08.09.11 |
In the US and Europe, disillusion with politics is feeding the far right. We need a radical response that returns power to people
The recent debacle in Washington, where wrangling over the debt limit has triggered a downgrading of American debt, has underlined the deep incompetence of the US political system. Thanks to needless brinkmanship, particularly by the Republicans, confidence in US debt has been undermined, thereby likely increasing the cost of borrowing – a price that will eventually...
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08.03.11 |
One of the arguments of my forthcoming book is that one sign of the failure of government to agree necessary legislation is the seemingly arcane but vital issue of capital requirements for banks. I discuss this issue in this recent column for The Guardian. Such requirements arguably would have prevented the recent financial crisis. Even though the crunch was now two or so years ago, governments worldwide have yet to impose new requirements in most cases, and the so-called...
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07.28.11 |
Somalia: victim of war, famine and a pestilence of policy
Facing starvation and instability, Somalia needs the international community to stop propping up a failed status quo and rethink
The news from Somalia is grim. Last week, the UN declared a famine in two southern areas, calling the food crisis Africa's worst since 1991-92 (which was also in Somalia). The UN estimates that a staggering 3.2 million people need urgent assistance.
The immediate cause of the crisis was the...
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07.08.11 |
The internet's private enterprise
How far can we trust the corporations that profit by the personal data millions of us disclose online via social networks
Google+ creators claim it has features that trumps Facebook, Twitter and Skype, and makes social networking less rigid. Photograph: Ho/Reuters
On the internet, as elsewhere, information is money, and information is power. So why have we given it away so lightly?
Something extraordinary has taken place over the last few years....
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06.28.11 |
Greece's crisis, Europe's nemesis
The very idea of European union, always a top-down project without popular assent, faces serious questions of legitimacy
Banners set up by protesters in front of the Greek parliament in Athens compare European leaders to Nazis. Photograph: Simela Pantzartzi/EPA
With its language of budget cuts and bailouts, the sovereign debt crisis that is now engulfing Europe's economies appears to be a financial crisis. But it is also, and...
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06.13.11 |
How might outsiders help fight dictators? As protesters fight dictators across the Middle East, people outside are asking what they can do to help.
Traditionally, we tend to look to our own governments to act. As Gaddafi's repression of pro-democracy rebels mounted in Libya, campaigners demanded sanctions and, as the attacks intensified, military intervention. But both forms of government pressure have serious drawbacks and, too often, come very late in reaction to gross repression. In...
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06.06.11 |
My latest column in The Guardian, in the series "Power and Nations":
Basel III: business as usual for bankers
Successful lobbying – or blackmailing – by banks means that financial regulation to prevent another crash is too weak to work
guardian.co.uk, Monday 6 June 2011 19.00 BST
The Volcker rule, named for its leading proponent, former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, is intended to limit big banks’ speculative trading in proprietary derivatives and stocks. But...
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06.01.11 |
This is my latest weekly column in "The Guardian" online, in the series "Power and Nations".
Whenever an international problem starts being called a "process", one should immediately become suspicious that the problem itself will not be solved. Indeed, the naming of a problem as a "process" is a way to obscure lack of progress with endless anaesthetising conferences, meetings and statesmanlike speeches.
The climate change "process" demonstrates this dismal rule: after years of...
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05.24.11 |
The following article appeared in Civil Service World:
The Foreign Office has lost its way, says former diplomat Carne Ross, and could learn much from the US State Department
Something seems to have happened to the ‘brain’ of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in recent years. I am not alone in noticing that the quality of UK foreign policy thinking seems to have declined. In a number of cases, UK policy-makers have seemed overly content to stick to superficial generalities,...
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05.23.11 |
This article appeared in The Guardian online on 23 May 2011, the first article in a series called "Power and Nations"
In contrast to action on Libya, the UN has been tardy and timid over Syria's crackdown – thanks to the threat of a Russian veto
There are two reasons why the UN security council has failed, utterly, to react to Bashar al-Assad's murder of hundreds of his own people in Syria. The first is that Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member, has indicated that it will block action. And...
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My book, Independent Diplomat: Dispatches from an Unaccountable Elite, offers a critique of contemporary diplomacy drawn from my own experience as a diplomat. In analysing the many deficits of the current system - and how that system produces bad decisions - it also offers a vision of what can be put right. You can see more here: >>