Transatlantic relations
Obama's missile defense change shows different targets
21 September 2009
Yale Global Online
Washington rankled some of its European allies and delighted Moscow on September 17 when president Obama cancelled plans to build missile defense bases in the Czech Republic and Poland.
Warsaw warms to Moscow
18 September 2009
The Guardian
Tabloids make a poor guide to understanding a country's policy. While the newspaper headlines in Poland and the Czech Republic scream of the US "betraying" eastern Europe by cancelling missile defence bases there, the official reaction in Warsaw and Prague has been muted.
Missile strategy must not be seen as a retreat
09 September 2009
Financial Times
There are mounting indications that Barack Obama will soon abandon plans to put missile defence bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. These have become one of the main bones of contention between Russia and the west.
Germany owes Afghanistan an explanation
09 September 2009
The Guardian
Finger pointing is the defence of the concerned and the cornered. So it reflects very poorly on Nato that allies are bickering with one another over an attack that killed an unknown number of Afghan civilians last week.
Economic liberalism in retreat
16 July 2009
The New York Times
Is the brief flowering of economic liberalism in Europe over? It is too soon to read the last rites, but the prognosis is not good.
The financial crisis, the subsequent discrediting of the Anglo-Saxon economies and the passing of the most economically liberal European Commission there has ever been have put liberal economic thinking on the defensive.
The financial crisis, the subsequent discrediting of the Anglo-Saxon economies and the passing of the most economically liberal European Commission there has ever been have put liberal economic thinking on the defensive.
Europe and Russia's continental rift
13 July 2009
Time Europe
Russia's economy - until recently one of the fastest growing in Europe - is in dire straits. In the first three months of this year, output fell by 10% compared with a year earlier.
Por qué pesa poco España?
08 May 2009
ABC.es
El papel de España en la UE encierra una extraña paradoja. Aunque se trata de uno de los Estados miembros más europeísta, es el que menos influencia tiene de los seis países más grandes. Pero esto no siempre ha sido así.
Obama’s European Scorecard
07 April 2009
The New York Times
Europe’s Kind of Guy
Josef Joffe
Barack H. Obama is not George W. Bush — that is the difference, and the 44th president has been going to town on it ever since he was inaugurated. In fact, he swept the Europeans off their feet even before the election.
Just recall the hundreds of...
Josef Joffe
Barack H. Obama is not George W. Bush — that is the difference, and the 44th president has been going to town on it ever since he was inaugurated. In fact, he swept the Europeans off their feet even before the election.
Just recall the hundreds of...
Turkey's future lies with Europe
07 April 2009
The Guardian
Barack Obama would not have needed to say it. The fact that he is visiting Turkey as part of a European – not a Middle Eastern – tour shows where he thinks Turkey's future lies: in the EU.
Fighting the leaderless jihad
01 March 2009
E!Sharp
The planned closure of the controversial US interrogation centre and prison at Guantánamo Bay should usher in deeper transatlantic cooperation in the fight against terrorism and other common security threats.
The Runway 3 red herring
22 January 2009
The Guardian
Simon Jenkins, Martin Kettle and Polly Toynbee are columnists I respect and quite often agree with. So when they - and many Comment is Free contributors - join the George Monbiots of this world in attacking the proposed third runway for Heathrow, I read them carefully.