Global Dashboard Drinks 2010 David Steven
And a great time was had by all… Thanks so much to ace photographer, Brent Jones, for taking the pics… (Head here for the full size slideshow.)
July 23, 2010 at 7:02 pm | More on Key Posts, UK | Comments Off
And a great time was had by all… Thanks so much to ace photographer, Brent Jones, for taking the pics… (Head here for the full size slideshow.)
July 23, 2010 at 7:02 pm | More on Key Posts, UK | Comments OffThe McChrystal Rolling Stone article is a fascinating read.
Sure, there are plenty of insults – the piece opens with the General being forced to dine with a French minister (“It’s fucking gay,” complains an aide), while McChrystal’s team is brutal about how underwhelmed their boss is by Obama and his administration.
But there’s meat too – the mismatch between military and civilian power is a recurrent theme:
While McChrystal and his men are in indisputable command of all military aspects of the war, there is no equivalent position on the diplomatic or political side… This diplomatic incoherence has effectively allowed McChrystal’s team to call the shot and hampered efforts to build a stable and credible government in Afghanistan.
Most interesting is the tension between counter-insurgency (slow, messy, only likely to ever deliver a partial result) and more aggressive forms of war fighting, especially as they play out among troops on the front line.
“This is the philosophical part that works with think tanks,” McChrystal jokes at one stage, “But it doesn’t get the same reception from infantry companies.”
I assume McChrystal will now be forced out – if not immediately, then after a few months or so. Can’t see that will resolve much though. It’s Obama’s war now (Cameron’s too, soon enough) and it’s hard to see him winning it.
Update: McChrystal was picked by Gates (Robert, not Bill) and I suspect it will be Gates who determines whether he survives. This is not exactly a rousing vote of confidence:
I read with concern the profile piece on Gen. Stanley McChrystal in the upcoming edition of ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine. I believe that Gen. McChrystal made a significant mistake and exercised poor judgment in this case. We are fighting a war against al Qaeda and its extremist allies, who directly threaten the United States, Afghanistan, and our friends and allies around the world. Going forward, we must pursue this mission with a unity of purpose. Our troops and coalition partners are making extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our security, and our singular focus must be on supporting them and succeeding in Afghanistan without such distractions.
Gen. McChrystal has apologized to me and is similarly reaching out to others named in this article to apologize to them as well. I have recalled Gen. McChrystal to Washington to discuss this in person.
Update II: Well, well. Turns out McChrystal was just one more victim for Eyjafjallajökull:
June 22, 2010 at 1:15 pm | More on North America, South Asia | 1 CommentHastings says he stumbled onto unprecedented access with McChrystal. After McChrystal’s press advisers accepted a request for the profile, Hastings joined McChrystal and his team in Paris. It was supposed to be a two-day visit, followed up with more time in Afghanistan.
The volcano in Iceland, however, changed those plans. As the ash disrupted air travel, Hastings ended up being “stuck” with McChrystal and his team for 10 days in Paris and Berlin. McChrystal had to get to Berlin by bus. Hastings says McChrystal and his aides were drinking on the road trip “the whole way.”
“They let loose,” he said. “I don’t blame them; they have a hard job.”
Half a century ago, medicine was neither costly nor effective. Since then, however, science has combated our ignorance. It has enumerated and identified, according to the international disease-classification system, more than 13,600 diagnoses—13,600 different ways our bodies can fail. And for each one we’ve discovered beneficial remedies—remedies that can reduce suffering, extend lives, and sometimes stop a disease altogether. But those remedies now include more than six thousand drugs and four thousand medical and surgical procedures. Our job in medicine is to make sure that all of this capability is deployed, town by town, in the right way at the right time, without harm or waste of resources, for every person alive. And we’re struggling. There is no industry in the world with 13,600 different service lines to deliver.
