Here’s a great Hillary Clinton moment:

Interviewer: Okay. Which designers do you prefer?

Hillary Clinton: What designers of clothes?

Interviewer: Yes.

Hillary Clinton: Would you ever ask a man that question?

Interviewer: Probably not. Probably not.

(Stolen from @HayesBrown Twitter feed.)

The following email was circulated to UN staff in New York today.

As summer approaches in the Northern Hemisphere and the mercury rises, it is time again to get ready for “Cool UN”, a practical way for the UN to demonstrate its commitment to using energy wisely.  As in previous years, from 1 June, thermostats at New York Headquarters will be set to 77 degrees Fahrenheit / 25 degrees Celsius in offices and to 75 degrees Fahrenheit / 24 degrees Celsius in conference rooms.  Once more, we are also inviting the landlords of our leased spaces to join us in this effort.

So far, so easy to mock.  But there is more… so much more.

Over the years, we have learned that not all colleagues agree on what constitutes a comfortable temperature. Depending on their cultural background, what is pleasant for one person can be “borderline” for the next. It is also a reality that, in some buildings, either because of the direction an office faces or possibly due to older ducting, the consistency of temperature can be difficult to finesse.

Damn that combination of aged ducting and cultural pluralism.  What can the UN do?

We nonetheless do our best to find an acceptable compromise and, in setting the thermostats, we are guided by temperature ranges recommended by international human comfort indexes.

International human what?

The idea is simple: Rather than having to bulk up on clothing in the summer because the air conditioning is too cold inside, we dress according to the season, keep the thermostat a bit higher and save energy.

During the “Cool UN” initiative, therefore, staff are encouraged to dress in lighter clothing appropriate for a business setting, including national dress, so as to remain comfortable.

My despair is complete.  Oh no, there’s more.

Increasingly, the “Cool UN” practice is being echoed by other UN agencies and offices away from Headquarters.  Together we can set an example.

That’s so true.  This is an example of how not write an email, for a start.

A while back I posted an excerpt from an essay by George Orwell about Hitler that, for me, was a perfect piece of political commentary. It was concise, sharp and witty even though it was written during the Second World War. Today, I have stumbled across a piece of political writing that has all the opposite characteristics. In an op-ed on the G8 Conrad Black – the press magnate, peer and former convict – abuses almost all the major economies. But he saves his nastiest paragraph for France:

Among the traditional Great Powers, the grand prize for purblindness goes to the inimitable French, who have elected an unmitigated cipher as president on a platform of sharply higher taxes, bigger deficits, indiscriminate pump-priming, and further concessions to the solid majority of public-sector employees and welfare recipients. A new page will be turned in flogging those who earn the money, and pouring largesse on the unproductive, regardless of merit. Never in its history, apart from the capture of the mountebank Emperor Napoleon III at Sedan by Bismarck’s armies, and when the Third Republic voted itself out of existence at the Vichy casino in 1940 under the jackboots of the returning German army, has France committed such an act of self-emasculation.

Come now Conrad, why be so coy?

This is a bit of a diversion from the normal Global Dashboard diet, but as a Brooklyn resident I cannot help reproducing parts of a sterling defense of NYC’s better borough from 1946, dredged up by the Paris Review:

Walt Whitman described Brooklyn as “the city of homes and churches.” And it is true. View any Brooklyn-bound rush-hour subway crowd. The workday is at its fever-wracked end. Fathers, husbands, wives and loving children are anxious to reach the comfort and solace of their families. They want to take their ties off and open their collars. They want to get into their slippers. They want to listen to their radios; to laugh with the high-priced comedians, to weep with the maudlin true-life-story actors. To outsmart the experts. And what is happening in Manhattan across the river at the precise moment? Bartenders are setting them up again. Showgirls are tiredly getting into their muslin and crepe de Chine for another gay evening of smiling at out-of-town buyers on the loose. Waiters are moodily turning the table­cloths and breathing on the silver. Man­hattan flexes its muscles for a night of gaudy and artificial fun, while the good burghers in Brooklyn relax and act with quiet dignity like human beings. For Brooklyn has a heritage of culture and charming society to uphold. It was of national importance when men like Henry Ward Beecher mounted the pul­pit of Brooklyn’s Plymouth Church and gave forth a fiery sermon damning slav­ery. The effect is still felt on every young student today, for the colony’s first free public school was opened in Brooklyn in 1661, fathering the modern-day pub­lic-school system in New York City. These are facts not easily overlooked.

