what it means to be a foreigner

An article from the Christmas edition of the Economist about what it means to be a foreigner in the contemporary world

Training the Afghan Army

Still on Afghanistan, an article by Mark Moyar on new approaches that are being used in order to train the Afghan Army. Basically, it's about assigning a large number of Nato troops to partner with the Afghans. The key issue is leadership at the mid level: 10 well trained soldiers are better than 100 corrupt ones.

Holbrooke at the CFR

The Council on Foreign Relations interviewed Richard Holbrooke
Video of the interview here
Mainly focused on the civilian side of the Af-Pak issues. Underlines the changes that have occured with the new US administration.

An interesting article you might want to check is this one on Foreign Policy. It describes a training facility in the US for civilians who are to be sent to Afghanistan

Harry Patch and Henry Allingham, World War I

An obituary of the two British soldiers, on the Economist (click here to read the article)
“War’s stupid,” said Mr Allingham. “Nobody wins. You might as well talk first, you have to talk last anyway.”“T’isn’t worth it,” said Mr Patch. “War isn’t worth one life.”

Nye on Obama's foreign policy

Joseph Nye on the Daily Star (click here to read the article)
Joseph Nye praises Obama's approach thus far, especially for the "smart power" approach, for having finally made the G-20 a reality, and for Obama's pledge to reduce and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons

Brzezisnki on Obama's foreign policy

Brzezinski on Foreign Affairs
A rather positive view of Obama's foreign policy thus far. According to Brzezinksi, Obama has managed to change the US stance on the key world issues, not least climate change. For instance, he has relaunched the US role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or has made a serious pledge to reduce and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons.
Brzezinski goes on to analyze the three main problems President Obama has to face in the international arena: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (he suggests a four-point roadmap for peace); the Iranian challenge (it is necessary to engage in serioues negotations and, should that fail, to impose sanctions on Iran that are not harmful to its people, but only to its rulers); the Afpak quagmire (two things are needed: a limited accomodation to the Taliban and the support of Pakistan, to be obtained with help from China).
Brzezinski then talks about the US relationship with three key global players: Russia, China, Europe. On the last point, no comment is given on how the Lisbon Treaty might change things (in general, Brzezinski is very skeptical about the possibility that Europe can be counted as a single player: it is still Germany, Great Britain and France that matter)
Finally, Brzezisnki identifies three domestic impediments to the conduct of a "rational" foreign policy: the power of the political lobbies in Congress, which has grown in the last few years; the "deepening ideological cleavage" that makes it more difficult to reach a bipartisan consensus on FP; the worrying ignorance of the American public on global affairs.
The main point of the article is that Obama has changed the US strategic posture for the better, but has not yet achieved much. This is also due to the fact that he has had to concentrate on domestic issues in this first year in office.

Zakaria on the financial crisis and "the rise of the rest"

Fareed Zakaria on Newsweek.
According to Zakaria, the financial crisis has not led to the political turmoil of the 1930s because of three factors:
-the spread of great-power peace: by historical standards, tensions between the great powers of the 21st century are very low, and everyone has a stake in the current international system
-"the victory over the cancer of inflation": governments and central banks have learned how to avoid high levels of inflation. Monetary stability in turns lets people plan for the future, a factor which reinforces the stability of the system
-global connectivity: a shared system of knowledge thanks to instantenuous communications across continents.
Another factor to take into account, which was also pointed out by Professor Cox at LSE this summer, is the absence of any alternative to the capitalist system (cf Fukuyama and his "End of History" argument).
Furthermore, FZ notes how the students have fared better than the teachers: the rising countries have suffered less from this crisis than the more advanced (?) ones in the West. There is now a strong domestic demand in these countries.

A recent book by FZ on these matters is The Post-American World, a very interesting book Professor Cox advised us to read at LSE Summer School this summer

(I wrote a paper which partly focuses on these matters a few months ago)

Charlemagne on life in Brussels

As always, an interesting post by Charlemagne of the Economist. This one is about the (hard?) life of the Eurocrats in Brussels, and the byzantine red tape they have to cope with. Very enjoyable

LBJ's speech 15 March 1965

A few days before, there had been violence in Selma, Alabama. President Johnson delivered this historical speech. Martin Luther King is said to have cried while watching this on television
In August the Voting Rights Act was approved

Conference: The Euromissiles Crisis and the End of the Cold War

I had the opportunity, in the last few days, to be present at a three-day International Conference organized by the Machiavelli Center for Cold War Studies at the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Rome.
I enjoyed the conference a lot, and not only for the delicious food.
The occasion for the conference was the 30th anniversary of the NATO Dual Track decision.
Many aspects of this decision, and of the general "second" Cold War (1977-1987) were analyzed and discussed, such as the importance of the peace movements, the "learning" process that Gorbachev (but also Reagan) went through, and the strategic aspects linked to the actual deployment of the missiles. A lot of attention was also devoted to the point of view of the european States, both in the NATO and the Warsaw Pact camps.
The names of the participants and the titles of the papers discussed can be found here

A very interesting piece on The Economist about the energy needs of the US military. Armoured tanks consume an amazing amount of fuel, and this has been in numerous occasions an hindrance to US operations in Afghanistan or Iraq. Not only that, a gallon of fuel can cost up to 400$ when all the transport costs are added up. The navy seems to be at the forefront in the search for more cost-effective alternatives.
"The need for alternative sources of energy is a military necessity."

JFK's speech on 11 june 1963 on desegregation

JFK's speech on 11 June 1963.

A call for desegregation. This was not only a national issue: it had wide international repercussions, as the US tried to exercise its influence on the newly-born States in Africa and Asia. In the preceding months there had been an increase in violence in the US (eg Birmigham, Alabama, April 1963). A book that shows the link between segregation at home and the international policy of the US "The Cold War and the Color Line", by Thomas Borstelmann. To be honest, I think the book could have been about half as long, it often repeats itself. Anyway, a good read.

Obama's Nobel Lecture

Video of Obama's Nobel lecture:

A transcript of the speech here

An article by Christian Rocca (Il Foglio) on Italian newspapers' comments about the speech (in italian)

Robert Kagan sul Washington Post

My quick comment:
An important speech by BO. He is not a pacifist, though many people thought he was. An idealist approach (economy, multilateralism) coupled with realist disillusion about human nature and the fact that "evil exists". Some will not like the "crusade" reference.

introduction

This blog is mainly for myself. I want to quickly keep track of interesting stuff I see on the Internet, and annotate it with some of my thoughts. Facebook is not flexible enough to do that. I'll see how it goes, I don't know whether I'll have the will and the time to keep this updated. Also, I still have to learn what this platform offers me and how useful this can be to my studies.

Comments (in italian or english) are welcome and very much appreciated