Europe and Central Asia

- Writing in The World Today, General Tim Cross and Brigadier Nigel Hall examine the prospects of the UK’s Strategic Defence and Security Review, suggesting that any reforms it ushers in “must give operational reality to the new concept of comprehensive security”.

The Yonkers 10 are being deported to Russia in exchange for Western spooks in Russian jails.  Will any of them drop Leon Panetta’s cigarette lighter on

In February 2009, I wrote an op-ed for the European Voice about Poland’s decision to pull some of its troops out of UN missions in the Middle East:

What am I talking about here?

Hillary Clinton just spoke on the new U.S. National Security Strategy at Brookings.  Having been in the audience, the bits that stick in my mind are:

The UN has had peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo for a decade. Congolese President Joseph Kabila, hoping to show he’s not reliant on the blue helmets, wants the force to go in 2011. Almost every outside analyst thinks that this could precipitate a disaster, with militias running rampant, the Congolese army unable to cope and the country’s neighbors moving in to gobble up territory.

Over at E!Sharp, I’ve just published a piece arguing that Catherine Ashton’s tenure as the EU’s foreign policy chief could be defined by a crisis somewhere:

When I took part in a wash-up after Copenhagen with a group  of American policy makers, I was struck by the sense that, although the summit had been tough for the United States, they took great consolation that the Europeans had had a much worse time of it during the climate talks.
It all made me think of a quip attributed to Gore Vidal: “It’s not enough to succeed. Others must fail.”

Yesterday’s meeting between Hillary Clinton and William Hague seems to have gone well.  The Washington Post reports that there was a “simpatico vibe” in the room.  Washington seemscomfortable with Britain’s new politics – Mr Hague even noted that “Vice President Biden has had an excellent chat on the telephone with our new Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg”.  (I don’t know if Al Gore gave John Prescott a ri