Nor is the American premier of the hot dog to be lightly scorned. Here is a delicacy which brings enjoyment to all classes of people—the rich, the needy; the bright; the dull; the beautiful, the plain. Where was this savory social leveler first introduced to America? On a Brooklyn sand bar known as Coney Island, “the world’s largest playground.” A hearty German baker, Charles Feltman, is reputed to have laid the first made-in-America frankfurter tenderly between the fluffy halves of a soft roll, dabbing its succulent body with mustard, back in the happy days circa 1870. To this day, Feltman’s restaurant is renowned for its food and atmosphere.

The piece goes on about how good Brooklyn is for some time, and ends with a fine flourish:

In other, and terser, words, Brooklyn is quite a place. True, like any large community, it has its slums, its shabby and seedy districts, its low-down bars, its smoky and dirty industrial centers, its percentage of honky-tonk, its share of crime and lawlessness. There is as yet no established heaven on earth.

Brooklyn is too big, too virile to be pushed around. And much too proud and accomplished to be ignored by Manhattan. For Brooklyn is the sturdy base upon which frail and flimsy Manhattan rests. And, if in the stealth of a dark and quiet night a bunch of Brooklyn boys were to snip the bridges which shackle Manhattan to us and let the whole dang island float off to sea and destruction, it would serve Manhattan right. It was bought in a crooked deal in the first place.

All the current furore about the doings of US Secret Service agents is likely to cause a few chuckles among their sister services in other countries, who tend to regard their American counterparts with a mixture of respect and deep irritation – the latter on the basis of a rather full-on approach to their protection duties that can, now and again, come across as perhaps just a little arrogant.

The best story I heard about this tendency, told to me by a close protection officer from a different country while I was at an intergovernmental meeting, goes like this:

During President Bush’s 4 hour visit to Uganda in 2003, he and President Museveni went to visit The AIDS Support Organisation (TASO), which is a regular fixture on the itinerary of any dignitary visiting Kampala. The whole place was mobbed, and at one point President Museveni got detached from President Bush while working the crowd.

Showing that quiet tact and diplomacy for which the Secret Service is famed, US agents pitched in to help reunite the two heads of state. As they cleared a path for Museveni through the crowd, one of them was heard to bellow, “Out of the way please! The Local President is coming through!”

Completely unconfirmable, obviously, but too good not to share…

Jazz has inspired some great writing.  And this.

In November 2011, during the UNESCO General Conference, the international community proclaimed 30 April as “International Jazz Day”. This International Day will bring together communities, schools, artists, historians, academics, and jazz enthusiasts all over the world to celebrate and learn about the art of jazz, its roots, its future and its impact. This important international art form will be celebrated for promoting peace, dialogue among cultures, diversity, and respect for human rights and human dignity, eradicating discrimination, promoting freedom of expression, fostering gender equality, and reinforcing the role of youth for social change.

Yes, hepcats, the UN is digging jazz like never before.

By celebrating International Jazz Day, UNESCO intends to:

• Celebrate the unique musical style that jazz represents!
• Raise international awareness of the need for intercultural dialogue and mutual understanding;
• Mobilize the intellectual community, decision-makers, cultural entrepreneurs, cultural and educational institutions and the media to promote jazz-related values as a vector of UNESCO’s mandate, pioneering role and intellectual mission;
• Reinforce international cooperation and communication in the field of jazz music.