It should be no wonder that you have not mastered the understanding of them all. No one ever will. That’s why we as doctors and scientists have become ever more finely specialized. If I can’t handle 13,600 diagnoses, well, maybe there are fifty that I can handle—or just one that I might focus on in my research. The result, however, is that we find ourselves to be specialists, worried almost exclusively about our particular niche, and not the larger question of whether we as a group are making the whole system of care better for people.
Via Ezra Klein.
June 19, 2010 at 12:49 pm | More on Cooperation and coherence | Comments OffWaking up to the catastrophic news of Israel’s attack on the flotilla that was trying to break the blockade of Gaza, my snap reaction was that this event had the potential to trigger a chain of uncontrollable consequences. Nothing has since happened to reassure me that this was an early-morning overreaction.
Perhaps most worrying is the potential for friction between Israel and Turkey, countries that once enjoyed an unexpectedly good relationship (£2.5bn in bilateral trade in 2009). Turkey was the aid convoy’s main national sponsor, leading Israel’s unions to retaliate with a boycott of the country.
According to one Israeli union leader:
Turkey had been wiped off the workers unions’ travel maps. In a survey we conducted among the participants in the semi-annual union heads forum, we found that Israel’s workers’ unions have had enough of Turkey’s hostility toward Israel, which in the past had been characterized by verbal attacks by the country’s prime minister, but had now shifted to active attempts to harm Israel’s sovereignty. The tourism boycott is a weapon that will send a message to Ankara that words and deeds have consequences.
But Tel Aviv may now be the capital to discover that deeds have consequences that can go well beyond a boycott. The Turkish government is reported to be threatening to send more boats sailing towards Israel’s coast, but this time to give them a naval escort. That would put the two countries on track towards a very dangerous confrontation.
Bradley Burston, writing in Haaretz, is also worried:
Perhaps most ominously, in a stepwise, lemming-like march of folly in our relations with Ankara, a regional power of crucial importance and one which, if heeded, could have helped head off the First Gaza War, we have come dangerously close to effectively declaring a state of war with Turkey.
“This is going to be a very large incident, certainly with the Turks,” said Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, the cabinet minister with the most sensitive sense of Israel’s ties with the Muslim world.
Let’s hope the Turkish government continues to pursue its grievances with Israel through the international system, rather than putting the two countries’ navies on a collision course. Otherwise this grim year could get soon get much worse – yet again.
Update: Channel 4′s Faisal Islam points to NATO’s charter, presumably with Turkey in mind.
The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence…
An armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack… on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.
Update II: NATO will meet on Tuesday at Turkey’s request. According to an unnamed diplomat:
NATO does not really have instruments with which to deal with the follow-up from this type of affair. Turkey has not invoked article five which envisages all allies coming to the aid of a member country that is the victim of an attack.
But, given that numerous Turkish citizens appear to figure among the casualties, it is understandable that (Ankara) triggers political dialogue with its partners.
Update III: One to watch is the Irish boat – MV Rachel Corrie (yes, that Rachel Corrie) which is yet to reach Israel:
Five are onboard the Irish-owned vessel, MV Rachel Corrie, and all are safe. The ship was one day behind the main flotilla and is still on its way to Gaza.
Among the passengers on the Rachel Corrie are Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire and former UN Assistant Secretary-General Denis Halliday.
Does it sail on towards a second confrontation? And if so, how will the Israelis react?
May 31, 2010 at 5:17 pm | More on Conflict and security | 4 CommentsLast night saw a well-attended late night debate in the Commons on the proposed 55% for dissolving Parliament, which I picked up on when it popped up in the initial coalition agreement.
The debate was initiated by a Conservative backbencher, Chris Chope, indicating the potential for the bill itself to trigger an early backbench rebellion when it is finally debated.
The Liberal Democrat Deputy-Leader of the House, David Heath (“without wishing to sound too much like Mr. Pooter, I want to record the fact that the hon. Gentleman has given me the opportunity to be the first Liberal Minister to speak from the Dispatch Box since Sir Archibald Sinclair on 16 May 1945″), defended the Coalition’s proposal:
A strong Parliament is able to remove the Government of the day. A strong Government should not be able to remove the Parliament. That is the distinction that we are trying to address.
