To sit and to be on the Security Council
Periodically, Spain gears itself for the enormous effort to get itself elected by the UN General Assembly a non-permanent member of the Security Council for two years.
Global Spectator
Scotland: Salmond wins, even if he loses
In practice the referendum in Scotland will actually be a choice between ‘devo max’ or ‘outright independence’. Whatever the result, Salmond wins.
What did NATO promise Gorbachev?
Some in Russia maintain that the West promised there would be no NATO expansion eastwards, even towards what was soon to be the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), in exchange for accepting German unification. The West, particularly the US, maintains there was no such commitment. Which is true?
NATO: fronts, frontiers and vectors
NATO can choose between building either bridges or borders, but it cannot ignore the vectors. Does it know what it wants? Does it want what it knows? Do its members, who have been cutting their military expenditure as a result of the crisis, know what they want, even if they agree on calling for an increase?
Geopolitics in the Cloud
Internet is also subject to geography and geopolitics. There is the question of ‘technological sovereignty’ that rests not only on the State, but also on firms and their capacity for innovation.
Gaza, Flight MH17 and Europe
The Israeli attack on Gaza and the downing of flight MH17 over the Eastern Ukraine have come to mark the tragic absence of Europe, the EU.
The strange triad: the US, Iran and Saudi Arabia
The US knows that a nuclear agreement with Iran is the best way to normalise foreign relations with Iran, to ensure it ceases to be a rogue state and embraces moderation. This should change the dynamics in the Middle East, even if Israel is unwilling.
The English (and British) question in Scotland
A higher degree of autonomy in Scotland can to reopen the "West Lothian question" or the "English question", if the pro-independence lose the referendum on 18 September 2014.
The European Commission’s politicisation
The European Commission’s greater politicisation is positive in the sense that it brings this essentially bureaucratic institution closer to a more democratic spirit and to the Union’s citizens.
Iraq’s failures
Iraq has failed as a concept. It has been a failure of seeing democracy as only a question of votes, disregarding the protection and integration of minorities.
Has Putin won?
Has Putin won? In the short term, so it seems. In the long run it is much more uncertain because Western confidence in the Russian President, and in Russia, has evaporated.
Less Europe? It’s not that easy
To halt or reverse integration would in some cases require the treaties to be reformed, a step that many governments are reluctant to take for fear of the ensuing referendums. The real battle for Europe is beginning now.
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