I’d devote a bit more time to mocking this (especially that exclamation mark) but as the album cover at the top of the post demonstrates, there’s a long history of jazz-multilateral-policy fusion.   Long may it continue.  Just try to keep the syncopated rhythms a little further away from the UN bullet points…

Hillary Clinton, out on the town in Colombia this weekend:

Newt Gingrich, who is still hanging on to his presidential ambitions, has a long record of interest in the United Nations.  In the post-Iraq era he was, by Bush-era Republican standards, a bit of UN-booster and led a commission that recommended increasing funding for the organization’s peacekeeping and human rights monitoring.  Over the last year, however, he has mainly mentioned the UN when he’s needed an easy political target, and talked about stopping its funding.  Yesterday, he adopted a third strategy: advocating positive engagement at the UN as a way to spread guns.

Newt Gingrich accused the National Rifle Association of being “too timid” in a Friday speech to the group.

Desperate for attention and trying to get back into a conversation that has passed him by, the still-technically-running candidate said he will submit a treaty to the United Nations that would make the right to bear arms a universal human right.

“Far fewer women would be raped. Far fewer children would be killed…and far fewer dictators would survive if people had the right to bear arms everywhere on the planet,” Gingrich said, earning a standing ovation from a crowd of thousands. “We should say the second amendment is an amendment for all mankind.”

“Let’s take the George Soros’ and the Hillary Clintons’ head on,” he added.

Now, that’s what I call arms control.

The Economist favors Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to take over at the World Bank.  In takes just four paragraphs (one of them mildly brutal, one of them extremely so) to ram home the argument:

The World Bank is the world’s premier development institution. Its boss needs experience in government, in economics and in finance (it is a bank, after all). He or she should have a broad record in development, too. Ms Okonjo-Iweala has all these attributes, and Colombia’s José Antonio Ocampo has a couple. By contrast Jim Yong Kim, the American public-health professor whom Barack Obama wants to impose on the bank, has at most one.

Ms Okonjo-Iweala is in her second stint as Nigeria’s finance minister. She has not broken Nigeria’s culture of corruption—an Augean task—but she has sobered up its public finances and injected a measure of transparency. She led the Paris Club negotiations to reschedule her country’s debt and earned rave reviews as managing director of the World Bank in 2007-11. Hers is the CV of a formidable public economist.

Mr Ocampo was also finance minister, though his time in office, 1996-98, saw the budget deficit balloon. He ran the mildly statist UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. His is the CV of the international bureaucrat.

Mr Kim, the head of a university in New England, has done a lot of good things in his life, but the closest he has come to running a global body was as head of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organisation—not a post requiring tough choices between, say, infrastructure, health and education. He pioneered trials of aid programmes before they became fashionable and set up an outfit called Partners in Health which does fine work in Haiti and Peru. But this is a charity, not a development bank. Had Mr Obama not nominated him, he would be on no one’s shortlist to lead the World Bank. (Indeed he is a far worse example of Western arrogance than Christine Lagarde, whom the Europeans shoehorned into the IMF job last year: the French finance minister plainly had the CV for the job.)

Ouch.

There’s been talk of speeding up the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan this week.  France is hurrying for the exit.  On a recent visit to Brussels, I found that many NATO diplomats were frank about their desire to get the Afghan withdrawal over and done with (although there were responsible voices urging caution too).  As Jake Sherman and I note in a new paper for ZIF, NATO’s drawdown and moves to cut back UN peace operations will have a big impact on the global security landscape: 

Since the late 1990s, two big institutional players have dominated international peace operations. NATO deployed major military missions in the Balkans and Afghanistan, while the United Nations was in the lead almost everywhere else – with a focus on Africa and the Middle East. Other organizations, most notably the African and European Unions, also played an active part in peacekeeping but none have come close to NATO and the UN in terms of deployments. In late 2011, there were just over 260,000 soldiers and police officers on duty in peace operations worldwide. Over 140,000 of these were under NATO command (the vast majority in Afghanistan) while nearly 100,000 were serving with the UN.

Yet, peace operations may be on the verge of a period of deep change. NATO forces are beginning to pull back from Afghanistan. The UN is also likely to make significant cuts to some long-standing missions in the next two to three years, shrinking its forces in the Congo, Haiti and West Africa. New NATO or UN peacekeepers may be needed elsewhere, not least in response to turbulence in the Middle East. But there are strong financial pressures on both organizations to limit their overall deployments.