The Government will still have to resign if they lose the confidence of the House, and that will still be on a simple majority. There is no ambiguity about that. If the Government lose a vote of confidence, they are no longer the Government of the day.
He was very light on details though, suggesting the level of the threshold was open for debate, while admitting that, as in Scotland, a time limit would need to be set to ensure that “a zombie Government that had] lost the confidence of the House” from sticking around in office.
The plan is to push legislation through before the Summer recess.
May 26, 2010 at 12:47 pm | More on UK | Comments Off
Via @MarthaKearney
May 26, 2010 at 11:58 am | More on UK | Comments Off
When I took part in a wash-up after Copenhagen with a group of American policy makers, I was struck by the sense that, although the summit had been tough for the United States, they took great consolation that the Europeans had had a much worse time of it during the climate talks.
It all made me think of a quip attributed to Gore Vidal: “It’s not enough to succeed. Others must fail.”
Today, Richard posts the following digest of Hillary Clinton’s meeting with the UK’s new Foreign Secretary, William Hague (a man she is yet to grow as fond of as she was of his predecessor):
If you want to boil all this down to essentials, I’d suggest the following: (i) Mrs Clinton effectively said, “you’d better show discipline when it comes to the EU”; and (ii) Mr Hague basically said “OK”.
I’d parse the ‘better show discipline’ line in two ways. First, the US wants the UK to play an active role in Europe. Second, it needs the Europeans to respond with one voice to a growing roster of global problems.
Fine.
But to take this beyond complacent lecturing (“we may have a lamentable recent foreign policy record, but at least we’re not as shambolic as those awful old worlders”), the Obama administration needs to do what it can to create an incentive for European cooperation.
When it (i) starts listening to Europeans when they have caucused and arrived at a joint position; (ii) continues to listen, even if it doesn’t agree 100% with the European position; and (iii) foregoes the temptation to divide and conquer by playing favourites among European nations for short term tactical advantage – then, and only then, will I believe that the US is serious once again about the transatlantic relationship.
If Obama’s team wants a ‘disciplined Europe’, good. But it should back this up with its actions. Reward Europe with access when it’s united (as it was, more or less, on climate incidentally). Sideline it when it’s divided. And see the extent to which that makes Europeans pull together in the face of transnational challenges…
May 15, 2010 at 5:05 pm | More on Cooperation and coherence, Europe and Central Asia, North America | Comments OffSo it takes 46 hours to go from this on Global Dashboard…
My prediction is that this will prove the most controversial part of the [LibCon] pact… “This legislation will also provide for dissolution if 55% or more of the House votes in favour”.
…to the lead story on the BBC website:
Much of the reporting on the subject has been pretty abysmal (see GD’s original post for more), but the new government has been well behind the curve on this issue.
I wonder what will happen if the government is forced to drop the proposal – it seems to me fairly integral to the logic that allowed the coalition to come together.
May 14, 2010 at 12:33 pm | More on UK | Comments OffSeems Nicolas Sarkozy, Global Dashboard’s favourite European leader, was in typically understated form during the recent Eurozone crisis summit:
May 14, 2010 at 11:16 am | More on Europe and Central Asia | Comments OffSarkozy demanded “a compromise from everyone to support Greece … or France would reconsider its position in the euro,” according to one source cited by El País.
“Sarkozy went as far as banging his fist on the table and threatening to leave the euro,” said one unnamed Socialist leader who was at the meeting with Zapatero. “That obliged Angela Merkel to bend and reach an agreement.”
Andrew Mitchell becomes the first Conservative Secretary of State at the UK’s Department for International Development. DFID was formed in 1997, as one of the first acts of the Blair government.
So far, Mitchell sounds quite a bit like DFID’s first head, Clare Short, promising to focus on poverty eradication:
We must make 2010 the year when we get the Millennium Development Goals back on-track and make real progress towards what we all want to see: a world free from poverty. I look forward to getting to work to help make that happen.
