The tragedy of America’s foreign policy establishment December 25, 2020 Anthony Blinken was a cut above the rest personally. Well-educated, good-looking, quietly ironical (and quite funny), absorbed in the work at hand, and keenly intelligent, Tony seemed to be in it for the Republic, rather than himself — a rarity in a town built on often unearned self-promotion. Read more: Joe Biden could favour Ireland [...]
When it comes to China, Europe is no longer America’s sidekick December 23, 2020 The largely unnoticed downgrading of US-EU ties is so important. Taken entirely for granted by a Trump administration uninterested in the high art of alliance management, when the US sheriff sets out to corral new rival China, it will do so without Europe unambiguously coming along as part of the posse. A recent series of [...]
Best of 2020: Europe hurtles into decline, almost unnoticed December 21, 2020 As the year winds down, CityAM is looking back at the columns that tell the story of our year. For a Europe that has made managing rather than solving economic crises into an art form, the time for paying the piper is fast approaching. The continent’s long-stagnating economy is perched at the edge of [...]
The End of the Affair: The EU and UK have very different foreign policy destinies December 21, 2020 As the year draws to an end, CityAM is looking back at the columns that illuminated the world around us. In The End of the Affair (1951), Graham Greene — to my mind the most underrated novelist of the twentieth century — perfectly encapsulates the chaotic feelings lying behind romantic breakup and emotional calamity. [...]
India will be the big winner of this new world order December 19, 2020 Delhi benefits from the structural fact that though we presently live in an era epitomised by superpower bipolarity, it is a very different type of two-power standoff than was the Cold War. From 1945–1991, America and the Soviet Union so dominated the international scene that they easily lined up much of the rest of the [...]
Beyond Brexit, the EU is circling the drain December 14, 2020 The astronomer and prolific author Carl Sagan put it perfectly about the merits of analytical logic — what I often refer to as my superpower — when he said: “For me, it is far better to grasp the universe as it really is, rather than to persist in delusions, however satisfying and reassuring.” I am [...]
An assassination in Tehran — that’s all about Joe Biden December 7, 2020 To outside weary eyes, the unending conflicts that go on in the Middle East amount to everyday background noise, a part of the paper to ignore amid the deluge of vaccine stories. But to disregard a recent assassination in Tehran would be a mistake. In a plot worthy of the best spy thriller, Dr Mohsen [...]
Antony Blinken and the tragedy of America’s foreign policy establishment November 30, 2020 I was recently speaking to an DC-insider friend of mine about the appointment of Antony Blinken as America’s next secretary of state. My old colleague — a veteran of my seminal struggles with the neo-conservatives around the time of the Iraq War, a passionate Republican Never-Trumper and card-carrying member of the Washington establishment — summed [...]
Love him or hate him, Trump is right to wind down America’s endless wars November 23, 2020 In my last book, To Dare More Boldly: The Audacious Story of Political Risk, each chapter represents a key precept, based on a specific historical story, as to how to do political risk analysis right. One of my favourite of these 10 commandments is what I term “the Losing Gambler’s Syndrome”. This directly relates to [...]
The biggest loser in the US election: The idea of the loyal opposition November 16, 2020 Edward R. Murrow, the greatest of all American newsmen, got it exactly right about the essence of the miracle of American political stability: “We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.” Before our very eyes, the aftermath of the election of 2020 [...]
