Category: International Relations

Brian Urquhart calls for the UN to be given real military force. But in the age of humanitarian intervention, the human catastrophes of failed states and civil wars will continue to come before the Security Council. If UN members can no longer urgently provide the necessary peacekeeping troops to moderate desperate, if politically insignificant, situations,…

The rebuilding of Iraq is exposing an interesting rift on the political right: Is “unilateralism” a matter of expediency or theology? The United States is finding itself short of soldiers and money as it tries to bring democracy and stability to Iraq. It has deployed nearly 150,000 soldiers, many of whom have been there since…

I attended an excellent debate in London on Saturday chaired by none other than Sir Michael Portillo MP. Also present was one of my favourite authors, Philip Bobbitt, who duly signed my copy of the Shield of Achilles, a book I have mentioned several times on this blog. I dont have the list to hand…

Maria Cristina Caballero, Colombian journalist and fellow at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, discusses the US reaction to the ICC. An interesting read. It is time for Washington to reconsider its war against a court that serves to defend human rights around the world. It is time for the Bush administration to start…

The Atlantic has a very interesting interview with Robert Kaplan, following his article on the subject of how and why America projects its power around the world. I would encourage everyone to read this – I have selected what I think were the most pointed questions, but you can follow the link and read the…

Thomas Friedman wonders why America is hated by the rest of the world. He also calls on people to email him and help him find a stable way to manage the United States’ relationship with the world. “Where we are now,” says Nayan Chanda, publications director at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization…

Supremo economist, Joe Stiglitz has a piece in today’s Guardian. It is essentially a look at Russia’s economy since the fall of communism – worth a look. Joseph Stiglitz is professor of economics at Columbia University, and the winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize. He is the author of Globalization and Its Discontents.

New Scientist is reporting on a UN document that says that the number of chronically hungry people in the world is set to fall from 776 million now to 440 million in 2030 (UN Food and Agriculture Organization). Does this mean that the world will be a better place in 2030 than it is now?

William Pfaff has a good piece in the Herald Tribune today. It seems that the neo-conservatives in the US are already celebrating the victory of US forces in Iraq. The American Enterprise Institute sounds like a strange organisation. One official is quoted as saying “an epochal war…Iraq may turn out to be a war to…

Richard Perle, chairman of the defence policy board, an advisory panel to the Pentagon writes a piece in the Spectator this week, some of which appears in the Guardian today. He celebrates the demise of the UN. Judge for yourself.