Global Politics

I’m voting ‘No’ this Thursday. I’ve been leaning ‘Yes’ for a while, but as the referendum approaches I’ve found myself changing my mind. There are real potential benefits to a ‘Yes’ vote: I believe that a parliament based on proportional representation will give us better (though more boring) governance over the long term and more accurately […]

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Will Hutton has probably been the most influential writer on the British constitutional state over the last two decades. Last night he issued a call to arms arguing that the party leaders at Westminster have just 10 days to announce a constitutional settlement to ‘save the Union’. Personally I think it’s a bit late in the day for […]

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Since overrunning swathes of Iraq from its strongholds in Syria earlier this summer, it has been made relatively clear how American defense and counter-terrorism officials feel about the Islamic State (a.k.a. IS, ISIS, ISIL). In a word: spooked. The Islamic State is not only well organized but it is incredibly well financed and is now well equipped with American-made weaponry. This […]

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The established templates of international peace operations are under threat, because the core premise of these operations, consent, is eroding . Filipino and Fijian troops serving with the UNDOF mission in the Golan Heights were targeted by the Nusra Front last week (30 Aug). A number of Fijians have been captured while the Filipinos managed […]

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Post by Better Together.   A friend of mine in St Andrews who owns a legendary bar in the town (as well as being a legend himself), and who is supporting independence, voiced what I regard as a very honourable position on Scotland’s right to self-determination, even though I disagree with it: How come every […]

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This piece was originally published in Huffington Post on 20 February 2014 Apart from 2014 being the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn, the year Glasgow hosts the Commonwealth Games, and that Scotland plays host to the Ryder Cup, the vote on Scottish independence is also being held 100 years after the outbreak of […]

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Three weeks ago, a Taliban commander named Mohammad Ashan turned himself in to Afghan police. Ashan had noticed wanted posters around his native Paktika province promising a $100 bounty for his capture, and he surrendered himself hoping to collect it. Needless to say, he collected nothing and was detained on the spot. Ashan’s comically simple […]

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  The term – broadly understood as data sets which are too large and complex for normal software – is now everywhere, from debates about the future of banking to healthcare. For example, Google has claimed to better predict flu outbursts than The Center for Disease Control, just by analysing what the company’s masses of users are […]

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The destruction wrought, hatred spread, and lives lost on and after 9/11 are travesties. But the War on Terror has created another immediate problem: financial calamity. Two wars—costing U.S. taxpayers well into the trillions of dollars—have surely had an impact on reducing the threat of terrorism around the world. But outside of specific military efforts, […]

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Every December, California based analyst Joel Wing and I discuss the coming 12 months in Iraq. Joel has been the author of the Musings on Iraq blog since 2008, providing detailed analysis of political, economic and security developments in Iraq. His work is frequently cited by leading journals and news outlets. The last year in […]

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How is democracy faring in Afghanistan these days? Not well, as far as Afghan women are concerned. While many of its familiar trappings are in place – such as a constitution that promises equality before the law – the practice of democracy ranges from deeply flawed to nonexistent when it comes to women’s rights, especially […]

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The ongoing conflict that has been running in Syria for more than two years, and the brutality of the Syrian regime in suppressing the uprising has encouraged the emergence of radical Jihadist movements in the country. The most important of these movements and one which has raised significant controversy and discussion among the Syrian intelligentsia […]

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In a speech on the occasion of the opening of the World Youth Festival in Baghdad on the 12th of August last year, the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki described the Syrian revolution as a fire, ignited either by ignorant haters or by external wills for the purposes of their own policies and interests. However, […]

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Ever since the beginning of the Syrian revolution, the idea of conspiracy has permeated the language of the official Syrian media, the Assad regime’s proponents in Lebanon, and has been reflected in discussions within Arab intelligentsias. As soon as the Syrian revolution started, the Syrian regime claimed that the country had been exposed to an […]

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One of the most popular grievances associated with the Arab Spring in Egypt and Yemen was about increased food prices – a grievance that has caused upheaval in these countries before, and has significant potential to do so again. Admittedly, food price inflation may not be a sufficient condition for Arab Spring-esque revolutions to occur […]

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The violence in Syria is escalating and the international community’s efforts to resolve the situation through the United Nations peace plan have failed, leading to Kofi Annan’s resignation as the UN’s Syria envoy. Syrians are in dire need of a peaceful, sustainable resolution but owing to the number of factions involved and the serious human […]

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“It is reasonable to argue that but for the coup, Iran would be a mature democracy. So traumatic was the coup’s legacy that when the Shah finally departed in 1979, many Iranians feared a repetition of 1953, which was one of the motivations for the student seizure of the U.S. Embassy. The hostage crisis, in […]

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The South Caucasus is a tribally divided region, rich in natural resources, that could wield considerable influence if unified, and could economically compete with Russia and the West. When asked to describe “the Caucasus”, most people reply with a blank stare. Some might guess you are referring to one of the more unusual facets of […]

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The numbers are in and the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood has secured a dominant position in the parliamentary make-up of post-Mubarak Egypt. For a long time, in addition to scare-mongering by right wing media, we were told by any number of commentators and academics that Islam and democracy are entirely compatible. This debate moved up a […]

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The futility and danger of nuclear weapons in the post-9/11 world is indisputable The 2003 Oscar-Winning documentary The Fog of War, containing Robert McNamara’s post-Vietnam mea culpa, also highlighted one of the former US Defence Secretary’s greatest concerns – nuclear weapons. “The indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations,” McNamara maintained. […]

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