geopolitics

The ex-Soviet states of the Caucasus and Central Asia have, following the early 1990s, been “all about America's energy security” according to Bill Richardson, the Clinton era diplomat and former American ambassador to the United Nations.

At present, only two companies – South Korea’s Samsung and Taiwan’s TSMC – manufacture semiconductors on an industrial scale at the most advanced process nodes. These industry leaders are currently producing in commercial quantities at the 7-nanometre (nm) node, while striving to move to 5 nm, and then, finally, to 3 nm by the mid-2020s. For comparison, the US integrated chip manufacturer Intel is also eager to produce in volume at 7 nm, but the company ran into difficulties in achieving this goal, announcing in July 2020 that production of its next-generation chips would be delayed until 2022.

The situation in the Middle East is changing rapidly. The recent unrest in Israel is growing like fire and entering into a dangerous zone.

The perception of China as a strategic competitor of the US has been developing among Americans for years now.