Those financial pressures (which I’ve highlighted before) are mounting.  Bruce Jones has a piece in World Politics Review in which he argues that the UN operations proved suprisingly resilient over the last year in places like Côte d’Ivoire, Haiti and the Congo.  But this better-than-expected performance has gone unremarked:

Rather than talking about the effects of operations, diplomats and officials have developed one obsession: what operations cost.

From 2008 to 2010, the global economic downturn had only a marginal effect on peacekeeping. Western powers, led by the Obama administration, remained ready to fund the bulk of the U.N. and AU operations, while also sustaining NATO deployments. This has started to change over the past year as the financial crisis has made itself felt in the world of peace operations.

In New York, 2011 saw a fierce debate over the rate of reimbursements to the U.N.’s troop contributors — still primarily from Asia, Africa and Latin America. For the past decade, the troop suppliers have received just more than $1,000 per month per soldier. Last summer, they demanded a 57 percent increase. Western governments pushed back, eventually agreeing to a temporary deal for a 7 percent hike.

Jones rightly argues that governments should think about the strategic advantages of peacekeeping as well as the financial implications.  But, as Sherman and I argue, NATO’s drawdown and the UN’s constraints create space for other organizations to play a greater role in peace operations.

Over the last year the African Union has expanded it forces in Somalia – now mandated to grow to 17,000 personnel – while taking an increasingly robust approach to Islamist militias. AU forces gradually secured control of Mogadishu after prolonged block-to-block fighting, despite taking significant casualties.

Responding to events in Syria, the Arab League launched its first peace operation since the 1970s at the end of 2011. Its observer mission – meant to oversee the withdrawal of Syrian forces from urban areas – was quickly improvised and deeply flawed. But the League could well deploy more operations in the future.

We cite a number of other non-Western organizations, like ASEAN, that seem to be edging towards a greater role in peacekeeping.  Does that mean that NATO and UN officials can go home and take a nap?  No chance:

Yet, organizations such as the AU and Arab League cannot become peacekeeping powerhouses on their own. The AU has had missions in the field for nearly a decade, but it has often struggled to get the equipment it needs and to build up its headquarters capacity. Its mission in Darfur received support from the EU, UN and NATO, and was converted into an AU-UN mission in 2008. Its operation in Somalia relies on the UN for its supplies, while the EU is involved in training Somali soldiers in Uganda. After its initial foray into Syria, the Arab League requested UN assistance in deploying any larger peacekeeping mission.

So the next generation of peace operations is likely to be based on innovative inter-organizational cooperation. What forms will future missions take, and how will organizations pool their resources?

Read the rest of our paper for some ideas on the topic.

Our friends at National Review’s The Corner – America’s foremost Conservative group blog – were devastated on Britain’s behalf at the disrespect Barack Obama showed “America’s closest ally” in his early days in office.

In particular, the decision to return the Churchill bust had them flogging each other into paroxysms of indignation. “The President has never even mentioned the Anglo-American alliance in a major policy speech, and has little affinity for Britain,” complained Nile Gardiner.

“How can you explain a policy toward Britain that makes no strategic or moral sense?” asked Charles Krauthammer. “And even if you can, how do you explain the gratuitous slaps to the Czechs, Poles, Indians, and others? Perhaps when an Obama Doctrine is finally worked out, we shall learn whether it was pique, principle, or mere carelessness.”

The ‘Churchill’s bust’ meme has recurred regularly ever since, as a symbol of a relationship that is irretrievably broken. Here’s race-baiter Mark Steyn sewing it into a 2009 piece on Muslim-take-over, in which he suggests that, due to Churchill’s views on Islam, “ the bust will almost certainly be arrested at Heathrow and deported as a threat to public order.” Hah-bloody-hah.

So how did today’s love-in between President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron go down with the Cornerites? Huge relief that the special relationship is at last on the mend? Or, instead, concern that our centre-right PM clearly has much more in common with America’s centre-left extreme-socialist leader than any of the candidates for the Republican nomination?