Update: Owen Barder comments:
The Conservatives have made no secret of their desire to ensure that Britain’s world-class development work is more closely integrated with the UK’s other international work led by the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence. The aim is to have a more joined up foreign policy, which may result in DFID being more engaged in post-conflict stabilisation and reconstruction in future.
I’m personally in favour of a more joined up foreign policy, but this integration of development policy with other UK objectives must not be a one-way street: it must also be that other government policies are designed to support the UK’s objectives for development and poverty reduction. The commitment in Andrew Mitchell’s statement to “harness the full range of British government policies” is therefore especially welcome.
As someone who cares passionately about the need for greater transparency of aid, I also welcome Andrew Mitchell’s emphasis on this. This bodes well for continued and strengthened UK support for the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI). A group of 18 donors so far, who together give half of global aid, are working through IATI towards a common international standard for publication of detailed and timely information about aid: this offers the possibility of a step change in the accessibility of global aid information, which will help to make more accountable and effective.
Reaction and analysis from the Guardian.
May 13, 2010 at 1:59 pm | More on Economics and development, UK | 1 CommentKey foreign policy elements of the coalition agreement between David Cameron’s Conservatives and Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats include:
The government is also going to reduce its own carbon emissions by 10% over 12 months – a tough ask depending how broadly the target is intepreted (the military? schools? the NHS?).
My prediction is that this will prove the most controversial part of the pact:
The parties agree to the establishment of five year fixed-term parliaments. A Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government will put a binding motion before the House of Commons in the first days following this agreement stating that the next general election will be held on the first Thursday of May 2015. Following this motion, legislation will be brought forward to make provision for fixed term parliaments of five years. This legislation will also provide for dissolution if 55% or more of the House votes in favour.
Unless I am much mistaken, that means a government will now be able to stay in power without a majority.
Update: Doesn’t that mean that Cameron (with 47% of MPs) can govern without the Lib Dems?
Update II: OpenDemocracy’s Tony Curzon-Price probably has the answer. The government could still change mid-term (a PM loses confidence of House, Queen asks someone else to see if they form a new government), but the parliament would stay in place.
Could lead to some hellish negotiations though – similar to the ones we saw this week, but without the fresh mandate that leaders enjoyed.
It also makes a full term for this Parliament much more likely than we’d all thought.
Update III: Another suggestion from C4′s Krishnan Guru-Murthy is that an election would be triggered if the government lost a confidence vote. The 55% would only come into play if it, itself, wanted to dissolve parliament.
This makes sense, but it would allow a government to find its way around the fixed term provision if it chose to deliberately lose a confidence vote. Perhaps unlikely – but constitutional changes are presumably supposed to cope with all eventualities.
It’s worth also noting that Labour won 63% of seats in 1997 and 2001 – easily enough to vote to dissolve Parliament. Even in 2005, it held 55% of seats – though this margin was eroded throughout the Parliament. Just because this vote was close, it doesn’t mean landslides won’t be common in the future.
I’m still not 100% sure how this is going to work – time will tell.
Update IV: Sure enough, the 55% threshold is now attracting comment. The Guardian:
The fixed-term parliament legislation will take away the power of a prime minister to call an election in these circumstances. But it will also mean that if the government falls the sitting prime minister can try to form a new coalition government from among the opposition parties. If that fails in other fixed-term parliaments, such as in Germany, the head of state can call an election, but in Britain there is no wish to involve the Queen in such decisions.
So they have settled on a threshold of 55% of MPs to force a general election. The 55% figure is significant because the Conservatives have 47% of MPs and it ensures that the Lib Dems cannot simply walk out of the coalition and vote with the opposition to call a general election as they can only muster 53% of the vote.
