A year ago, I blogged about the launch of a big UN review of how the organization deploys civilian experts to post-conflict countries. As I said then, this...
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).
An amoral perspective on the UN
David Bosco has an interesting post over at FP riffing on a Reuters piece about Ban Ki-moon's record at the UN. The Reuters article basically says that most...
Blame this man for France’s foreign policy woes
Who is he? Louis Edouard Bouët-Willaumez, of course. In 2009, French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced his intention to found a new history museum in Paris....
Open City
Readers of this blog tend to be interested in things like transnational identities, the state of America and life in 21st century cities. So here's some good...
Want to join the Security Council? Stay away from Yankee Stadium!
The Ottawa Citizen counts the costs of Canada's 2010 run for the Security Council: The Harper government spent nearly $1 million ferrying diplomats around the...
Fidel Castro’s Obamania
Google "Fidel Castro", and you can find an amazing trove of pictures of him with some of the most famous world leaders of the last half-century like Pope John...
How we scooped the New Yorker
Back in June 2008, I wrote a chirpy but snooty post about the Putnam County News and Reporter, a very old-fashioned newspaper in upstate New York with...
Ban Ki-moon: not Gbagbo’s chevalier
Do you have one of these? No? Then you are not a Grand Officier de L'Ordre National de la République de Côte d’Ivoire. Unlike, for example, Ban Ki-moon: Mr...
Après l’Empire…
Last month, I wrote a brief piece over on the ECFR website about France's lack of leverage in the Ivorian crisis between Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara:...
Is this anyone’s idea of a good time?
Do you live in London? Do you have plans for Tuesday 8 February? Does this event at the Southbank Centre sound like your idea of a good time? Following the...
Man up, Ban Ki-moon!
On 22 December, I published an op-ed over at World Politics Review (now behind a paywall, but also available for free via ECFR) about Ban Ki-moon's overloaded...
The first really stupid foreign policy story of 2011
Two twits tweet: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accepted Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to go skiing. '@Schwarzenegger: Thanks. We agreed - I...
Very bad news for the UN…
A breaking story from the BBC: UN peacekeepers were the most likely source of the cholera epidemic sweeping Haiti, according to a leaked report by a French...
European military power: a museum piece?
When I was small, I was taken to London's Imperial War Museum (above) and I had a good time. With the EU and NATO lowering their military ambitions, I'm...
Another new blog to watch: ECFR
The European Council on Foreign Relations has a new blog. I'll be contributing to it occasionally while maintaining my undying loyalty to Global Dashboard...
The UN building: full of bugs!
Bad news from the Globe and Mail! New York City’s bedbug epidemic has spread to yet another landmark in the city that never sleeps - the United Nations,...
Oh s***, we forgot UN Day!
24 October was UN Day. We totally forgot. Despite being multilateralists and all. How could we? We are so sorry.
A New Concert of Europe?
My colleagues at the European Council on Foreign Relations have just published a new report: The Spectre of a Multipolar Europe. Lead authors Mark Leonard...
The UN can’t stop the hip-hop
Abu Dhabi's The National brings us this story straight outta Jordan: Six young men are standing around a pair of CD decks on a Friday afternoon in...
Is Wen Jiabao Spiderman?
Here's a slightly odd bit of news from Wednesday's testy EU-China summit: In a gentle jab, [European Commission President Jose Manuel] Barroso told [Chinese...
More from Global Dashboard
Sea of Change: A New Wave of Activism in Bermuda
This article is part of our Freedom and Justice Week series – as Global Dashboard provides a platform for a diversity of voices to explore how we respond to the wave of protests that followed the murder of George Floyd. Read all the articles in the series here....
Public Service Leadership: lessons from #BlackLivesMatter
This article is part of our Freedom and Justice Week series – as Global Dashboard provides a platform for a diversity of voices to explore how we respond to the wave of protests that followed the murder of George Floyd. Read all the articles in the series here....
Realising the True Potential of International Schools
This article is part of our Freedom and Justice Week series – as Global Dashboard provides a platform for a diversity of voices to explore how we respond to the wave of protests that followed the murder of George Floyd. Read all the articles in the series here....