The UK is shifting its counterterrorism capability to Africa. Yet while the threat picture in Africa appears to be worsening, it remains unclear how outwardly menacing it actually is. The key question Whitehall needs to ask is whether the new deployments to Mali and Somalia appropriately reflect the global terrorist …
Read More »Yearly Archives: 2021
The policy consequences of Arab state normalization with the Assad regime
The recent push by a number of Arab states to normalize relations with the Assad regime is based on the false premise that the war is over and it is necessary to restore ties to lobby Damascus to change its relationship with Iran. Other regional dynamics are also a factor: …
Read More »The nascent Israeli government: The thread that binds?
There is only one thread holding together the unprecedentedly disparate parties that will establish and support the nascent Israeli government announced on the night of June 2, an hour before the midnight deadline. That thread is, of course, a shared loathing for Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu, who has served an unprecedented …
Read More »Brexit’s Finish Line Is Only the ‘End of the Beginning’ for Britain and the EU
Britain’s impending departure from the European Union on Jan. 31 is merely, as Winston Churchill might have said, the end of the beginning. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will herald Brexit as the moment the nation recovers its sovereignty. The truth, however, is far messier. The ultimate terms and costs …
Read More »Brexit’s Ghosts Still Haunt Northern Ireland
For more than a week earlier this month, Northern Ireland was rocked by riots in pro-British unionist communities, with frequent outbursts of violence in areas bordering on pro-Irish nationalist neighborhoods. Thankfully, no one was killed, but almost 90 police officers were injured in efforts to quell the unrest and keep …
Read More »Brexit Still Hasn’t Solved the Problem of Northern Ireland
The two main political parties in Northern Ireland announced a deal last month to restore the region’s power-sharing government, which had ceased to function three years ago. Within 24 hours of the announcement of the deal on Jan. 10, which was brokered by the British and Irish governments, Northern Ireland’s …
Read More »In the Aftermath of Brexit, What Can ‘Global Britain’ Be?
Over the past four years, as the United Kingdom has wrestled with the consequences of its narrow vote to leave the European Union, there has been little to no broader foreign policy debate in the country. Instead, Britons seem to have become caught between three temperaments. There are the catastrophists, …
Read More »The U.K.’s Incoherent China Strategy
Earlier this month, the United Kingdom’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, delivered a speech in Parliament setting out measures to ensure that British businesses do not profit from what he called the “industrial scale” forced labor of minority Uighur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region. However, Raab’s remarks made no mention of …
Read More »The U.K. Integrated Review: Defining What ‘Global Britain’ Actually Means
In mid-March, the British government released its Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, titled, “Global Britain in a Competitive Age.” This was followed a week later by a more focused defense review. The two documents represent the end products of an exercise conducted by the government every …
Read More »Huile et farine de poisson: quand l’Europe affame l’Afrique de l’Ouest
Greenpeace Afrique dénonce les entreprises et les grandes enseignes européennes qui pillent les eaux poissonneuses d’Afrique de l’Ouest pour nourrir les saumons d’élevage ou améliorer le taux en protéines de la nourriture pour chiens et chats. Généralement soucieux de développement durable et de commerce équitable, les consommateurs européens le savent-ils …
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