I’m excited about going to see Alasdair MacIntyre talk today. I think he’s the most influential living philosopher, and it’s a rare chance to see him speak in London (he moved to the US 40 years ago). The influence of his 1981 book. After Virtue, is still growing. More and more thinkers are following him in embracing Aristotle and a Neo-Aristotelian virtue politics as a way beyond the ethical relativism of liberal, pluralist capitalism.

That includes communitarians on the right, like Phillip Blond, the architect of the Tory party’s Big Society concept, who called for a ‘new communitarian settlement’, and communitarians on the left, like the MP John Cruddas, who writes in the New Statesman today that Labour should embrace a “politics of virtue, rooted in Aristotle, which resists commodification and nurtures community”.

It also includes the literary critic Terry Eagleton, who I see has left behind post-modernism and the relativism of literary theorists like Derrida and Baudrillard to embrace a Neo-Aristotelian / MacIntyrean virtue politics.

MacIntyre, and Aristotle, are obviously back in vogue. But I wonder what he thinks of the contemporary fusion of Aristotle with empiricism and utilitarian happiness measurements? Does he think we can discover a ‘science of flourishing’? Hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to ask him this evening.

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, officials at the world organization said on Wednesday.

The pests appeared at places like the Empire State Building and Bloomingdale’s before reaching the city’s center of international diplomacy on the East Side of Manhattan.

The UN press office said a bedbug-sniffing dog had confirmed the presence of bedbugs in furniture in the basement of the Dag Hammarskjold Library, where the offices of the team overseeing the UN headquarter’s $1.9 billion renovation project are housed.

“This furniture has been moved to a part of the building not occupied by staff to facilitate fumigation,” it said.

The library is a three-story annex to the main building.

“Bedbug infestations have been found in many public and commercial buildings throughout New York City indicating a worsening problem,” the UN statement said.

24 October was UN Day.  We totally forgot.  Despite being multilateralists and all.

How could we?

We are so sorry.

I know Treasury mandarins don’t laugh much, but I suspect a few of them will be smirking on their way home tonight. If I read the spending review right, they’ve pulled a fast one on their bitter, and less numerate, rivals at the Foreign Office – something that is sure to cause an immense feeling of satisfaction.

The crux of the matter is in who bears the risk of currency fluctuations. The FCO spends most of its money overseas, so its costs rise when the pound is weak, fall when it is strong.

Historically, the Treasury has evened this out through the Overseas Price Mechanism. The FCO was given money in sterling and, if it found that this was worth more than expected overseas, it gave money back to the Chancellor. If  the settlement was worth less than expected, it was given sufficient extra funds to enable planned activity.

In the mid 2000s, the tide was in the Treasury’s favour, with £5-14 million a year being returned by the FCO, but in 2007/08, the pound began to weaken and HMT had to pay the FCO £1.5 million or so.

The Treasury didn’t like this, so it abolished the price mechanism and left the FCO to deal with an increasingly feeble pound. The result was carnage. The FCO lost £100m in 2008/09 and the same again in 2009/10.

According to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee:

The FCO has lost around 13% of the purchasing power of its core 2009–10 budget as a consequence of the fall of Sterling. We concur with the National Audit Office, that the withdrawal of the Overseas Price Mechanism and the subsequent fall of Sterling have had “a major impact on the FCO’s  business worldwide”.

We note that the budgetary transfers which the  FCO has made to try to help cope with the hit have absorbed all of the Department’s contingency reserve at the Treasury in both 2008–09 and 2009–10, and we conclude that this represents an unacceptable risk to the FCO’s ability to perform its functions.

So today’s announcement that currency risk is being passed back to the Treasury is a big coup, no? Certainly, the new ‘Foreign Currency Mechanism’ will give greater certainty to FCO staff, but the re-introduction comes at a time that is highly disadvantageous to our diplomats.

Look at this graph showing the pound’s value against a basket of currencies. Currency risk was dumped on the FCO just as the pound was about to begin a long, hard fall. It’s now been taken back by HMT at what looks like the currency’s trough.

Worst case for HMT, the pound’ll bump along the bottom. Best case, it’ll strengthen and they can demand a big fat cheque from William Hague. It’s the first rule of markets – sell high, buy low – especially when you want to turn the screw on your next-door neighbours.

