Just when you were thinking that I am a lone voice among former British diplomats lamenting the plummet in intellectual coherence and standards within the New Labour FCO, here is another one. He has sprung into action after seeing this strange article by David Miliband in the New Statesman in which […]
I have been asked by the FCO to give a talk there later in January to a group of foreign visitors about Using Democracy for Peace. Or maybe it was Using Peace for Democracy. I forget. One or the other. As always the Balkans is/are a laboratory for cutting-edge research […]
Derek Tonkin, former British Ambassador to Thailand, Vietnam and Laos, knows a few things about that part of the world. Hence it is good to see him helping with this lively site, Network Myanmar. See for example this page with a long list of handy links to articles about Myanmar […]
Back in Moscow in 1994 or thereabouts I asked a top Russian foreign policy pundit what would happen to Ukraine, then languishing in a deacying post-communist stupor. "We’ll just buy it," came the sardonic reply. But what about less obvious places, such as Nauru, which has just recognised Abkhazia and […]
A reader says nice things about my long posting on the Copenhagen Negotiating Disaster (for the EU at least) but also asks a terrific question: A remarkable piece of analysis, Charles, with fascinating insights for the outsider. I detect a theme emerging in your posts – a sort of neo-realpolitik […]
A reader takes issue with me on my analysis of Georgian Chess Moves: All these moves and counter moves are more or less based on the stupid theories inside the textbooks of International Relations and Political Science. There is no deep knowledge in these textbooks, just insipid informations and postulates. […]
Remember drippy Comparative Politics? Now with added EU! New EU High Representative Baroness Ashton: The EU is now in a position to assume a "stronger, more credible role in the world," the nominee for the EU’s top foreign policy post says… Aargh. Who drafts this lame stuff for her? This person? […]
Let’s look on the bright sider and assume that this year the ghastly North Korean regime implodes, leading to pell-mell reunification. Then what? In particular, who pays the huge bill to start to put right the mess: More than a dozen reports by governments, academics and investment banks in recent […]
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 […]
Britblog Roundup 253 is hosted by Amused Cynicism. It links to Two Doctors greenly blaming leading planetary Leftists for the Copenhagen debacle: This betrayal was therefore delivered by the most left-wing American president since FDR, a notionally communist regime (although more accurately an authoritarian capitalist one), the more left of the […]
