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

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)

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."

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.