In the debate last week on the foreign policy success or otherwise of President Obama, I made the point that he had offered Cuba the normalisation of diplomatic relations without pressing for anything (even rhetorically) in return. Why not use this high-profile move to make the case strongly for a […]
Last week I took part in a debate at The Arts Club in London on the foreign policy of President Obama. I was joined by Toby Young opposing the motion proposed by former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and the BBC’s Mark Mardell that Obama’s foreign policy has been a success. Julia Hartley-Brewer […]
Here is a bizarre article by one Sławomir Sierakowski over at Project Syndicate, who ought to know better. It gets off to a flying start with the title: The Polish Threat to Europe. Not, you note, A Polish Threat to Europe or even A Polish Threat to Europe? No, it’s the definite […]
Here’s my piece today for the Daily Telegraph on the mighty Owen Report on the murder by polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. With added Katyn: For anyone interested in the way governments operate, there is nothing more astonishing than the policy memorandum sent from Beria to Stalin in 1940, tersely […]
Here for MLK Day 2016 is my new piece for Diplomatic Courier, looking at a less well-known speech by Martin Luther King back in 1957 He deftly juxtaposes extreme optimism with extreme pessimism: The extreme optimist and the extreme pessimist have at least one thing in common: they both agree that […]
My previous post linked to the new gloomy piece by Robert Kaplan for the WSJ, in which he ponders the possibility of Europe reverting to deep historical fault-lines: The sturdy core of modern Europe approximates in large measure the Carolingian Empire founded by Charlemagne in the ninth century. The first […]
My previous piece about Poland and its new Law and Justice (PiS) government’s manoeuvres has attracted a lot of attention in Poland – see the vivid stream of comments from all sides of the arguments and more. This morning it has been announced that the European Commission has decided to […]
Here is another Guardian piece on the moves by the new Polish government led by Law and Justice to heave out key people from the state broadcaster and bring in new people they appoint: Under the new law, senior figures in public radio and television will be appointed – and […]
Around the planet the world’s networked seismographs will have revealed in seconds all sorts of things about North Korea’s latest big bomb test, hydrogen or otherwise. Notably that it was indeed a bomb (and not an earthquake) and where exactly the test took place. Other instruments will be tracing the […]
“I glance over your web-site every now and again, and usually find something to enjoy and even by which to be impressed.” So writes a long-lost pal from college, taking grammar to its limits to avoid finishing a sentence with a preposition. Not that there’s been much to see here […]