I am at Sky News for on a panel of experts (find some of them on Twitter here), covering the international beat (diplomacy, development, any fallout from yesterday’s defence review etc).

Not expecting many of the headline issues to be on my patch – ironic given that the UK is in a mess because of risks that hit it from overseas: 9/11 and all the dumb things we did as a result of Bin Laden’s provocation; the food and fuel price spike; and the global economic crisis.

Anyway – Osborne is speaking now: it’s time to pull Britain back from the brink. Updates whenever global makes a showing…

Update: In 2014/2015, George Osborne tells the House, the UK will be paying £63bn in debt. I’d expect the UK to be spending considerably less than £60bn on its entire international programme (defense included).

Update II: George Osborne says that 490,000 jobs will be lost over four years. (Next to me, Chris Dobson from PWC says that another 500,000 jobs will go in the private sector as a result of government cuts)

The Chancellor promises to sack as few people as possible – which means, I expect, a near-total recruitment freeze. But, at the same time, he wants root-and-branch public sector reform.  That means departments will have to take on new responsibilities, without being able to hire in new skills.

Sclerotic government anyone?

Update III: We’re onto defense. MOD gets £33.5bn in 2013/14 an 8% cut – plus whatever Afghanistan needs. 24% cuts for the FCO by taking a hatchet to HQ staff (because strategic synthesis on global issues doesn’t matter as much as ‘commercial diplomacy’).

DFID has been told its admin costs down to half of what other donors spend (which means not enough staff to work in fragile states). Programmes in China and Russia are to be abolished.

Update IV: The FCO loses around £530m (about half the cost of a new Type 45 destroyer) – but £240m of that is accounted for by the World Service, which will now be paid for by the BBC license fee payer. So the big question is, how much of the other £287m is real money? See update VII for more.

Things to look for – how much development assistance will the FCO get to spend? Will parts of the Council budget be paid for by DFID?

Update IV: All British Council grant-in-aid will continue to be funnelled through the FCO. The Council sees a cut of around £30m over four years – around 18% of its current budget. BC head, Martin Davidson says its a ‘reasonable settlement.’

Update V: Looking at the full spending review report, now. FCO gets protection from exchange rate fluctuations. It will also get a chunk of the increase in development spending. Probably the big surprise is that is cuts are heavily backloaded. It doesn’t lose anything at all until 2013/14…

Update VI: Talked to DFID press office. They’re aiming to half adminstration costs – taking them 4% of total spending (which is about average for donors) to 2%. That measn £15m of cuts – £8m on ‘back office’; £2m off the wage bill; £4m by leasing three floors of their building out; and £3m by making their staff travel economy.

Update VII: The FCO loses £200m in cash terms over four years but the cut happens in the last year – there’s a small cash increase before that. I now think the cut is almost wholly accounted for by the transfer of the World Service to the BBC which does not happen until 2013/14. The ‘real’ cut is 24% – but that, of course, depends on the rate of inflation. I was told before the announcement that the FCO would be pretty happy with flat cash. Still not 100% sure what’s and out of the figures though, and am waiting for the FCO press office to clarify.

Update VIII: This is it for me – unless more news unexpectedly emerges. But one final reflection on the FCO… When we wrote our Chatham House paper, the most contentious issue was what to do with the FCO’s central operation – expand or gut it.

Looking to the future, we see two options for the department:

• A back-to-basics reform of the FCO, paring the department back to focus on its traditional core business of (i) running a network of embassies, (ii) providing a geographical perspective on policy to the rest of government, and (iii) offering consular services to UK citizens.
• Radical reform that would rebuild the FCO’s London headquarters around the primary role of strategic synthesis on the UK’s global issues objectives – a role that would enlarge its responsibilities and bring it much closer to the centre of government, but require far-reaching operational changes – while still firmly maintaining the FCO’s in-country expertise.

Many will see reasons to support the first option. The FCO excels at this work, and would probably prefer to stay in the comfort zone of its overseas network and bilateral relationships. Recent years have shown that global issues are far from being a core concern for the department (with climate change as a notable exception)…

However, we fear that this route would lead to an ongoing downgrade and marginalization of the existing FCO – and would still require the same strategic synthesis and campaigning capacity to be created elsewhere in government.

