by Charlie Edwards | Feb 1, 2009 | Global Dashboard, UK
Once upon a time the Conservative Party was the natural home for national security policy. Not anymore. A combination of factors including the very necessary rebranding of the party; a focus on climate change, health and education has meant national security policy (in its broadest sense: defence, foreign affairs, and intelligence) is now, arguably, Cameron’s weakest policy area.
When David Cameron became leader of the Conservative Party in 2005, he deliberately set out a different vision than that of his predecessors by focusing on policy areas such as health, education and climate change. This was both a reflection of a shift in strategy – to move the Tories away from its ‘nasty party’ image but also because some of the best minds in the Conservative Party were thinking progressively on these issues (health in particular).
During this process of change national security policies largely became second order issues for the new leader. Cameron delegated these policy areas to colleagues, safe in the knowledge, he assumed, that each would be managed by a safe pair of hands. But he underestimated two forces at play. First the decline in knowledge and experience among Conservative MPs (which is still more than the Labour and the Liberal Democrats combined) in these policy areas and second; a lack of fresh and innovative thinking on national security within the party.
Arguably David Cameron’s first mistake was to assume that experience comes with expertise and sound judgement. In a speech to the think tank IISS on terrorism and national security he was quick to make reference to the ‘wealth of experience’ he had, citing numerous Lords and Dames he had recruited. The message was clear: I’m young and fresh but I have experienced politicians and practitioners on tap. But I’m reminded of a brilliant quote by Chris Donnelly, the former special adviser at NATO – who’s now at Oxford University:
In a period of stability and slow evolution our greatest asset is our experience. But at times of revolution our experiences can be fatal baggage. We can no longer assume that, because something we did worked well in the past, it is likely to continue to do so in current circumstances. If we are to survive living in a revolution, we will need to make a correspondingly revolutionary shift in the way we think about both the risk and the response.
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by Richard Gowan | Jan 30, 2009 | Influence and networks, North America
From New York magazine’s blog:
During the election season we heard a lot about “60” — that magic number of Senate seats that would allow the Democrats to block any filibuster, and, Republicans feared, tax the American people into submission. When all the votes were tallied, they came up just one seat short (assuming Al Franken eventually gets his seat). So close! Reasonably, the Democrats should be able to attract at least one measly Republican to their side, but who wants to even deal with that? Luckily, President Obama has come up with a solution: Fill the empty Commerce Secretary post with Republican New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg. As we know, our wonderful system calls for New Hampshire’s Democratic governor to pick Gregg’s successor in such an event, and one would assume he’d choose another Democrat. And voilà, 60!
It’s a clever but slightly crass move — nobody even knows what the Commerce Secretary does anyway, so who cares who’s in there? And Obama will fundamentally alter the balance of power in the Senate in his favor with what appears to be another bipartisan gesture.
by Jules Evans | Jan 28, 2009 | Europe and Central Asia
Last week, I saw the leader of the Hungarian opposition, Viktor Orban, call for a new central European security alliance against Russia.
Orban warned that the EU needed to take a tougher line with Russia. He said: “Russia has made two requirements that are not acceptable for European civilisation. Firstly, it has said it has legitimate security interests outside of Russia, so it can decide, for example, whether other countries can join NATO or not. That’s dangerous.”
He went on: “Secondly, Russia wants to buy out alternative sources of energy around the region, and to monopolise gas deliveries to the whole region, which is totally against our values.”
Orban said that the Russo-Georgian war of August 2008 testified to “the weakness of common EU security policy”, and added: “We in central Europe have a different approach to emerging Russian power, and it’s obvious that sooner or later, central Europe will emerge as an independent player in security.”
He also warned that Germany was playing a “dangerous game” with Russia, by not checking its expansionism more aggressively.
There’s some domestic politics going on here. Orban’s ouster in Hungary, Ferenc Gyurscany, has taken a much more conciliatory stance towards Russia and Gazprom, including supporting Gazprom’s Blue Stream pipeline over the EU-backed Nabucco pipeline. Gyurscany said he wanted Hungary to become an “energy hub” in Europe. You can practically smell the vodka on his breath.
