Is the Atlantic widening again?

by | Oct 5, 2009 | Conflict and security, Cooperation and coherence, Europe and Central Asia, North America

There’s recently been a small flurry of pieces warning that transatlantic relations are starting to sour (again).  First up, the Economist:

A “flashing yellow light”. That is how one American official describes warning signs of trouble between his administration and Europe. Less than a year after Barack Obama’s election, European euphoria over the end of the Bush era is fading. Relations are still far better than in the dark days before the Iraq war. But as the official puts it, there is “a lot of sniping” going back and forth across the Atlantic. And, he adds, there is a recognition at the “highest levels” that such snippiness is becoming unhelpful.

European Union politicians and officials are dismayed that, with a poisonous debate over health reform chewing up his political capital in Congress, Mr Obama may not secure legislation fixing binding emissions targets for America before the climate-change summit in Copenhagen in December. They also think the health-care impasse explains the lack of progress on the Doha world-trade talks. Nor did Europeans enjoy the G20 meeting that Mr Obama hosted in Pittsburgh. Despite hogging a ludicrous number of seats at the table, the EU came away with only one big Europe-specific agreement: alas, for them, it was a plan to cut their voting power at the IMF.

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Keanu Reeves, John Cleese and, er, global level non-zero-sum co-operation

by | Oct 4, 2009 | Cooperation and coherence, Global system, Influence and networks

the-day-the-earth-stood-still-1-1024

So there I am on a long plane flight home, in need of something to watch. Hailing as I do from the Global Dashboard stable, the preferred option was clear: a disaster movie. And lo, what should be playing on BA routes this month but the 2008 remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

My expectations were along the lines of I am Legend or The Day After Tomorrow. You know how it goes: massive catastrophe, civilisation collapses, a veritable smorgasbord of SFX, a couple of doughty folk live to fight another day, and (as the credits roll) the prospect of a gradual rebuild.

As it turned out, this was not the case.  In a nutshell: Keanu Reeves is an alien. He has been sent here by a confederation of highly evolved alien civilisations to “save the earth” – by wiping us out, given that we’re cheerfully running our own mass extinction event. Pretty scientist Jennifer Conolly, initially part of the US government scratch team of scientists (“We need you to come with us right away, ma’am. It’s a matter of national security”) comes to befriend the alien, and must persuade him of humanity’s case; and so it goes for the next hour or two.

Where it gets fun, though, is when she takes Keanu to see her mentor, a Nobel Prize-winning uber-scientist – played, somewhat improbably, by John Cleese – whereupon the following dialogue ensues:

Boffin: Well, there must be alternatives. You must have some technology you have that could solve the problem.

Alien: The problem is not technology. The problem is you. You lack the will to change.

Boffin: Then help us change.

Alien: I cannot change your nature. You treat the world as you treat each other.

Boffin: But every civilisation reaches a crisis point eventually.

Alien: Most of them don’t make it.

Boffin: Yours did. How?

Alien: Our sun was dying. We had to evolve in order to survive.

Boffin: So it was only when your world was threatened with destruction that you became what you are now.

Alien: Yes.

Boffin: Well, that’s where we are. You say we’re on the brink of destruction, and you’re right.  But it’s only on the brink that people find the will to change; only on the precipice that we evolve. This is our moment – don’t take it from us. We are close to an answer.

That’s right, readers: I spent ten minutes doing pause and rewind on British Airways’ crappy touch screen entertainment system, juggling a laptop and an economy class meal, and I did it all for you. Why, you ask? Because when was the last time you saw a movie that expounds the necessity of crisis for global-level non-zero-sum co-operation – and uses Basil Fawlty to do so?

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Stop Blair? No thanks.

by | Oct 4, 2009 | Europe and Central Asia, UK

Now that ratification of Lisbon has moved a big step closer (not only with the Irish yes, but also the news that Czech President Vaclav Klaus is likely to bow to pressure not to hold it up), the idea of Tony Blair being the first permanent President of the European Council is looking a lot more likely. Predictably, a large strand of liberal opinion is furious about this.  As an e-petition currently being circulated has it,

In violation of international law, Tony Blair committed his country to a war in Iraq that a large majority of European citizens opposed. This war has claimed hundreds of thousands of victims and displaced millions of refugees. It has been a major factor in today’s profound destabilisation of the Middle East, and has weakened world security. In order to lead his country into war, Mr Blair made systematic use of fabricated evidence and the manipulation of information …

The steps taken by Tony Blair’s government, and his complicity with the Bush administration in the illegal programme of “extraordinary renditions”, have led to an unprecedented decline in civil liberties.

All true.  But for all that, Blair is far and away our best option for the job.

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