Go to any international think-tank conference and you will hear one complaint repeated ad nauseam: the intenational system, built after World War II – and incorporating the UN, NATO, the IMF, WHO etc. – is no longer fit for purpose. It needs to change to accomodate new threats, like climate change, and new powers like
Today the Burmese junta convicted pro-democracy campaigner Aung Sang Suu Kyi to a further 18 months under house arrest after a U.S. man swam uninvited to her lakeside home in May and stayed there for two days, breaching the terms of her house arrest. Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy have led the world’s outrage, urging
Reports that the Tories are thinking about appointing a Minister for Afghanistan raise the broader question of how they should structure their national security team. Though the Tories bang on about their idea of setting up a National Security Council, there has been precious little detail given of how it would work, how it would
The Iraq Inquiry has now begun. Its chair, John Chilcot, has stressed that he will conduct the inquiry rigorously and, as far as possible, openly. These are sound goals. But I’m concerned about the way the inquiry staff is being organised. Margaret Aldred, a senior Cabinet Office official, will lead the staff effort. That is
Earlier this week, James lent his voice to those who want to grow the British army. The British army currently consists of around 98 000 regular soldiers and 34 000 territorial army soldiers taking its size is about 132 000. but this has not proven adequate to deploy anything near enough troops in Helmand or
With Labour insiders threatening to “go after” General Sir Richard Dannatt once he retires from his post as Army Chief and takes on the chairmanship of RUSI, it seems only fair to give an early, but balanced, assessment of his tenure. Like most people who reach the top of the army, General Dannatt’s career is
So Tony Blair will be an official British candidate for the job of EU Council President should the Irish vote for the Lisbon Treaty (and the Polish and Czech presidents sign the document). That’s what Baroness Kinnock has said. For many CoffeeHousers, this will combine two things you love to hate. But few Britons have
If the government wants to stem the haemorrhaging of elite support for NATO’s Afghan mission, there is one major thing it can do at this stage: establish a British version of the Manley Commission. In Canada, ex-Deputy Prime Minister John Manley was asked by the Harper government to take a hard look at Canada’s role
In the US, a storm is brewing over Dick Cheney’s alleged role in concealing an intelligence programme from Congress. Whatever the details of the alleged offence, it raises an interesting question: should oversight of the intelligence community intrinsically be different from other kinds of parliamentary oversight? Over in the States, Legislators were content to delegate
The support for Britain’s involvement in Afghanistan is, for the first time, showing major signs of fraying. Nick Clegg broke ranks with the other party leaders last week, and this weekend the total number of British deaths went beyond the number of soldiers killed in Iraq. Understandably, the Sunday papers are filled with stories about
Earlier this week, Lord Malloch Brown announced he’s resigning his brief as Africa Minister in the Foreign Office. I’m sure this will cause some rejoicing, including among my Coffee House colleagues. It was, after all, the Spectator that went to town on the former UN staffer’s grace-and-favour appartment in Admiralty Arch and the other niceties
Watch out: it’s security review season. The Brown government is about to issue a second version of its National Security Strategy. You can expect Pauline Neville-Jones to put out a revised version of the paper she did for the Tories a while ago. The Obama administration is set to launch a new “Quadrennial Diplomacy and
Though Nick Clegg has greater pre-existing international experience than either David Cameron or Gordon Brown (having worked in Brussels), he cannot help but see international affairs through a narrow political lens. Last year it was Israel’s targetting of Hamas, now it is Nato’s Afghan mission. Clegg wants the British troop contribution to ISAF either massively
With Obama’s administration gradually filling up, problems appear to be brewing at the centre. Though picking ex-General James Jones as a National Security Adviser was seen as a smart move, associating the general’s wide experience and bi-partisan appeal with the young president, it may be turning out not to be so clever after all. President
Even though the Second Iranian Revolution may, for the time being, be quelled by the Mullahs, many different foreign policy factions in the West see the events of the last few weeks as good for their preferred Iran policy. Writing in the Guardian, Jonathan Freedland argued it has helped the anti-war contingent. Now that the
Presidents Obama, and Medvedev (and Prime Minister Putin) seem to be having a good summit. Nuclear talks look like they have gone well, there has been mention of expanding NATO’s transit for its Afghan mission through Russia, and the mood – crucial at any summit – has been reasonably good. Nobody stared into any one
So, a Defence Review has been set in motion even though the Government has for a long time said they would hold off from ordering such a study. But with the operational pressure growing, the financial situation dire, and clamour from the likes of George Robertson and Paddy Ashdown for a security rethink, the Government
Right now I’m sitting at an event in Brussels to launch NATO’s new Strategic Concept, featuring ex-US Secretary of State Madeleine Allbright, the current and future NATO Secretaries-General, the senior NATO military commander, Admiral Stavridis, and 400 of NATO’s Best Friends Forever. The Strategic Concept, what is that? It is the alliance’s main strategic document,
With the Swedish EU Presidency beginning, and most diplomats mildly optimistic that the Lisbon treaty will be approved by the Irish in a new referendum, European leaders have turned their attention to filling Europe’s top jobs. But Tony Blair, who looked a shoo-in for the post of President of the European Council (not quite the
Today a Danish journalist came to ask me abut the campaign for the British European elections. “What campaign?” I asked him. Expensesgate has so dominated the airwaves that there has been little room for anything else, let alone elections to a legislative assembly that few people care, or even know, much about. With at least
