Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- July 26, 2017

Will Edwards, Cipher Brief: Border Dispute: China Won’t Back Off, India Can’t Back Down

After six weeks of tension between China and India over a Chinese road building project on contested territory, neither side is prepared to back down. Known as the Doklam Plateau, this small area high up in the Himalayas where Bhutan, India, and China share a vaguely defined border, is now the center of a potential conflict with much larger geopolitical consequences.

A spokesman for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Colonel Wu Qian, told reporters on Monday that China would not withdraw or end the road building project, saying "Shaking a mountain is easy but shaking the People's Liberation Army is hard."

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Commentaries, Analysis, And Editorials -- July 26, 2017

China and India torn between silk roads and cocked guns -- Pepe Escobar, Asia Times

What China's Himalayan Warmongering Reveals -- Brahma Chellaney, Japan Times

Syria’s Civil War -- Glen Carey, Bloomberg

Say Goodbye to Regime Change in Syria -- Scott Ritter, American Conservative

From Russia to Syria and Iran: Do EU sanctions really work? -- Rob Mudge, DW

Make Saudi Arabia's vision of tolerance a reality -- Clifford D. May, Deseret News

Silenced stones mark hard path to Sri Lankan reconciliation -- Duncan McCargo, Asia Times

Brazil's right on the rise as anger grows over scandal and corruption -- Don Phillips, The Guardian

East Ukraine becomes a pawn again -- L. Todd Wood, Washington Times

Push Back Against Russia in Cyberspace -- US Naval Institute

A Different Kind of Reset in Russia -- George Friedman, Geopolitical Futures

What Thucydides’s Trap Gets Wrong About the United States and China -- Albert Wolf, RCD/Modern War Institute

Trump's Cultural Revolution -- Francis Wilkinson, Bloomberg

Are America’s Wars Just and Moral? -- Patrick Buchanan

The Middle East: Terrorism Forever? -- Bing West, Strategika/Hoover Institute