Gordon Brown's first foreign policy speech, delivered on Monday evening at Mansion House, was nicely drafted, well argued and competently delivered. Its...
Alex Evans
Alex Evans is a Senior Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) at New York University, and the author of The Myth Gap: What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren't Enough? (Penguin, 2017), a book about the power of deep stories to unlock transformational change. He lives in North Yorkshire and is currently working on political polarisation and learning dry stone walling. Full biog here.
28 days (or later)
Unreal. On this morning's Today programme, Security minister Lord West said: I want to have absolute evidence that we actually need longer than 28 days. I...
Eat your heart out, David
David Miliband can say what he likes about a 'new diplomacy', but he's got a long way to go to catch up with his German and French counterparts, Frank-Walter...
Condi’s frustration with Gordon
An unnamed senior State Dept official has been briefing the Sunday Telegraph about Condi's frustration with Gordon Brown, it seems: Allies of Condoleezza...
The Spectator’s attack on Mark Malloch Brown
This week's Spectator leads with a full scale assault on FCO minister and former UN Deputy Secretary General Mark Malloch Brown (also picked up in brief by...
Counter-terrorism versus public diplomacy
Via Bruce Schneier's security blog, this sad tale from the US: The train is a half hour west of New Haven when the conductor, having finished her original...
Europe’s strategic disarray on Russia
ECFR has a new report out today with a provocative message: "Despite its economic strength and military might, the European Union has begun to behave as if it...
New diplomacy update
Gideon Rachman's been off to Ditchley for the weekend. Signs of the "new diplomacy" that we've been promised by David Miliband appear to have been thin on...
Taking stock of the credit crunch
Time to take stock of the credit crunch. Nouriel Roubini, a professor of economics and international business at NYU's Stern School of Business, is decidedly...
“What am I supposed to do, drive a Honda?”
From BloggingStocks.com, the news that Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa is considering a Congressional investigation into an intriguing tax break: "whether...
Hillary’s climate plan
Hillary Clinton made a big speech in Iowa yesterday on clean energy and climate change. Here's the FT coverage, here's the speech, and here's the 16 page...
Interoperability a la Curtis LeMay
The National Review's blog has this glorious tale of inter-agency cooperation as practised by the legendary USAF General, Curtis LeMay: He was being briefed...
Hermes: god of public diplomacy
I'm having a lazy Saturday morning in my kitchen, and pottering through Erik Davis's gloriously out-there tome Techgnosis (it says on the blurb: "writer and...
Wargaming an energy crunch
Reuters and AFP are both carrying the intriguing story of a wargame / simulation exercise held in Washington yesterday to explore how the National Security...
Lunch with John Bolton
The FT's Edward Luce was dispatched to lunch with John Bolton at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington earlier this month, and reports back from the front line. ...
Iraq’s oil
At last, enough time to blog about Jim Holt's terrific article on Iraq's oil in the 18 October edition of the London Review of Books. Here's how he begins:...
World Energy Outlook 2007 sneak preview
The International Energy Agency will publish this year's World Energy Outlook on 7 November - but in advance of then, executive director Nobuo Tanaka has been...
The renaissance of British sea power (if only)
William Lind has been ruminating about the renewed importance of sea power in a less secure world. We [the US] need naval supremacy because in a world where...
FAO chief calls world summit on food security
Regular readers will know that we've been watching food prices rise steadily over the last few months with increasing concern - see the Scarcity category of...
The Post-Kyoto Bidding War: bringing developing countries into the fold
New paper by Alex Evans on climate policy after 2012 from the Center on International Cooperation (October 2007).
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In a piece for Real Clear World I argue that The chances of Britain making it through to May 7 without facing at least one unexpected international event with serious implications for our national interests are slim indeed. Both David Cameron and Ed Miliband should be...
What’s mined is yours
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Who’s going to pay for the SDGs?
In July, Addis Ababa will host a crucial summit on financing for development. If September’s summit on sustainable development goals (SDGs) in New York is when governments will decide what they want to achieve on poverty and sustainability by 2030, Addis is where they...