Neither. Just stony silence (so far, at least) in the right-wing echo chamber.

Politico reproduces a rather odd political endorsement:

Did you know Mitt Romney’s baby handling skills may be a big help in Mississippi? So says Gov. Phil Bryant, who endorsed Romney Thursday. Speaking to reporters in Pascagoula shortly after Romney wrapped up his stump speech here, Bryant cited the ex-Massachusetts governor’s child-rearing abilities when asked how he’s doing in his conversion to the South. “He had blue jeans on. He likes grits. Again, he’s been here before. We’ve talked to him. We’ve seen him. But he just has a warm comfortable way about him. I like to see a man when he’s holding a baby. And he looks like he’s held a baby before,” Bryant said.

For the record, here are pictures of Mr Romney and President Obama with babies.  Holding them.  Readers are invited to decide which they prefer.

Newt Gingrich has just released a half-hour lecture on US energy policy.

To say, the ex-speaker is bullish on US domestic energy prospects is an understatement. He sets four objectives: (i) zero dependence on imported energy from potentially hostile states (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, etc); (ii) over a million additional high-paid jobs in the energy sector; (iii) a strengthened dollar due to a reduction of energy imports and increase in exports; (iv) gas at $2.50 per gallon.

Newt’s vision is based on massive exploitation of what he believes are more or less unlimited unconventional oil and gas reserves. The US could have three times as much oil as Saudi Arabia, he argues, and gas for 100 years or more. The geopolitical consequences of this bounty will be striking. As President, he would have the Saudis firmly in his sights:

I want to get to a point where we produce so much oil in the United States that no American president will ever again bow to a Saudi King. I thought, frankly, it’s time that we tell the Saudis the truth: We know that they are the largest funders of schools called madrassas, which teach hate. We know that they spend several billion dollars a year exporting a very, very extreme version called Wahhabism, and we know that they are not straight with us.

And up until now, our presidents have been too cautious to say, “Oh gee, I don’t want to offend the Saudis. I don’t want them to do something with their oil supply.”

Well, we have an opportunity now to turn that around. We have an opportunity to build up the American oil supply, the American natural gas supply, so we can then tell the Saudis the truth, so we can deal with them from a position of strength, so we can no longer worry about the Persian Gulf.

And at that point, if, in fact, the Iranians want to do something with the Straits of Hormuz, maybe the Chinese have a problem or the Indians have a problem or the Europeans have a problem. But I am not sure at that point that the Americans will have a problem if we become once again what we were in World War II, the leading producer of oil in the world.

As is often the case, Newt has tapped deep into the Zeitgeist by choosing today to go large on energy. Talk to American policy makers and they have become incredibly bullish about the prospects for the domestic sector (although few, of course, rising to Gingrichian heights of enthusiasm).

Citigroup recently proclaimed the end of Peak Oil, triggering a debate on whether shale gas and tight oil prospects are fundamental game changers or whether they will have a more marginal – although still significant – impact (see Chris Nelder for example). No-one credible I have talked to would disagree that a shift of some kind is afoot.

Newt is also right to see potential geopolitical advantages for the US. American energy demand is fairly stable and its domestic endowment is growing. In contrast, China and India face decades of rapidly increasing consumption of all natural resources. They also still have lots and lots of resource-hungry cities to build. Their transition is going to be much more tricky to handle.

The US also has leadership in key technologies (fracking, enhanced oil recovery, solar, even nuclear) that are increasingly valuable as energy demand grows. And it’s well-placed on food and land (although water is a big problem for some parts of the country).

Characteristically, of course, Gingrich overplays his hand (that’s his shtick). America sitting back while the Gulf implodes? Good luck with that. And market prices for oil – less so for gas – are set globally. Demand overseas will continue to drive the price the American consumer pays for gasoline at home: ‘oil isolationism’ is, and will remain, a fantasy.

And, of course, climate change does not get a mention in Gingrich’s current world view (although it used to), even though new fossil fuel discoveries are putting huge amounts of new carbon in play. That is not a problem that can be ignored ad infinitum.

