Deeper Processes
There can be very few instances in history in which breaking what were intended to be long term treaties with close allies and trading partners works out well. International relations, just as relations between individuals, depend up
Today's terrorist event in Sweden shows once again that no amount of security can prevent terrorism, especially if the perpetrator is willing to suffer or die in the attempt. The security forces no doubt do their best, but it is so easy to drive a ve
Read more…You have to be blind and deaf or extremely stubborn to think that Brexit has done the UK any good economically and it hasn't even happened yet. The situation is almost certain to get worse, too. A year ago I was predicting that the pound would be wor
Read more…I have been reading a very useful article by Paul Graham which points out in detail how "US politics is much more polarized than it used to be. Culturally we have ever less common ground. The creative class flocks to a handful of happy cities, abando
Read more…With all the idiocy going on around N Korea it is emotionally difficult even to read the news at the moment. The real possibility of nuclear or even conventional war breaking out is just too horrible and the seeming irresponsibility of those who cast
Read more…Unfortunately there are wars not just because of trials of strength between groups and nations, but also because it is in the interests of some to keep others at war. The Middle East was a relatively peaceful place when I lived there as a small child
Read more…The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation is, basically, an anti-Russia alliance. It has been led by the USA, though in the last decade or so, the EU has often played an equally influential part, while providing only a fraction of the funding or manpowe
Read more…The next financial crisis in the UK will probably shape up like this. The Brexit vote has caused the pound to fall 15% or so. This means that imports cost more. Hence prices are rising. At the moment wages are not rising. However, the drop in immigra
Read more…President Trump has promised to "drain the swamp". What is the "swamp". Essentially it is corruption within the American system. The whole world it seems is suffering huge corruption problems at the moment. Prime Minister Modi, for instance, is much
Read more…Just this morning we have several major pieces of news. It is difficult to make one coherent story out of these different tremors, but one can, perhaps, see connections between the rise of populism, the increasing chaos in Washington and astute polit
Read more…President Trump is critical of Germany for "trading unfairly" with the USA and using the EU to this end. This is surely correct. Germany runs up a huge surplus on trade by exporting more than it imports. It is able to do this because the euro, consid
Read more…Back in February I wrote an article Europe will Fight Back. More recently I published an analysis of the “tectonics” of political change. Now we see some evidence that these articles were, perhaps, prescient.
It is not long since many were predicting
Read more…Good morning. I don't know if the War & Peace group would be the correct one for this post... :)
I've read that permafrost (the frozen strata of water and rock beneath the surface of Siberia, northern Canada, etc.) is starting to melt. And this fact
Read more…It is election season - recent general election in Netherlands, Thursday past local elections in UK, tomorrow presidential election in France, and a general election campaign under way in Britain. Germany goes to the polls in the autumn. And we are s
Read more…Won't it soon be time to disband NATO? This question has been raised by a number of politicians recently, including Trump before he was elected. Since then he has come under immense pressure and in order to survive in his role has abandoned half the
Read more…Are we on a cusp of history between nationalism and internationalism? The idea of a nation-state rests upon a community of cultural and racial identity among the people occupying a defined piece of land under a single governmental/bureaucratic admini
Read more…Wikileaks and others have released a mountain of "secret" information onto the internet, yet the sky has not fallen in, world war three has not begun... Journalists have spent hours over these materials looking for juicy stories and there are very fe
Read more…The new president of France, Emmanuel Macron, has chosen his government, appointing all his senior ministers. It is half women and half men. It is half experienced politicians and half people from civic society. It is drawn from the whole political s
Read more…These days we hear a good deal about something called impeachment, often coupled with references to Richard Nixon, though Nixon was not impeached, he resigned. Different countries go about things in different ways. In France, for instance, the presid
Read more…The unemployment rate in the USA is now officially under 5%. In UK much the same. According to classical economic theory both countries should be showing much stronger inflationary pressure at this level. The level in France, for instance, is about t
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