by Alex Evans | Sep 23, 2008 | Influence and networks, UK
Listening to Gordon Brown’s speech today, Philip Stephens notes that “Mr Brown kept his audience in its comfort zone”:
Though he set out the challenges Britain faces in a period of tumultuous global upheaval, Mr Brown did little to challenge his audience’s preconception that the present mess was all the fault of greedy capitalists.
Reading that brought to mind another Labour Conference speech in times of global upheaval: Tony Blair’s back in 2001. Remember this?
This is a moment to seize. The kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around us.
I re-read the whole thing this afternoon, and was struck by a) its brilliance, b) its insight, c) how it soars compared to Brown’s speech today and d) the extent to which – in retrospect, with all that’s happened since – it shines with an eerie messianic fervour. It’s well worth another look: full text below the jump.
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by Alex Evans | Aug 25, 2008 | Africa, Conflict and security, Economics and development, Influence and networks
From BBC Focus on Africa, via the excellent Chris Blattman:
Each morning the 36-year-old powers up a small United Nations radio transmitter and starts broadcasting from his mountain shack. His antenna points directly at the rebels in the bush. They know him by his call name “Mike India”.
…every so often, he reads out his phone number. Between the hours of 1am and 4am — when mobile minutes are free — his phone is deluged. Some rebels want to know where to demobilise, others rant about Paul Kagame, the current Rwandan president and former Tutsi rebel leader. Some just want Mike India to play different music.
These conversations are particularly extraordinary because neither the United States nor the United Kingdom- key Rwandan allies – have any official dialogue with the Hutu rebel groups (something diplomats from both countries complain about in private). Mike India not only talks to the rebels, he exchanges texts with them.
by Daniel Korski | Aug 21, 2008 | Conflict and security, Influence and networks, North America
In 2006 the U.S national security establishment “re-discovered” counter-insurgency, as General David Petraeus fresh from having published the Army/Marine COIN doctrine – set about implementing a COIN strategy in Iraq and his fellow-travellers in the State Department like David Kilcullen pushed for a COIN handbook to change the strategic way the US government does COIN.
Now it’s time for another re-discovery – namely of the proxy war. Proxy wars were common in the Cold War, and proxies were used in conflicts in Greece, Angola, Korea, and Vietnam.
But these wars have now come back. In the Caucasus NATO’s fighting Russia through Georgia, in Iraq the U.S is really taking on Iran, while Israel aims at Tehran but shoots at Hezbollah in Lebanon. In Asia Pakistan uses the Taliban inside Afghanistan to hit at India.
Meanwhile, conflict in the Horn of Africa is escalating rapidly as power struggles within Somalia are exacerbated by the military support that both Ethiopia and Eritrea give to the opposing parties there.
The West used to be good at these proxy wars. First, because of the “soft” power of democratic capitalism, which drew people to a cause not just a country. But in the new world where the enemies are often Salafist Islamists does the U.S and its allies have the necessary universal language and universal appeal?
Second, successful proxy wars depended on the proxies being authentic representatives of at least parts of their societies. Where they were not, they failed. Today, does an alliance with the U.S automatically exclude one as a legitimate representative?
As proxy wars look likely to be one of the predominant modes of warfare in the 21st century, the U.S will need to find answers to these questions and, as with the development of its COIN capabilities, gear its diplomatic, military and economic instruments to deal with the new challenge.
by Richard Gowan | Aug 20, 2008 | Influence and networks, Off topic
It’s a cliché that our networked, wired world suffers from a dearth of true leaders – visionaries who know how to use new technologies to build virtual communities on a truly global scale. Leaders, in short, who can say this:
In my travels round the world I have always been surprised that no matter where I go people recognize and know me, from Europe, Australia and India to the Philippines and the Zulu Nation in South Africa. This got me thinking… I realized that while two people from two entirely different countries and backgrounds may seem to have nothing in common, the only thing they might have in common is me… So I decided to start a network where people from across the world might come together and get a conversation started over me. Where it will lead, I don’t know but the world would be a better place if everyone talked a little more to each other…
Yes, the man who helped bring down the Berlin Wall is back in the planetary political game. Welcome to Hoff Space.
by Alex Evans | Aug 20, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity
Full marks to WWF for their report on virtual water use today, which finds that when imports of virtual water – the water used to grow or manufacture goods that are then imported into the UK, sometimes from severely water-stressed countries – each Briton uses some 4,645 litres, making the UK the sixth largest net importer of water in the world. Only 38% of the UK’s net water use actually comes from Britain’s own resources, the report adds. (Press release; report.)
Virtual water’s a handy concept, not least in that it shows up where consumers’ real water impact takes place. Turning off the tap while brushing one’s teeth is all very well, but if you really want to have an impact, go vegetarian: here’s the amount of water it takes to produce selected foods:
1 kg of potatoes – 500 litres
1 kg of wheat – 900 litres
1 kg of rice – 1,900 litres
1 kg of poultry – 3,500 litres
1 kg of beef – 15,000 litres
(Source: the excellent Atlas of Water. Buy one today.) Agriculture’s easily the world’s largest consumer of water, too: it accounts for 70% of global water use, compared to 20% for industry and 10% for the domestic sector.
In case you wondering, WWF says the top 5 net importers of virtual water are Brazil, Mexico, Japan, China and Italy. And the top 5 exporters? The USA, Australia, Argentina, Canada and Thailand. (Sixth is India, where water tables are plummeting.)