I’m expecting Newt’s energy fervour to be much mocked, but don’t bet against him getting some momentum too. And the mood could spread. We might see quite a lot more bullish talk on energy in the American presidential debate.

Update: Just reading the transcript, one misses some of the glory of Newt’s delivery, which is Pinteresque at times: “Under President Obama, because he is so anti‑American [pause] energy, we have actually had a 40 percent reduction in development of oil offshore.”

Update II: The Onion weighs in:

As Newt Gingrich continues to cede ground to Rick Santorum, the former House speaker’s campaign team has responded by advising him to stay focused on the belligerent, mean-spirited message that has long been the hallmark of his presidential run, sources confirmed Monday.

“Newt’s rhetoric can become abstract and idiosyncratic at times, and we have to gently remind him that he just needs to be himself, to be the Newt people are familiar with—the Newt devoid of any discernible scruple beyond his own insatiable instinct for self-promotion,” campaign director Michael Krull said Friday, explaining that whatever lies at Gingrich’s cold, depraved core is what will make or break him with voters. “Every time he veers off course and talks passionately about about outer space or how the United States has to stop spending beyond its means, I tell him, ‘Look, your greatest asset is being a remorseless asshole.”

I am hacked off by almost everything about the breathless exposé of Heartland’s (purported) internal strategic documents.  Here’s Think Progress’s measured presentation of the scoop:

Heartland Documents Reveal Fringe Denial Group Plans to Pursue Koch Money, Dupe Children and Ruin Their Future

So what do we have? Nothing less or more than you’d expect. Papers that show the organisation believes climate change is a hoax and that it wants to raise money to promote that view. As if any of that’s a surprise.

There’s really no news here at all. No smoking gun. No admission that Heartland knows global warming is real, for example, but isn’t saying so. Or that it was behind the hacking of UAE’s Climate Research Unit. Rarely has so much hot air (geddit?) been expended over so little.

Now I know why I am supposed to get all riled up by this story. (i) Heartland is wrong. (ii) It’s wrong in a way that is convenient for its funders. (iii) And, of course, this is sweet revenge Climategate – where the media also got its knickers-in-a-twist about innocuous emails written by climate scientists.

But none of these reasons stop this being a stupid non-story. Especially not the fact that something similar (or worse) was done to ‘our’ side.

But then… then… there’s Heartland’s asinine reaction. I know that, in the media age, s/he who is most offended against wins, but this is truly ridiculous:

The individuals who have commented so far on these documents did not wait for Heartland to confirm or deny the authenticity of the documents. We believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages, including damages to our reputation. We ask them in particular to immediately remove these documents and all statements about them from the blogs, Web sites, and publications, and to publish retractions.

It’s a criminal offence even to comment on this story? And you’re worried about your reputation? What reputation?

Anyway – I have commented on Heartland-gate and will continue to do so if I don’t have anything better to do. And, if Heartland doesn’t like it, I think the gentleman below captures my sentiment very well….

Update (21/2/12): Predictably enough, this sorry saga has degenerated further. On the one hand – and quite extraordinarily – the Heartland crew has followed through on its threat to get legal with the blogosphere, going after sites that have:

Posted links to a document titled “Confidential Memo: 2012 Heartland Climate Strategy.”

Posted links to certain other documents purporting to be those of The Heartland Institute.

Posted blogs or web pages discussing any or all of these documents.

The final clause would draw into its net most of the Western world’s media – and Global Dashboard. And this from an allegedly libertarian think thank.

Then we have last night’s confession by Peter Gleick that he obtained and then leaked the documents. Time will tell if he also faked one or more of them. Idiot.

(BTW how long until Gleick resigns from this Task Force on Scientific Ethics?)

War is not the answer, Marvin Gaye once observed, and only love can conquer hate. Now Citizens for Global Solutions is trying to translate this into policy by asking everyone to sign an electronic Valentine’s Day card to the Syrian people.  

I was going to write more, but I’ve decided to let the image speak for itself.