We therefore believe that William Hague should explain to his new department that it must be prepared to consider far-reaching steps to secure its future, developing a strategic role at the heart of the government’s response to globalization’s long crisis. This means that at least 50% of the mid-level and senior staff working on policy issues at its London headquarters should be seconded from other government departments – making the FCO less like other Whitehall line departments and more like the Cabinet Office.

This shift would both ensure an effective mix of issue and geographic expertise, and begin the process of transforming the FCO into a department able to use its geographic network to respond effectively to global issues.

Clearly, we now have an FCO burrowing deep back into its comfort zone – but I expect we’ll be back asking the same questions about strategic synthesis on global issues the next time a big crisis hits.

Update IX: On aid, the big year is 2013, when expenditure is expected to suddenly leap from 0.56% of GNI to 0.7%. If the 0.7% commitment is ever to be dropped, it’ll be then.

For DFID – the heart of yesterday’s defence review was a new commitment to spend 30% of Britain’s development cash on “priority national security and fragile states”. This box explains what that means in cash terms…

Alex and I argued for this policy in our Chatham House paper. DFID, we wrote, should be turned into the world leader in tackling the problems of fragile states.

But there was a quid pro quo.  Fragile states need lots and lots of high-level expertise – not oodles of dosh. But DFID is probably going to be forced to make job cuts as a result of the spending review. So it’s going to have more money, tougher challenges to deal with, but fewer people. Something has to give.

The solution, we argued, was for the government to “make it clear that where a poor country’s main need is financial, the UK will not necessarily maintain a country office – but will instead reduce transaction costs by partnering with other effective donors, or simply channeling funds through multilateral institutions such as the World Bank.”

So far, the coalition has seemed fairly cool on the multilateral system – but if it wants to do a good job in fragile states, this has to change. Clearly, the FCO and MOD are hoping they will directly spend a big chunk of the UK’s development money, but DFID still needs to think hard about how best to deploy is scarcest resource – the expertise of its dwindling staff…

Beyond sharing the ‘age of uncertainty’ title, the UK’s new national security strategy overlaps considerably with the Chatham House report on British foreign policy that Alex and I published just after the election.

The Cameron/Clegg introduction is based on the same understanding of global challenges as set out in the first chapter of our report. The strategy is based on a risk management approach (good) and a wish to build resilience (even better – the Conservatives were exploring resilience as a theme during their time in opposition).

But where we diverge from the government is in the proposed response. Like the government, Alex and I are interested in countering direct immediate and direct threats to British citizens (the core national security agenda). We are also keen to support the weak links in the global system – fragile and failing states (the core development agenda).

But our third area of strategic focus centres on an attempt to persuade others that urgent efforts are needed to rebuild the global system itself – rather than to try and wait out globalization’s ‘long crisis’. For us, this is the heart of modern foreign policy.

Although the NSS talks a good game about preventing risks before they hit the UK, it does little to flesh out what it means by ‘shaping the global environment’ to manage risks. And the FCO seems to be fast losing interest in this agenda. Instead, we are promised that foreign policy can be turned into a money-earner and that “the [overseas] networks we use to build our prosperity we will also use to build our security.”

The implications of this commercial focus aren’t spelled out in the strategy, but what it means in practice is that Embassies are going to be judged increasingly by the time they spend trying to win contracts for British businesses. My reaction to this prospect is visceral (lots of swearing and Basil Fawlty-style leaping around). Here, though, are some more measured objections:

1. I don’t think it works – big business has sophisticated networks overseas and there are many private sector providers of risk and political analysis. Why on earth would the Ambassador be decisive in sealing the deal – let alone one of his lesser minions? And if our Ambassadors are such commercial whizzes, why on earth wouldn’t businesses want to pay for their services (or for that matter, poach them from their poorly paid jobs)?
2. It’s an essentially zero-sum activity – pitting the UK against its allies precisely in those parts of the world where we need to forge a common cause. Partnership gets fairly short shrift in the NSS – but the UK’s most pressing problems will only be solved through collective action. Try and wish that away if you like, but it’s a cold, hard fact.
3. Business objectives will always clash with other more important goals. Business lobbies trump free trade agreements, financial regulation, climate deals, tough lines on corrupt states etc. As we have seen, many boards would happily screw the global economy if it meant meeting the next quarter’s targets. Thatcher did sterling work getting the state out of business. Some day we need a PM with the guts to prise business out of the state.
4. Scandal is inevitable. The NSS can talk about British values as much as it likes, but, soon enough, politicians and officials will start to cross ethical lines. Before you know it, the Conservatives will have another Arms to Iraq on their hands – or be embroiled in a BAE-style mess. Try telling us that ‘our core values are not open to question’ then.

