It's all gone a bit quiet on the Kosovo front. The violence of week one has given way to... not very much. When the most exciting piece of news is that...
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 numbers that really matter for McCain
This is now nearly a day late, but I can't resist juxtaposing two stories from Tuesday's New York Times - stories which oddly enough, the NYT ran entirely...
The European Parliament gets it right on Iraq
Hurrah for the European Parliament. Not a phrase you hear very often, even from this blog's resident Europhile (me), but those MEPs get it right now and...
Free Kosovo, Week 1: Albanians winning on points
While everyone still seems to be aghast that Kosovo's declaration of independence somehow hasn't resulted in unrestrained Sweetness and Light flooding across...
Thank goodness for Martin Kettle
Further to my rant against the legion of poltroons who have made comments on Kosovo on the Guardian website, Martin Kettle has restored my faith that there's...
Daniel Korski and the hatred of idiots
Our chum Daniel Korski has been good enough to cite my recent Dashboard post on Kosovo in a new article on the Guardian website. It's a typically tough piece...
The cunning of the Kosovo Serbs
So, Kosovo is burning - but only a little. While protestors in Belgrade grab headlines by attacking the U.S. embassy, a rather more subtle game seems to be...
Henry Kissinger: the new Alex Evans
Readers of this blog will, almost by definition, be well aware of the thoughts of Mr. Alex Evans on global risks, resilience, the new dynamics of...
John Bolton, funny ha ha
I've spent some of my President's Day holiday hammering out a review of Surrender is Not an Option, John Bolton's scaborous memoir of his tenure at the UN....
Merde
Late yesterday, I briefly speculated that the latest upsurge in violence in Chad is being stimulated by the prospect of the forthcoming EU deployment there....
EU: bring ’em on!
I'll have more to say on this soon, but the fact that the French EU deployment in Chad seems to be coinciding with, maybe even stimulating, an increase...
22,419
That is the number of people who voted for Fred Thompson in the Florida primary, in spite of the slightly inconvenient facts that (i) he had pulled out of the...
It’s all pointless
Kurt Andersen of New York nicely sums up the growing sense that the last nine months of American politics may actually have been a farrago of nonsense:...
What if the Europeans had a proper debate about Iraq?
British journalist Jonathan Steele has been getting a good deal of coverage for Defeat, his account of the Iraq war (if nothing else, he deserves a prize for...
Americans: actually quite normal, sensible, nice
So, Iowa is upon us and assuming that (at a minimum) it delivers a victory for either Mr. Huckabee or Mr. Romney, journalists everywhere will be churning out...
The UN’s military month gets messy
After the tragedy in Algiers, the UN hardly needs more bad news this week. But join the dots. In Lebanon, a senior general is murdered - while in the DR...
“LIFE IS TOUGH. IT’S TOUGHER IF YOU ARE STUPID”.
Want to get ahead in peacekeeping? Here's some guidance from a very senior representative in one of the UN's larger missions, who circulated these 9 rules to...
Foreign policy as a form of denial
Like most people who buy newspapers as a source of information rather than merely a cheap way to wrap fish, I have spent the last day admiring the bravado...
…but maybe that’s a good thing?
As Alex notes, awareness of the crunch in peacekeeping is spreading. There's news today of an MIT report arguing that the proposed EU force in Chad would be...
Semantic and puerile fun from war zones
Having previously suggested that the academic community should explore the semantics of the Italian Defense Minister's description of Afghanistan as "stable...
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