Each year, the Austrian Ministry of Defense publishes a collection of predictions by various experts on upcoming international developments. This year, I...
Richard Gowan
Richard Gowan coordinates the International Security Institutions program at the Center on International Cooperation, New York University. He is also the UN Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and an associate of the Foreign Policy Center (London).
The Vancouver summit on UN peacekeeping
This week, defense ministers are meeting in Vancouver to talk about UN peacekeeping. This follows a conference hosted by President Obama on UN operations in...
Do you have 10 years experience in boar semen collection?
Because if you do, ACDI/VOCA (a non-profit promoting "a world in which people are empowered to succeed in the global economy') has a job for you: ACDI/VOCA is...
What’s wrong with Geneva?
The BBC website has a rather breathless piece about the joys of Geneva today, declaring that "a cosmopolitan city known for diplomacy (and watches), is now...
The gun-nuts ready to fight Obama’s Commie agenda need Commie ammunition
So, it turns out that all those hard-right National Rifle Association libertarians preparing for guerrilla warfare against Obama's socialist seizure of...
A day in the life of a (hot) UN official
What universal standards does the UN stand for? Human rights, justice, peace... and high quality tailoring. That at least is the message from the UN...
Peacemaking’s silly season
I have an especially dour article over at World Politics Review about the state of crisis diplomacy today, which kicks off like this: Since the conflict in...
The meanest goddamn debate about the UN ever
Academics and policy wonks are mainly mild-mannered folk. I know that I am. But occasionally it's fun to cut loose and have a really nasty debate with an...
A UN translator’s tale
The London Review of Books has a nice piece by Lynn Visson, a former UN translator, on the secrets of her trade: The most important language in most...
Going postal
Dear reader, there is nothing make fun of here. Nothing. 9 October World Post Day is celebrated each year on 9 October, the anniversary of the establishment...
Christmas is sorted!
Why Russia might favor humanitarian corridors into Syria
Here's more exciting Syrian news from the Security Council after last week's chemical weapons resolution: The president of the U.N. Security Council said...
Why diplomats enjoy the UN General Assembly (hint: it’s not the post-2015 development agenda)
Thank you, New York Post, for finally bursting the UN General Assembly bubble: Midtown jiggle joint Flashdancers has seen a lot of action thanks to the United...
Ban Ki-moon: Zen master of twitter (updated)
UPDATE: see end of this post for an important and intriguing correction. Yesterday, Australian historian and UN-watcher Michael Fullilove took a pot-shot at...
The UN’s struggle for moral authority
I have a 3,000 word essay in Aeon, the online magazine of ideas, on the United Nations and morality. Here's the opening... 'We will integrate human rights...
No Man is a (Small) Island…
Snarky comments are not, I think, necessary here: Expressing #EU support for Small Island Developing States' SustDev at working breakfast w/ @UN's...
Last of the White Russians
Occasionally an item of news reminds us of how transient most great political dramas are, and how quickly major crises come and go. This is rather healthy:...
Kissinger: when you don’t have a foreign policy, talk about development!
Micah Zenko of CFR has just blogged this transcript of a 1975 telephone call between Henry Kissinger and his long-time aide Winston Lord on the knotty problem...
No apologies: the President of the UN General Assembly rocks with Bon Jovi
Vuk Jeremic, a former foreign minister of Serbia, is coming to the end of a year in the very important job of President of the UN General Assembly. His...
Annan on Syria: “we left it too late” to invade
It's six months since Kofi Annan stepped down as UN-Arab League envoy for Syria. Does he have second thoughts about his efforts to mediate an end to the...
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Let’s make climate a culture war!
If the politics of climate change end up polarised, is that so bad? No – it’s disastrous. Or so I’ve long thought. Look at the US – where climate is even more polarised than abortion. Result: decades of flip flopping. Ambition under Clinton; reversal...
Big Elephants and Small Islands: getting beyond the New Aid Orthodoxy
Official development assistance (ODA) – or aid – is a small but conspicuous pillar of the international order, and its frailties are being exposed by COVID as surely as those of the other foundations of this order. The assumptions underpinning aid and its management...
Uncertainty and Humanitarian Action: What Donald Rumsfeld can teach us
Since its onset, one striking feature of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has been the narrative power of its novelty. This global narrative depicts COVID-19 pushing humanity towards a ‘historical divide’ of BC and AC (before and after COVID-19), where unknown,...