I expect the commercial focus will prove to be a fad – to be swept away when the next big international shock hits our shores. But the diversion is damaging, because it has stopped the coalition getting serious about global issues. And that, I predict, will prove to be a big mistake…

Evans and Steven, Chatham House, June 2010:

UK National Security Strategy, HMG, October 2010:

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 and Ivan Krastev call for a “regular informal trialogue” between the EU, Russia and Turkey on the European security order:

The current order is dysfunctional, failing to deal with wars in Kosovo and Georgia, recent instability in Kyrgyzstan or several so-called frozen conflicts dotted around the continent. The grand project of expanding EU membership eastwards has faltered of late. Even when – as we at the European Council on Foreign Relations strongly hope – Turkey and the Western Balkans become members of the EU, it is clear that NATO and the EU will never be the main security institutions in Europe, covering all European states.

What would the trialogue do?

Rather than trying to tinker with the existing institutions, the idea would be to re-invigorate them from the bottom up. By involving Russia in the US-initiated missile defence shield, NATO can build on Obama’s ‘reset’ to cement a continent-wide security identity, focusing minds on external threats to Europe. But alongside this, the EU needs to engage its neighbours in advancing security within Europe. It needs to build trust between Europe’s powers and challenge them demonstrate resolve – by engaging Russia in solving frozen conflicts such as Transnistria, for instance, or supporting Turkish involvement in Bosnia.

This sounds like a 21st Century Concert of Europe – although it also looks a bit like one of the “Coalitions of the Weaklings” I advocated earlier this year:

Instead of Bush-era “coalitions of the willing”, it may be necessary to form “coalitions of the weaklings”: groups of states that can’t handle international problems alone, but have sufficient leverage between them to do something.

I suspect that ECFR’s proposals to think beyond formal institutions will create quite a rumpus in both the EU and NATO quarters of Brussels. Good stuff!

I gave a presentation this morning on global challenges to development for the UK International Development Select Committee, which has a new line-up of members following the general election.  Here it is…

(more…)

Following up on recent coverage of agricultural resource access deals (so-called ‘landgrabs’) on Global Dashboard: two GD readers, Nathan Yaffe and Laura Dismore, were recently out in Ethiopia doing a two month field study of the phenomenon, and had this to say about what they saw:

The “land grab” phenomenon has brought the related security threats of rising food prices and arable land shortages to a head in Africa. The least developed continent is playing host for some of the world’s richest investors, who are trying to snatch up what land is available to meet the food and biofuel needs of capital-rich economies.

Concerns about these large commercial farming operations often focus on lack of government oversight leading to displacement and loss of livelihood for local farmers. This has led international observers to raise the question – as Alex Evans noted at the release of the World Bank’s land grabs report – of what it might look like for governments to use this investment opportunity to their advantage.

After two months of field study in Ethiopia, we have some insights about how land acquisition has been incorporated in the national development strategy there. While everyone from the World Bank to the FAO has recognized this as a goal, the conversation about it has taken place in theoretical rather than empirical terms. (more…)

Last month, not long after the release by the terror group Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb of two Spanish hostages it had held in captivity for nine months, came the news that Acció Solidaria, the NGO that employs those hostages, plans to send another aid convoy to the same region in “homage” to the freed men.

It will be sending this convoy in the knowledge that there is a serious risk of a second kidnapping. The French, British and American governments all strongly advise their citizens against travel through Mauritania, northern Mali and northern Niger, and the number of kidnappings of Westerners in this region has risen sharply in the past two years (five French citizens working in Niger, snatched two weeks ago, were the latest victims). Even the governments of the West African nations concerned have acknowledged the danger, and they are busy promoting other parts of their countries as safe havens for tourists.

Acció Solidaria knows that, although it calls itself a non-governmental organisation, if a second kidnapping takes place it will be able to count on the Spanish government to bail it out. That government gave seven million Euros to AQIM and its intermediaries to secure the release of those freed in August. In recent years, AQIM has also reportedly received large ransom payments from the Canadian, Italian, German, Swiss and French governments. As a further part of the Spanish deal, moreover, an AQIM militant was released from prison in Mauritania.

