Well. As soon as my back is turned in The Hague it all happens. Here is the piece I wrote for PunditWire on the eve of the US presidential elections: Maybe as a former ambassador myself I am over-sensitive when it comes to what our political leaders say when standing […]
Here is my piece in the Telegraph (newspaper and website hurrah) on the glum state of the UK’s foreign policy machinery: What does it mean for a nation to exert “influence”? Partly it’s about attitude: the confidence and determination to push hard and long for national objectives. But it’s also […]
Here’s my latest piece on Russia over at the Daily Telegraph: Back in 1902, future mass murderer Vladimir Ilyich Lenin published his pamphlet “What Is To Be Done?” (Что делать?) about the selfish reluctance of the working classes to rise up against capitalism. Now 114 years later, some Western governments ponder what needs […]
South Africa has a mighty tradition of Defying Reality. Some might say that that was what apartheid was all about: its pernickety, cruel, insane attempt to draft laws defining useless racial distinctions, then building a whole society around those distinctions. But before that came the startling Xhosa Cattle Killings in 1856-57, […]
I volunteer to give a talk at Crawf Minima’s school on International Organisations and suchlike. Which takes us towards a familiar theme here: Integration v Disintegration – what happens when international borders melt? It turns out that European borders have melted and re-formed and then re-melted and re-formed quite a […]
DIPLOMAT magazine has a snappy new website, and as if by magic my latest piece makes the front page. It looks at diplomacy in the Age of Big Data: Back then, industrial scale betrayal took commitment and discipline, lasting for years. The betrayer needed to take some interest in individual […]
Back in the mists of early 1998 I was sitting in Sarajevo at the Embassy perusing Viz issue 87 (as one did) when my eye fell upon an unexpected Balkan angle: This analysis did not look right. So I did some diligent research and reached a deeper insight into what was really being […]
Remember Stupid Words? multi-dimensional challenges inherently a context-specific approach prevention-oriented actions implement a synergistic framework increasingly interconnected world integrated capacity-building measures participatory processes overarching framework contextually relevant tractorisation globalised world Here is an article at Open Democracy that (alas) epitomises the problem: CSOs also need support in empowering citizens to […]
Remember the magnificent ambassador scene from 300. Superb on so many instructive levels simultaneously: First, it’s a masterclass in bad diplomatic negotiation technique by the arrogant ambassador of King Xerxes, who makes scarcely veiled threats in demanding just a small ‘token of submission’ instead of patiently exploring King Leonidas’ interests and […]
A musty piece by Enrico Letta, previously an Italian Prime Minister, urges the EU to relaunch – or die. Why so drastic? Let’s find out. If the European Union does not undertake a concrete and effective relaunch within the next few months, it will begin an irreversible decline. There is little […]