Still, now Hungary’s economy is deep in recession, Gyurscany may be on the way out, and Orban sounds like he is likely to introduce a much tougher eastern foreign policy.
by Alex Evans | Jan 28, 2009 | Influence and networks
[youtube:http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=kica8hmSdAM&feature=related]
This video interview shows Derick Ashong, an Obama supporter, getting approached by a (presumably pro-Clinton) interviewer outside Obama and Clinton’s third debate in February last year. Here’s how the New York Times described what happened next:
“So why are you for Obama?” he asked. It was clear from his approach that he expected a dimwitted answer, an expectation that he was about to talk to another acolyte smitten by Senator Obama’s rock star persona.
But, as it turned out, Mr. Ashong, who was raised in Ghana and elsewhere, was glad to be asked. For almost six minutes — about a century in broadcast television years — Mr. Ashong, who has an immigrant’s love of democracy and the furrowed brow of a Brookings fellow, held forth on universal health care, single-payer approaches and public-private partnerships.
“A lot of these H.M.O.’s are publicly traded companies anyway, but I don’t think we want to create a market for health care per se, like we don’t want to create a futures market in health care,” he said. And so on.
Cute stuff. Highly informative. But not the kind of political discourse that generally captures a wider audience.
But here’s the weird part. On Feb. 2, the interview of Mr. Ashong was posted on a YouTube channel called “The Latest Controversy,” where supporters of both Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Obama are asked very aggressively to justify their choice of candidates. The video blew up, drawing more than 850,000 views. And after that huge response to his policy analysis, Mr. Ashong decided to double down and explain the emotional component of his support for Obama in a follow-up video that was posted Feb. 11 and received 300,000 views.
Taken together, that means a guy who was looking to (anonymously) show a little love for a candidate was able to look into the camera for more than 13 minutes combined and draw in more than a million clicks with an impassioned but reasoned pitch.
Ashong will be in the UK next month, and speaking at a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Conflict Issues. Details: 6.30pm on 26 February in the Grand Committee Room in Parliament. More from the NYT piece after the jump. (more…)
by David Steven | Jan 26, 2009 | Climate and resource scarcity, North America
Nick Stern isn’t going to like this, but there’s a new Stern on the climate block: Todd Stern , who is set to be announced as the US’s new climate envoy.
(Todd) Stern has set out a fairly clear road map for US engagement in the climate process (nb. these are his personal pre-appointment views, not those of Obama or Clinton). He thinks the US should:
- Start with domestic policy – get the National Academcy of Sciences to recommend (and review on regular basis) a stablization target; legislate cap and trade, not a carbon tax; supplement with regulation on energy efficiency and tex incentives for R&D.
- Use domestic policy as a lever in the international arena – negotiating first with a core group of countries (the ‘E8’ – Brazil, China, EU, India, Japan, Russia, South Africa and the US); then building a post-Kyoto framework on the back of their agreement, with binding long-term targets for all developed and ‘as many advanced developing countries as possible,’ and a built-in mechanism to ratchet those targets up over time (and as scientific findings dictate).
Stern is fairly tough on China. The country needs to accept targets (calculated on what basis is a question he does not address), but he makes lots of positive noises. Joint action on a climate can form the basis of a new strategic partnership between the 800-pound gorillas, but only if it is elevated from “traditional place in the second tier of mutual concerns.”
Throughout, of course, he has an eye on the US Senate and ratification. Bottom up targets and sectoral agreements should be deployed if they can suck more countries into a climate deal, as this will shut up antsy Senators. Access to carbon markets should be used as another tool that creates an incentive for developing country participation.
But there needs to be a stick too, Stern believes – and that stick is trade. Unilateral tarrifs on carbon-intensive goods would be ‘profoundly alienating’ and ‘a prescription for mutual recrimination, not progress’, especially after the US has spent so many years in the climate wilderness. But:
Considered in a mutilateral context…the idea…is more interesting. Today, the carbon content of goods is not captured in their price…If the premise of a climate regime were that countries must capture those social costs by putting a price on carbon, whether by means of a cap-and-trade program, a carbon tax, or equivalent policies to cut emissions, tarrifs could then be imposed on the exported products of any country that lacked such policies.
The Europeans will welcome Stern’s appointment with open arms – the Brits in particular. John Ashton, the UK’s climate envoy, gets name checked by his new US counterpart – and it wouldn’t surprise me to see the two working hand in hand…
