Here’s a lively little number over at The Commentator, if I say so myself: There is now little joy in this fast unfolding fiasco for any political tendency or EU member state. Everyone has got what they wanted. Yet it is not working out so well, just as in the […]
Autonomous Mind kindly gave a link and supporting comments to my recent piece about Negotiation Training. And, via Twitter, he asked for More on the Carrot/Stick negotiating paradigm. So, here it is. The psychology of diplomatic negotiating is a vast, interesting and almost unanalysed subject. A couple of years ago […]
This is a brisk piece of work from Guy Sorman, a French economist philosopher who looks at global energy issues with a beady eye. He concludes that the main victim of the Japanese nuclear disaster after the tsunami will be not nuclear power but Green Ideology, at least in its luxuriant […]
Always good to be reminded that Europe is not just the wimpy EU or neurotic Balkans. There’s also Ukraine, and where (if anywhere) it fits in to the Bigger Picture. Luckily we have Odessablog’s Blog on the case, watching things with an astute British eye from balmy Crimea. Here’s a […]
I have written a piece for Financier Worldwide on the dark arts of negotiating in central and eastern Europe: The implicit view is that it is the outcome, not process, which really counts, and that the value of different outcomes can be measured. However, based on my experience as a […]
Exhibit A: a superb article describing research which shows convincingly how the influence of the bureaucratic-cultural disciplines of the Austro-Hungarian Empire lives on in today’s Europe. Thus: Our results show that past formal institutions can leave a long-lasting legacy through cultural norms – even after some are generations of being governed […]
When Radovan Karadzic was finally arrested in mid-2008 I echoed here a telegram I sent to London from Belgrade in 2001 following the sudden transfer to ICTY of Slobodan Milosevic provocatively titled: "Is Milosevic Innocent?" My piece "Is Karadzic Innocent?" made the point that it would be easier for ICTY […]
Poland’s Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski last week bcame the first Western Foreign Minister to visit Benghazi and meet the anti-Gaddafi leadership. Here at Project Syndicate are some of his conclusions: Peoples in transition from authoritarian rule – peaceful in Poland in 1989, bloody in Libya today – grapple with decisions […]
Over at Salon24, the leading Polish group blog, are my thoughts on how relations between Poland and the USA (and UK) have evolved down the ages – scroll down for the original version in English. Thus: The point? Simply that things come and go over years and decades and centuries. […]
You may not have noticed, but in the last few days/weeks/months/years (depending on how you look at it) Bosnia and Herzegovina has been teetering on the Brink of Disaster. Why? Oh, for all the familiar reasons. Key posts in the central government unfilled, general political deadlock stretching in all directions, […]
