Pakistan on the Precipice

Back to the Brink in Ukraine

Northeast Asia on the Brink

Return to the Abyss

BERKELEY Europe is again on the precipice.

MADRID Once again, Europe has peered into the abyss.

Russia is moving toward precipice.

We urge the Assembly to step back from the brink.

To the Brink and Back with Iran

That is the precipice on which Greece stands today.

For countries on the brink, a merciless logic follows.

LONDON Syria is a living nightmare. Egypt hovers on the brink.

There were many occasions when South Africa s fate appeared touch and go.

The problem with brinkmanship is that, sometimes, one does go over the brink.

The diplomacy of sanctions, ostracism, and brinkmanship has failed resoundingly.

It is held culpable for the near financial meltdown.

The financial sector and its free market ideology had brought the world to the brink of ruin.

We're sitting on the edge of a precipice, and we have the tools and the technology at our hands to communicate what needs to be done to hold it together today.

But, on both sides of the Atlantic, the polarized politics of bravado and brinkmanship will be much in evidence.

Europe is on the edge of an abyss, and will surely tumble into it unless Germany and France alters course.

It is very difficult for a central government to sit on the sidelines when the economy s key players are on the brink of collapse.

And in a way, I kind of like the sensation of it a lot better than I like actually standing on top of the cliff, wondering what to do.

So, while others have to step forward to do their part, it is best if Greece steps back from the brink.

Then, once the European project is halfway over the cliff, the federalist moment might arrive.

It is one thing to guide people up a mountain it is another to lead them to the edge of a cliff.

That will require a new brand of statecraft based on mutually beneficial cooperation not brinkmanship and deception.

GENEVA The trouble with brinkmanship of the type now being played out over Iran s nuclear program is that it is so easy to fall over the cliff.

Iran and Syria, which have played a spoiler role in Iraq up to now, may also now be anxious to find a way to pull the country back from the brink.

Natural selection also explains many basic revulsions, such as the horrid smell of rotting meat, or fears, such as the fear of snakes or standing close to the edge of a cliff.

Yet the consequences of our individual actions are typically so far removed from our daily awareness that we can go right over the cliff without even knowing it.

The possibility of military intervention in Syria, together with the deteriorating situation in Egypt since the army s coup, has placed the region on a razor s edge.

Russia will start to feel vulnerable, and will be pushed toward either geopolitical brinkmanship or submission to China s will.

They will spar with each other for another six weeks, then go to the brink of the purported cliff and see who blinks at the last moment.

Once again the Lebanese, and their respective foreign patrons, cannot find an agreement until the very last moment, when they are all standing on the edge of a dark tortuous and bottomless abyss

Côte d'Ivoire is still balancing on the brink that is the unpleasant reality that all actors involved in trying to manage the crisis are faced with.

Greece is caught in a classic debt trap, as the interest rate on its public debt has soared beyond its growth rate by a considerable margin Spain is teetering on the brink.

Brinkmanship and broken agreements threaten to turn the referendum s technical and political difficulties into yet another disaster for the country.

The resulting political tensions led to a second Thirty Years War that brought Western civilization to the brink of collapse.

The brinkmanship and bargaining that this approach encourages make it impossible to develop and present pan European visions to the public.

The consequence is a complicated game currently exemplified by the saga of Greek voluntary restructuring in which both sides stare into the abyss and then turn away from the out and out conflict that would send them plummeting into it.

Nor is sympathy at work China does not buy Treasuries because it wants to temper the pain of America s fiscal brinkmanship.

But EU member states, facing their own fiscal constraints, have shown no willingness to consider additional bilateral aid. So Ukraine continues to teeter on the edge of the abyss.

The financial system may be more stable than it was five years ago, but that is a low bar back then, it was teetering on the edge of a precipice.

Seeking dialogue with North Korea immediately after its missile tantrum and nuclear brinkmanship is unwise and impractical.

Only after its security is assured will China free itself from complicity in North Korean brinkmanship and be better able to control the North s behavior.