The discovery of massive gas reserves off the coast of Cyprus threatens to destabilize the entire region.  

The island of Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean has for centuries been the cat’s paw of foreign powers, including the United States. But now, with the discovery of vast deposits of natural gas, the tables have turned. The strategic balance of power has shifted and is a threat to stability in the region.

For the Crusaders, Cyprus was a place d’armes, guarding the route to the Holy Land, and for a hundred years it protected Venetian trade until the Ottomans conquered the island in 1571. For the British, who took control in 1878, it protected the sea route through the Suez Canal, and with the Cold War Cyprus took on a new significance.

Editor's Note: This is the first installment of a new series on the national strategies of today's global power and other regional powers. This installment establishes a framework for understating the current state of the world.  

The evolution of geopolitics is cyclical. Powers rise, fall and shift. Changes occur in every generation in an unending ballet. However, the period between 1989 and 1991 was unique in that a long cycle of human history spanning hundreds of years ended, and with it a shorter cycle also came to a close. The world is still reverberating from the events of that period.

EuropeNews
German Referendum to Leave the Euro
Organized by the German Compact-Magazin, EuroKonferenz II was held in the Berlin suburb Adlershof on February 18th 2012. A series of speakers lectured on the weakness of the euro system, the dismantling of democracy taking place through the European Union, and how to deal with the pending currency crisis on a practical level. One of the aims of the conference was to gain support and momentum for the ”Adlershofer Erklärung”, a petition that Germany holds a referendum on leaving the euro.

Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, which has made war on its own citizens, has lost whatever legitimacy it once had. The United States correctly has called for Assad to step down from power. His regime has supported numerous Palestinian, Lebanese, Iraqi, and Kurdish terrorist groups in attacks on Americans and U.S. allies; has subverted Lebanon’s independence, assassinated its leaders, and blocked Arab peace efforts with Israel; and remains both a state sponsor of terrorism and Iran’s most important ally.

Tehran has dispatched members of the Quds Force, an elite element of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, to help crush dissent within the country.

This raises the question of what role the United States and other nations can play to help bring freedom to Syria.

In an eight-minute video clip titled "Onward, Lions of Syria" disseminated on the Internet Feb. 12, al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri expressed al Qaeda's support for the popular unrest in Syria. In it, al-Zawahiri urged Muslims in Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan to aid the Syrian rebels battling Damascus. The statement comes just days after a McClatchy report quoted unnamed American intelligence officials as saying that the Iraqi node of the global jihadist network carried out two attacks against Syrian intelligence facilities in Damascus, while Iraqi Deputy Interior Minister Adnan al-Assadi said in a recent interview with AFP that Iraqi jihadists were moving fighters and weapons into neighboring Syria.

Over the weekend, a drama with potentially horrific consequences for freedom-loving Americans played out half-a-world away.  

A Saudi newspaper columnist named Hamza Kashgari was detained in Malaysia, reportedly on the basis of an alert by the International Criminal Police Organization, better known as Interpol.  Reuters quotes a Malaysian police spokesman as saying that, “This arrest was part of an Interpol operation which the Malaysian police were a part of.” It was apparently mounted in response to a “red notice” (or request for help apprehending an individual) issued by Saudi Arabia.  Kashgari was then sent back to Saudi Arabia where he faces almost certain death.