From Bali to Copenhagen: towards an endgame for global climate policy?
Article by Alex Evans for the Environmental Policy & Law Journal (January 2008).
“Like Benjamin Barber after a three-day coke bender in Macao”
Dan Drezner wins the prize for catty swipe of the week as he takes no prisoners on Parag Khanna’s new book The Second World:
Over at Duck of Minerva, Daniel Nexon heaps praise (and gentle criticism) on Parag Khanna’s The Second World, which was excerpted as the cover story for the New York Times Magazine: (“[T]he book is really excellent. I consider it one of the most important contributions to the debate over American grand strategy to make its way into the public sphere in quite some time.”)
I will heap praise on Khanna’s agent for getting the excerpt placed into the Magazine. There’s less demand than there used to be for prose stylings that read like Benjamin Barber after a three-day coke bender in Macao.
Excerpts and more here.
How much of Slovenia’s EU Presidency has been scripted in Washington?
News is breaking of the resignation yesterday of a senior Slovenian diplomat who, press reports in Slovenia claim, had taken orders from the US about Slovenia’s EU Presidency – including a suggestion that Slovenia should lead the charge on recognition of Kosovo as an independent state. Details from EU Business (one of only a couple outlets covering the story on Google news at the time of writing, it seems):
The Foreign Ministry announced on its website that political director Mitja Drobnic had resigned and would be replaced by state secretary Matjaz Sinkovec during Slovenia‘s six-month term as EU president. Foreign Minister Dimitrij Rupel “has accepted the resignation of political director Mitja Drobnic”, the ministry said in a statement.
The resignation comes after a report in the daily newspaper Dnevnik last week which said that Slovenia had been taking orders from the US. According to the newspaper, which quoted an internal foreign ministry report, Drobnic had met in December with US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried, who allegedly suggested to the Slovenian side what their priorities should be during the EU presidency. Fried encouraged Slovenia to be among the first to recognise the independence of the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, the newspaper claimed.
The issue (which came up at yesterday’s State Department press briefing, though not to any great effect) is sure to be excruciatingly embarrassing for Slovenia which, as was widely noted before it assumed the Presidency, was always going to find its task a big test given its tiny diplomatic service. Serbian media like B92 in Belgrade are leading with headlines such as “Slovenian Presidency tarnished“.
As for the Slovenians themselves, well, the diplomats responsible are being hung out to dry. The Slovenian foreign ministry press release on this unhappy episode begins:
Those employees of the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs who forwarded diplomatic mail of the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia Washington on talks of the Ministry’s Political Director in Washington before Christmas are neither loyal Slovenian citizens nor diplomats worth their name. Their acts are illegal, dishonourable and unprofessional. The simultaneous publication in the Ljubljana’s newspaper Dnevnik and Belgrade’s Politika is harmful to the reputation and credibility of Slovenia’s diplomacy and country as such. This could be confirmed by any experienced diplomat.
But my favourite bit of Slovenia’s defence is this:
The talks of the Political Director before Christmas were not ”sensitive”. The Slovenian Embassy’s document, published by Dnevnik, became ”highly sensitive” only when it became public.
Well, yes…
The Top 100 Terrorist Targets in the United States
Someone mentioned this list to me at the conference. It includes political, economic, ecological, educational targets, tourist and military targets – and a ‘Top 10 Terrorist Wishlist’. Bit weird.
Sometime ago The Times did a front page spread of all the likely terrorist targets in the UK. It highlighted them on a map of Britain. Unsurprisingly a few people in the security and intelligence community were a tad irritated. But one consequence of that was that those key sites got more security.
Terror focus ‘hits security work’
Margaret Beckett has become the new chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, succeeding Paul Murphy who got moved in last week’s reshuffle. Murphy’s legacy to Beckett and the ISC is the Committee’s annual report, published today and which no doubt will capture some headlines in the media and set eyes rolling around Whitehall. According to BBC news:
The work of the UK’s intelligence services is suffering because of the focus on counter-terrorism. [The report] says that extra funding for the services may be needed. The head of MI6, John Scarlett, told the committee that counter-terrorism accounted for more than half of his security service’s workload and they had no ” choice but to prioritise” this area.
The ISC report goes on: “We are concerned that aspects of key intelligence and security work are suffering as a consequence of the focus on counter-terrorism priorities. “We believe consideration may need to be given to separate, additional funding to maintain the agencies’ capabilities in these areas.”
So what are the areas that are lacking in resources? The ISC report outlines the proportionate reduction in resources dedicated to tackle areas – although deletions for security reasons do detract somewhat from the degree of clarity provided, as the report’s list demonstrates:
– ***
– *** (in the case of the Security Service);
– ***
– *** (for the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS); and
– ***
– ***
– *** (in the case of GCHQ)
I am not the first and won’t be the last to make the point that while the threat from terrorism is real the Government and intelligence agencies risk missing things if they continue to focus solely on terrorism, after all terrorism is but one of a number of risks the UK faces.
I don’t think extra resources are the answer; and I hope there is someone in the bowels of Whitehall thinking of a plan B, C or D, because they probably won’t receive any more funding either. After all, they’ve just been given a 20 per cent increase in real terms. Instead they might consider collaborating more with other agencies and Whitehall departments. That might help them in the long run…