by David Steven | Apr 25, 2008 | North America
It’s not just Australia that’s been getting it in the neck this week, New Zealand’s PM, Helen Clark, has been compared to a cockroach by Hilary Clinton, in another deft display of foreign policy experience.
This from an interview with Newsweek:
You have any good jokes?
Here’s a good one. Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand: her opponents have observed that in the event of a nuclear war, the two things that will emerge from the rubble are the cockroaches and Helen Clark. [Laughs]
Ho ho.
Clark has been rather good-natured about the cockroach comparison, but less impressed by the reference to her being a ‘former’ Prime Minister. She advised Hilary to have a word with her husband:
As a current prime minister I spoke with him as a former US president in London only two weeks ago.
I wonder if Clinton’s got it in for other female leaders as well – or is it just Clark she doesn’t like?
by David Steven | Apr 25, 2008 | Cooperation and coherence, Economics and development, UK
Nice to see an integrated approach to UK operations in Afghanistan…
When I asked the men of 3 Para what their first tour had achieved, they all fell silent. “It was very frustrating,” said [Major Paul] Blair. He believes that his men could have achieved something in the town of Gereshk, where they were first based, had they been given the funds and authority.
“I kept having meetings with local officials saying we were there to bring security and reconstruction. I’d say the same thing week after week, but then never deliver more than school packs. I felt I was giving them false promises,” he said.
He recalled visiting the local hospital, where the bedding was “filthy”, and coming across a washing machine donated by a US charity that was still in its plastic wrapping. It could not be plumbed in because there was no water supply.
Blair suggested sinking a well but the Department for International Development said that this could be done only by civilians. Because of the security problems, no aid agency had been in the area for years. “Fora couple of hundred bucks,” said Blair, “we could have given them something they could have used there and then – but we weren’t allowed to.”
by Daniel Korski | Apr 25, 2008 | Conflict and security, North America
Yesterday, Congress heard testimony from James Locher III – the head of the Project on National Security Reform and the organisational genius behind the 1986 Goldwater-Nichol defence reforms that put the “joint” into the Joint Chiefs of Staff and later the Cohen-Nunn Amendment, which created the U.S. Special Operations Command.
Bringing together an impressive array of experts from inside government and from both parties, PNSR is trying nothing less than to redesign the U.S national security system.
Speaking with Joseph Nye (Mr. Soft Power), and Richard Armitage, Colin Powell’s muscle-clad former deputy, Locher laid out the case for reform:
Since the beginning of the 21st Century, the United States has suffered a number of painful setbacks: the terrorist attacks of September 11, troubled stability operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and inadequate response to Hurricane Katrina.
These setbacks are not coincidental; they are evidence of a system failure. Our national security system is not capable of handling the threats and challenges or exploiting the opportunities that confront us in today’s complex, fast-paced, information-age world.
These deficiencies are not about the lack of talent or commitment by our national security professionals in all departments and agencies. They are working incredibly hard and with unsurpassed dedication. In many cases, they are being crushed by their workload. The problem is that much of their hard work is wasted by a dysfunctional system.
What to do about it? The U.S needs “a 21st Century government for 21st Century challenges.” In Locher’s mind that means three sets of reforms. First, new presidential directives governing the operation of the national security system will be required. The second, a new national security act, replacing many provisions of the 1947 Act. And third, amendments to Senate and House rules to bring about necessary congressional reforms and the creation of Select Committees on Interagency Affairs in the Senate and House of Representatives.
Look out for Locher’s interim report produced on July 1 and his final report on September 1, as required in the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2008.
by Alex Evans | Apr 25, 2008 | Influence and networks
A diplomat who shall remain nameless offers three rules of thumb:
- Don’t mistake activity for action
- Don’t mistake access for influence
- Don’t mistake experience for expertise
by Alex Evans | Apr 25, 2008 | Influence and networks, UK
A civil servant friend told me yesterday that the Cabinet Office has just issued guidance that all senior civil servants (that’s deputy directors and upwards) are now allowed to blog, publicly, in their own names, about the issues that they work on.
Fascinating if so – but not surprising, given the approach being signalled by Tom Watson, the Minister for Transformational Government. Here’s a speech he did at the end of last month on information and government, which is required reading (a minister who’s heard of Clay Shirky! swoon!).
(There’s also an amusing anecdote in it about him making a speech in which he observes of open source that “One, nobody owns it. Two, everybody uses it. And three, anyone can improve it.” – whereupon
Two days later a political opponent sent out an email laying claim that in fact they are the ‘owners’ of these new ideas. I was accused of plundering policies from the Conservatives.
The irony that laying claim to the ownership of a policy on open source was lost to the poor researcher who had spent a day dissecting the speech. He’d been able to do so easily because it was freely available on my blog, a simple tool used for communicating information quickly and at nearly zero cost without the requirement to charge for access.)
But back to the intriguing question of blogging officials. How would it all work? Watson has posted a first stab at some principles on his own blog – here they are:
1. Write as yourself
2. Own your own content
3. Be nice
4. Keep secrets
5. No anonymous comments
6. Remember the civil service code
7. Got a problem? Talk to your boss
8. Stop it if we say so
9. Be the authority in your specialist field – provide worthwhile information
10. Think about consequences
11. Media interest? Tell your boss
12. Correct your own mistakes
…which, as people in the comments section of his blog generally agree, seem like not a bad starting point.
