The Art of Diplomacy Archives - Page 79 of 126

Orwell Blog Prize Entries

Here are my ten entries for this year’s Orwell Blog Prize: 14/01/2009 https://www.charlescrawford.biz/blog/art740 17/03/2009 https://www.charlescrawford.biz/blog/art859 03/05/2009 https://www.charlescrawford.biz/blog/art928 17/06/2009 https://www.charlescrawford.biz/blog/anonymous-bloggers-at-work- 26/06/2009 https://www.charlescrawford.biz/blog/a-musty-needy-eu-speech 04/08/2009 https://www.charlescrawford.biz/blog/NRWKVL599211 21/09/2009 https://www.charlescrawford.biz/blog/russia-s-foreign-policy-psycholgy-contd- 30/10/2009 https://www.charlescrawford.biz/blog/even-yet-more-further-labour-kaminski-nonsense 15/11/2009 https://www.charlescrawford.biz/blog/european-foreign-policy-v-the-iron-laws-of-physics 20/12/2009 https://www.charlescrawford.biz/blog/copenhagen-climate-summit-um-not-un These are a decent sample of my output this year, some more analytical than others. I have tried […]

Remember the UK Model Farm In Russia?

On 04 Jan, 2010 By Charles Crawford | Category – Balkans, former Yugoslavia / Poland / Russia, Ukraine, former Soviet Union / The Art of Diplomacy

Remember my rather dismissive account of the UK’s attempt to teach the Russians how to fish, rather than inundate them with free fish? And the ensuing Big Mac Attack? I have just heard from a former member of the UK Agriculture Ministry MAFF (by no means related to naff) who […]

Delusional Foreign Policy

On 03 Jan, 2010 By Charles Crawford | Category – American Politics / Asia / British Politics and Society / Middle East, Arab Spring / Negotiation Technique / Public Speaking and Speechwriting / The Art of Diplomacy

In the Times Dominic Lawson is unimpressed by the tone of UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband in talking about Iran and China: Our diplomatic war of words with Iran is brewing nicely. Last week the foreign secretary, David Miliband, condemned as “disturbing” the Ahmadinejad regime’s “lack of restraint” in its […]

Akmal Shaikh: UK v China

On 30 Dec, 2009 By Charles Crawford | Category – Asia / Communism, Fascism and Other Extremes / European Union and Wider Europe / Middle East, Arab Spring / Negotiation Technique / The Art of Diplomacy

A busy few days for old-fashioned diplomacy, with China taking no obvious notice of British and other pleas for clemency in the case of Akmal Shaikh, and the Tehran regime hauling in the British Ambassador Simon Gass to issue dire warnings about a ‘slap in the face’ from Iran. Some thoughts. First, […]

Iran v Great Satan Lite

On 30 Dec, 2009 By Charles Crawford | Category – Asia / British Politics and Society / European Union and Wider Europe / Middle East, Arab Spring / Negotiation Technique / Russia, Ukraine, former Soviet Union / The Art of Diplomacy

The popular rising in Iran against its revolting regime is gaining momentum. But will that be enough? A good WSJ piece on the Big Picture: Much has been written about the fact that Iran’s democratic movement today combines the three characteristics of a velvet revolution—nonviolent, nonutopian and populist in nature—with […]

Copenhagen Climate Summit – UM, not UN

On 20 Dec, 2009 By Charles Crawford | Category – American Politics / Asia / British Politics and Society / European Union and Wider Europe / Negotiation Technique / Russia, Ukraine, former Soviet Union / The Art of Diplomacy

As the myriad delgates wend their various snowy ways from the Copenhagen Global Warming Summit, what is the overall assessment? Not UN, but UM. Unambiguous Mess. Key aspects of the whole thing were a priori perverse from a Basic Diplomatic Technique point of view. Let’s audaciously and even hopefully assume that the science is […]

Brown/Gore Protocol Horror

On 17 Dec, 2009 By Charles Crawford | Category – The Art of Diplomacy

When I was growing up in Diplomacy and in charge of detailed practical arrangements for many high-level visits (especially in Moscow in the early Yeltsin years, when one Cabinet Minister or Parliamentary delegation after another was jetting in), I was always left smirking when the then Ambassador would fret over […]

EU Quiet Diplomacy: Drafting Lessons, Carrots, Sticks

On 17 Dec, 2009 By Charles Crawford | Category – European Union and Wider Europe / Middle East, Arab Spring / Negotiation Technique / Public Speaking and Speechwriting / The Art of Diplomacy

Here is Baroness Ashton laying out her stall for EU collective foreign policy, in an ill-drafted text piling on one wordy cliche after another: I believe that a lot can be achieved with quiet diplomacy. We need people who can listen as well as talk, and who can work behind […]

Allocating One’s Moral Energy

On 17 Dec, 2009 By Charles Crawford | Category – Middle East, Arab Spring / Negotiation Technique / The Art of Diplomacy

Time is short. We can’t fret about the world and its awful problems 24/7/365. So, the question: how to allocate one’s moral energy? Some people campaign on the risks to small remote tribal communities threatened by a tidal wave of modernisation. Others demand reparations for real or asserted massive wrongs […]

British Policy On Honduras: Just An Act

On 17 Dec, 2009 By Charles Crawford | Category – European Union and Wider Europe / Public Speaking and Speechwriting / The Art of Diplomacy

Remember the FCO website’s prophetic announcement of an EU statement welcoming Free and Peaceful Elections in Honduras? That seems to have vanished. And we still have no official UK pronouncement via the site on this complicated issue with its many regional and other ramifications. So much for British Foreign Policy […]

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