legitimacy of the monarchy now creates tensions in a modern state. Outside the kingdom Iran is seen as a rival state in the region, and the Saudi monarchy is seeking the support of the U.S. to fight Islamic State. Ibn Saud, described as a skilled statesman by John Foster Dulles, carefully strengthened the monarchy's role in the region for the first half of the twentieth century in his dealings with Britain and the U.S., and successors including King Abdullah continued his policies. Saudi Arabia now is in a new period of radicalism, and conflicts in the region, with an aging leadership in transition, a house divided against itself, as Karen Elliott House who as observed the kingdom for so long points out....

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As OPEC members met again in June 2015 for the first time since the meeting in November 2014, there is a sense that OPEC no longer exerts the same influence on oil prices. There are 4000 oil companies in the U.S., says one U.S. State Department official, even if OPEC were to cut production the cuts could be matched by shale oil producers in the U.S. quickly increasing output. This is the new reality, say experts. OPEC expects to keep production at the same level of the current production ceiling of 30 million barrels a day in place for the 7th meeting in over 3 years. Algeria and Nigeria, both hurt badly by the drop in oil price, have called for cuts but failed to persuade the Saudis. With Russia unwilling to join a coordinated production cut, there is not much talk about doing this. The Saudis and Iraq have continued to pump more oil, with April 2015 production of 30.84 million barrels a day the highest monthly average since 2012. Other factors also remain in the minds of the Saudis and other producers such as the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar- policies on climate change, use of less energy and more from friendlier sources for the same amount of economic output demonstrated by countries such as Germany, advances in technology, energy saving transitions in emerging markets such as China and India....

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Greg Ip points out that the stronger dollar in 2018 is creating serious problems for Argentina, and will have an effect on Turkey, Indonesia and other developing countries. Dollarization hurts because it increases debt as debt servicing becomes costlier with dollar denominated debt and imports denominated in dollars become costlier. The dollar has increased in importance in the global economy. This is why the economic growth has suffered in developing countries in 2018. It is also why president Trump believes he can cut off Iran from the U.S. banking system to increase chance of new negotiations to fix flaws in the Iran nuclear deal, says Ip.   Argentina has seen internal problems compounded by the rising dollar causing the peso to drop by 17% so far in 2018. 88% of Argentina's imports are denominated in dollars. A rising dollar means it costs more in pesos for imports. Argentina's different levels of government have $98 billion in dollar denominated debt, and private sector has an additional $68 billion, the total being a third of its GDP. A decline in the peso means this is harder to pay off. About 40% of world trade, according to Harvard economist Gita Gopinath, is invoiced in U.S. dollars, four times U.S. share of world trade, and developing countries together owe $2 trillion in dollar denominated debt according to BIS. This makes it harder for developing countries such as Indonesia, Turkey, India, Argentina, Brazil, as they now face rising oil prices in combination with a rising dollar. In Argentina a poor crop for soyabeans and other agricultural exports in 2018 creates additional woes.   ...

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Israeli concerns as the democracy protests lead to new elections in Egypt, and democracy protests take place in all parts of the Arab world. Veteran correspondent Ted Koppel talks to Israeli leaders in Jerusalem. They tell him their first concern is Iran, which they see benefitting from the changes in the Middle East. They would like to see a Marshall Plan for Egypt- continuing U.S. aid to Egypt to maintain economic progress there. They are watching the situation in Libya and Syria as it evolves. The Israeli leaders also tell Koppel that they would like to see the U.S. make a commitment to Saudi Arabia, if the survival of the Saudi governmet is at risk. In Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, Israel sees Iranian influence as the larger risk.

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President Obama in an interview with Steve Inskeep of National Public Radio says that blue collar men, the white working class, have suffered in the last decade, and Trump is exploiting their fears and anxieties. Yet he made no mention of the large parts of the middle class with low levels of assets, and the extreme inequality discussed by Fed chairwoman Janet Yellen at a Boston Fed conference on inequality in October 2014. Obama addresses the war in Syria and Iraq in a similiar manner by not mentioning the millions of refugees in that region and the million that have created a refugee crisis in Europe. He attributes the problem more to media pursuing ratings than any errors of the administration in this interview with NPR, including some of it directed by pockets in the Republican Party. This ignores the many editorials and op-ed pieces on the subject from both sides of the spectrum, the Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

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Benny Gantz, a former Israeli army chief of staff, failed to take advantage of the situation Mr. Netanyahu finds himself in with corruption charges from the Attorney General and a sense that it was time for Israel to move on beyond the Netanyahu years. In a close election contest Mr. Gantz needs to put forward his own message which he is only now beginning to do. He says Mr. Netanyahu's office leaked news of a hack of his mobile phone by Iran which went on the Israeli television network. Mr. Gantz's view of the election is that a clean campaign would resonate with voters after the rough and tumble politics of the Netanyahu years.

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The Bernie Sanders 2016 U.S. presidential campaign is compared to the Howard Dean 2004 U.S. presidential campaign. Both are from Vermont- Sanders was Mayor of Burlington, Dean was governor of Vermont. Dean and Sanders draw many white, educated, affluent voters to their campaign rallies. Yet the situation in 2015 is different. Dean's major issue was his opposition to the Iraq war started in 2003. Sanders says his position is more class based, and calls for a revolution to help working class Americans gain upward mobility as wages remain stagnant, and educational opportunity restricted. The Democratic Party today is also different, with more ethnic voters, and 40% female.