War is not the answer, Marvin Gaye once observed, and only love can conquer hate. Now Citizens for Global Solutions is trying to translate this into policy by...
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).
10 February: an exciting day for Europhile New Yorkers
With apologies to Global Dashboard readers who don't live in New York (bad luck you!) here's an invitation to an event at NYU next week. On Friday 10...
Grading Europe’s foreign policy performance
ECFR has just launched the second edition of its European Foreign Policy Scorecard, which gives the EU grades for how it dealt with different...
Syria and the Security Council: what do the Europeans think they are doing?
Tuesday should be a dramatic day in the UN Security Council. Hillary Clinton, William Hague and Alan Juppé are all jetting in for a debate on Syria and the...
Ban Ki-moon to end disease, defend penguins
Good news: Ban Ki-moon will save Antarctica! Ban Ki-moon has just set out his plans for his second five year term. He is not unambitious: “Today I want to...
Does the IAEA have a subscription to Playboy?
Our colleague and friend WPS Sidhu has written a thought-provoking column about recent revelations of nuclear proliferation - from a most unusual source:...
Does the EU really want to hurt you, Iran?
European ministers are meeting today to discuss an oil embargo on Iran. The run-up to the meeting has been dogged by reports that some impoverished EU...
South Sudan: time for the UN to take a stand
The situation in South Sudan is very bad and getting worse, as the New York Times underlined in a lengthy and blunt analysis last week: South Sudan, born six...
Here’s a proper global threat: the Death Star
It's so hard to know which global threat to worry about most these days. Global warming? Weaponized bird flu? WMD? Well, now you can add the Death Star to...
Who said print journalism was dead?
Whatever you think of French politics - or ratings agencies - this is a super front page:
The Arab League in Syria: time to embrace defeat?
Two weeks ago, I blogged about the Arab League's observer mission in Syria, and argued that it was likely to struggle. And struggle it certainly has. Last...
Popular rage meets cute small animals
After all last year's excitement about social media's role in the Arab revolutions ("Think what Trotsky could have done if only he'd had a twitter feed rather...
Canada’s new WMD: muskets
This year marks the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, which kicked off when America made a grab for what is now Canada. There then followed a range of...
Syria: can Arab League observers make a difference?
Observers from the Arab League are now in Syria to check whether the Assad regime fulfills its promise to pull the army out of urban areas. Fifty observers...
The Security Council’s family Christmas from hell
And it's tidings of comfort and joy... but not for the Security Council. On Thursday, Russia proposed an investigation into the casualties of NATO's Libyan...
The best political commentary of 2011
What do you look for in good political commentary? I'm in favor of a mix of moral clarity and realistic judgment, topped off with an incisive turn of phrase...
How big is the Congo? Very big!
Few journalistic cliches are as irritating as the trope of describing some war-ridden country as "the size of Texas" or "three times the size of France". I...
Russia: the sick BRIC?
A new report from ECFR on Russia makes startlingly depressing reading: The economic crisis has exposed a governance crisis inside Russia: even Putin now...
Gloom and doom at the Security Council
Syria is slipping further into chaos. It's sad to think that the Security Council has been debating the situation there for almost half a year to no effect. ...
The G20 and the EU: a failed relationship?
The G20 summit in Cannes is over. Here's a grumpy little post about it that I first published on the ECFR blog this morning: There’s something a little...
More from Global Dashboard
Justice for All and the Economic Crisis
As COVID-19 plunges the world into its most serious economic crisis for a century, a surge in demand for justice is inevitable. Businesses face bankruptcy – and whole industries may be insolvent. Similar pain is being felt in the public and non-profit sectors....
Effective Activism in a Time of Coronavirus: what are we learning six months in?
Nothing I’ve read has captured our times and our task better than this essay from Western States Center ED Eric K. Ward: “leading in easy times is, well, easy. But these times are not them”. Leading in difficult times is unbelievably hard, but we will all be...
Who Speaks for the Global South Recipients of Aid?
The murder of George Floyd and the resurfacing of the Black Lives Matter movement has led to heightened discussions on race in the international development sector. Aid practitioners in the North have not only condemned the systemic racism that they (suddenly) now see...