The Economist's David Rennie asked a disturbing question last week: if Obama's America can't make soft power work, what hope does Europe have? His thesis is...
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).
How not to tweet an obituary
I'm rather fond of David Miliband's blogging and twittering. But his initial tweet in response to the news of Michael Foot's death hit the wrong note: Michael...
Jesus wants you for a (multilateralist) sunbeam
We at GD like to fret about examples of badly joined-up global governance wherever we can find them. Climate change, security, trade... and now religion. ...
Best reference book ever!
The fifth edition of the Center on International Cooperation's Annual Review of Global Peace Operations is out today. Is it any good? Let's ask an expert:...
Prefabricated multilateralism
I have a new paper out, published by FRIDE in Madrid, on the Obama administration's approach to multilateralism. It points out that - contrary to our pleas...
Academic precision and the destruction of knowledge
The New Yorker has a long profile of Paul Krugman that's worth a look. The passage that has stuck with me is not really about Krugman but one of his...
Red snippets
I don't like cell phones. Never have, never will. Reading this, I like them even less: You're not supposed to send dirty jokes by mobile phone in China, but...
Back to Realism
Transnational factors and threats should make state-centric approaches fall apart, in theory – but in practice, today’s statesment seem extraordinarily adept at sticking with “national interest”-based thinking.
The UN: sending laziness viral
"Meandering" is an excellent new-ish blog on peacekeeping and its discontents by Ed Rees, who works for the Peace Dividend Trust. Ed recently asked readers...
FBI: Bin Laden cunningly disguised as Bin Laden
The big problem with catching Osama bin Laden is that everyone has forgotten what he looks like. That, or he's hiding in an ungoverned quarter of Pakistan. ...
Haiti: how many Europeans does it take to assess an earthquake?
Yesterday - not long before news of the awful earthquake in Haiti - there was a rumpus in Brussels over whether the European Commissioner-designate for...
Beat the recession (Punch it! Kick it!!)
New York State's constantly-on-the-ropes Governor David Paterson has just come up with an excellent plan to boost economic recovery: Gov. Paterson is pushing...
Afghans: cheerier than Americans
Some unexpected data comes in from the BBC: Of more than 1,500 Afghans questioned, 70% said they believed Afghanistan was going in the right direction - a big...
Nauru: cut the crap!
A tragic tale from the Khaleej Times of the UAE: At long last there is a foreign minister on the international scene with ice-cold blood in his veins and an...
Ban Ki-moon: signed, sealed, delivered!
It's Stevie Wonder with one of his biggest fans!
Afghanistan: does July 2011 mean July 2011?
Yesterday, President Obama announced the U.S. would start drawing down in Afghanistan by July 2011. Sounds pretty specific, huh? Or maybe not. Here are...
Obama Speaks (in numbers)!
So, we have the speech on Afghanistan. The official text was, according to my computer, about 4,600 words. How many times did certain words appear?...
Putting the “EU” back in Eurasia?
Ninety minutes from now, Barack Obama will give his Afghanistan speech, and almost certainly say he wants NATO allies to send 10,000 more troops to match...
Wall Street ready for war
From Bloomberg... “I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group...
Wham! Ban (Ki-moon)! I Am A Man!
From the UN, news of another respectable initiative with a rubbish name... Network of Men Leaders The engagement of men and boys is integral to achieving an...
More from Global Dashboard
Towards More Equal and Resilient Cities Post-COVID-19
This article is part of our Scenarios Week series, exploring and expanding on the Long Crisis Scenarios. You can find the other articles in the series on our Scenarios Week page. “Futures not achieved are only branches of the past: dead branches.” Italo...
The Fall of the Big Men
This article is part of our Scenarios Week series, exploring and expanding on the Long Crisis Scenarios. You can find the other articles in the series on our Scenarios Week page. Like so many, I’ve spent three years wondering how Donald Trump won the...
After COVID, Where Will We Be?
This article is part of our Scenarios Week series, exploring and expanding on the Long Crisis Scenarios. You can find the other articles in the series on our Scenarios Week page. Yesterday afternoon, representatives from the Long Crisis Network, Local Trust,...