The leaders of AQIM are growing rich. The funds acquired will enable them to buy faster jeeps, more weapons and men, and the latest in GPS and communications technology. But kidnapping is unlikely to remain their sole raison d’être; the pressures on them are such that hostage-taking can only be a means, not an end. Even if AQIM’s leaders wanted to just take the money and spend it on a life of luxury, the patrimonial nature of relationships in West Africa would make this impossible. Those who have wealth here cannot enjoy it alone; just as they have been helped by others on their way up, so must they now repay that assistance and dispense largesse to their growing band of dependents. If they refuse, they will be ostracised. Their families and communities will cast them out. As word gets around that they have come into money, the number of supplicants will swell; they will have no choice but to continue to accumulate, to amass and dole out ever more wealth and ever more power. (more…)

Three weeks, three party conferences, but what did they tell us about where the parties see Britain’s place in the world?

First up were the Liberal Democrats in Liverpool.Their first conference as a party of government and junior Foreign Office Minister, Jeremy Browne, who described himself as the longest serving Liberal in the Foreign Office since 1919, gave the foreign affairs speech.

He made the now obligatory reference to the rise of China, India, Brazil and other powers and said Britain and Europe can’t stop this, but instead should seek to make it a force for good.He also argued that Britain still has a lot to offer and should be a catalyst for this new world order. It was short on specifics or examples of how this could be done, and how different is this from David Miliband’s talk when he was Foreign Secretary, that Britain should be a ‘global hub’?

The Lib Dems’ junior Defence Minister, Nick Harvey, focussed on one of the party’s keynote policies – a review of the need for a like-for-like replacement of Trident. In his speech, Nick Harvey argued for delaying the decision until after the next election, but his reasons appeared less about giving more time to consideration of the options and more about wrong footing the Labour Party. An argument that could give the impression that debate on a fundamental issue like the future of Britain’s nuclear weapons capability is being used as a tool to embarrass political opponents.

Next to Manchester and Labour’s conference. Being the first since losing power, it, perhaps understandably, witnessed quite a bit of raking over the recent past – both from internal critics of the last government and from former ministers defending their records.

A fringe meeting on the future of defence policy I went to heard concerns from trade unions and defence contractors about the potential impact on jobs and the industrial base of the defence cuts expected from the ongoing Strategic Defence and Security Review. The former Defence Secretary, Bob Ainsworth, was on the panel and on the defensive, responding to questions about his record with jibes back at some of his questioners.

The thing lacking was much discussion of what kind of role Britain should play in the world and what kind of military forces will be required for that. The defeat of David Miliband for the leadership and his decision to return to the backbenches inevitably meant there was less focus on his foreign policy speech to the conference than on discussion of his legacy, including as Foreign Secretary. On The World Tonight, journalist Ann McElvoy argued his main legacy was that in the wake of the Iraq war, which many believe was a big mistake, he made the case for Britain to retain its global reach and the need for intervention when the time is right, especially in Afghanistan.

On to the Conservatives in Birmingham.In the wake of the leak to the Daily Telegraph of Defence Secretary Liam Fox’s letter to David Cameron arguing against deep cuts to his budget, the mood among the Tories’ defence team seemed more upbeat, suggesting their rearguard action ahead of the Comprehensive Spending Review may be having some success. And, almost inevitably, discussion over Britain’s role in the world at the conference was dominated by the defence review as it nears completion.

The defence fringe I went to was a bit more wide-ranging than its Labour equivalent. The Defence Minister, Peter Luff, said the government is looking to France to be a strategic partner along with the US. He also suggested Britain would seek to work with France to develop new weapons systems bi-laterally, rather than enter new multilateral projects like the Eurofighter ‘Typhoon’. But the argument over what role Britain should play in the world came mainly from Nick Witney of the European Council on Foreign Relations rather than the politicians on the panel.

All this left me thinking that if the party conferences reflect the way the main parties are looking at Britain’s future global role, it does seem their focus is still very much on the defence review and cuts, rather than the more fundamental question of what role the UK should play in the changing world order. If there is a wider debate going on about what the UK’s military forces should be for, rather than simply what can be afforded, it seems to be going on largely behind the scenes. Whether that is wise is another matter.