In the Times, Scott Styles, a senior lecturer in the school of law at Aberdeen University, condemns the proposal as “truly astounding”:
The second and much more fundament problem is the raising of the bar of a no confidence vote in the government to 55% rather than simple majority of those MP’s present and voting. This is a major and fundamental alteration in our constitution and what is being changed is not a right of the PM but a power if the Commons…
As well as being politically unjustifiable the 55% rules raises the question of whether the House’s inherent ability to bring down government’s can be limited by legislation. One could of course always try and pass a bill to reverse this 55% doctrine by a subsequent act of parliament and such a bill would of course only need 51% of MP’s in its favour. However to become legislation obviously it would need to pas through the Lords as well, so in effect surrendering the long stop power to bring down the Government to the Lords!
Styles’s objections may be countered by distinguishing clearly between a confidence vote (opposition brings down government) and dissolution (government chooses election) – but that opens up new wrinkles. See above.
Update V: Andrew Adonis:
I was shocked by the Lib Dem proposal, in our negotiating session with them, that the alternative vote should be introduced before a referendum, as “a big down-payment we need to go in with you” (in the words of one Lib Dem negotiator). The commitment in their coalition agreement with the Tories to gerrymander the fundamental basis of parliamentary legitimacy – proposing that votes of confidence will henceforth require the support of 55% of MPs – is presumably another such unprincipled “down-payment”.
Dizzy dubs it the Cameron Politburo.
Update VI: There’s a No to 55% campaign now (and a Facebook group). Talk Issues lays out pros and cons. MP Tom Harris is fuming.
Update VII: Twitter’s @loveandgarbage points to Scottish fixed term parliaments as a model.
According to the Scotland Act 1998, the Parliament can be dissolved if “not less than two-thirds of the total number of seats for members of the Parliament” vote in favour.
The First Minister must resign if s/he loses a confidence vote on a simple majority. A new First Minister then has 28 days to put together a working majority. If no-one can do that, then an election is automatically triggered.
So the Scottish model separates confidence (50%) from dissolution (two thirds), while ensuring that the turbulent process of forming a new government after a lost confidence vote can ‘only’ last for a month, before an election automatically kicks in.
Of note, of course, is that the proposed threshold is lower than in Scotland – allowing governments with a comfortable majority (e.g. the first two New Labour terms) to trigger an election at will.
Still think we need more detail on what Cameron and Clegg are proposing for Westminster and how it will follow or differ from the Scottish model.
Update VIII – Left Foot Forward has a briefing note from UCL. More too from @loveandgarbage – a Scottish lawyer, it seems – here. “I sit bemused, wondering why has no-one from the coalition been able to present what is a perfectly presentable case,” he concludes.
I concur. Whether not this is the right constitutional route to take, the communication around it has been awful – convincing a growing number of people that something nefarious is afoot.
The new Foreign Secretary arrives for work…
May 12, 2010 at 10:37 am | More on UK | Comments OffUK reluctance to help with the Euro bailout has not gone down well at all:
May 11, 2010 at 6:47 pm | More on Europe and Central Asia, UK | Comments OffJean-Pierre Jouyet, the head of the French markets regulator, said sterling was bound to come under pressure on the markets given the delay in forming a UK government after last week’s inconclusive general election.
Mr Jouyet, a former Europe minister who is close to President Nicolas Sarkozy, indicated that Britain could expect no help from the eurozone.
“The British are most definitely going to be targeted given the political difficulties they have,” he told Europe1 radio. “If they don’t want solidarity with the eurozone, we will see what will happen with regard to the United Kingdom.”
Following its refusal to help its neighbours, Mr Jouyet said Britain had become a peripheral player in the bloc.
There was now a “three-speed Europe”, he said: “Europe of the euro, the Europe of countries that understand the euro, such as Poland and Sweden, and the British.”
David Steven is a policy analyst, strategic consultant and researcher. He is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) at New York University, and a Director of River Path Associates where he specialises in international responses to global risks, the development of communications and influencing strategies, and intercultural dialogue. As well as editing Global Dashboard, David is on the advisory board of JLT’s World Risk Review.
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