Foreign Policy Blogs

Europe

Some Terrorists Are Blonde

Some Terrorists Are Blonde

As news of the horrific attack in Norway ticked in, we drew our conclusions regarding the perpetrator’s motives and background. The media were quick to point out that Norway contributes to the coalition forces in Afghanistan and Libya, and that Norwegian newspapers had reprinted the Muhammad caricatures that first appeared in the Danish daily Jyllands […]

read more

Bosnia fading

Unemployment at 42 percent. A “negative” credit rating from Moody’s. Widespread corruption. And now without a government for nine months. Nearly 16 years after Dayton, the New York Times reports that the country is facing its worst crisis since the war. [Bosnia Flounders as Powers Argue: NYTimes]

read more

If we can overcome in Greece…

If we can overcome in Greece…

In many places — here for instance — news outlets have conflated protests against austerity in Greece with European-wide discontent. This is a mistake. There is discontent in Europe, but what people are unhappy about differs from country to country. More importantly, the problems in these countries, even those on the debt-plagued periphery, do not […]

read more

Throwing good money after bad in Greece

The premise of the whole Greek bailout exercise has rested on its economy improving. So far, it has not: Since the country’s first bailout last spring, unemployment has risen sharply and GDP ground to a halt. So after a year of  bailout roulette, the head of Pimco, the world’s largest bond fund, said Sunday what […]

read more

The Merkel Algorithm

Daniel Drezner seems dumbfounded by the German government’s actions on both the eurozone bailout and nuclear energy and proposes a Merkel Algorithm as the explanation: 1)  A problem festers; 2)  Dither and do nothing; 3)  Public opinion polls drop; 4)  Let things fester some more; 5)  Lose an election somewhere; 6)  Announce new policy that […]

read more

Spanish want more democracy, not just jobs

Spanish want more democracy, not just jobs

Imagine if tens of thousands of young Americans marched on The Mall to protest the Electoral College, the appointment of Supreme Court justices and the two-party system because they suddenly decided these institutions were not democratic enough. Something roughly equivalent to that is now taking place in Spain. While the country’s unemployment rate and general […]

read more

Q: How much is Mladic’s arrest worth?

Answer: $1.2 billion per year. That is how much Serbia’s failure to capture the man who is accused of orchestrating the massacre at Srebrenica has cost the country in lost investment, according to government estimates. As many have noted, his arrest should now pave the way for Serbian admission to the EU (though this process […]

read more

Remaining French 2012 presidential candidates in dead heat

Remaining French 2012 presidential candidates in dead heat

It was all but certain that Dominique Strauss-Kahn planned to step down from the IMF this summer to declare his candidacy for president in next spring’s elections. It was also all but certain he would emerge as the Socialist frontrunner against incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. Now that these assumptions have been mooted,  the Socialist party has […]

read more

Website: Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted French journalist in 2002

Website: Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted French journalist in 2002

As France and the world continues to absorb the developments surrounding IMF Director and shadow 2012 presidential frontrunner Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest for sexual assault, Arret sur images, a French website, brings to light some damning evidence involving a previous instance of sexual violence that was little-reported in certain parts of the French media when it […]

read more

Is Ireland going to be in the Hudson?

Is Ireland going to be in the Hudson?

Morgan Kelly, the reluctant hero of Michael Lewis’ tale of Gaelic misadventure and Irish banking woes in March’s Vanity Fair, had the leading op-ed in Ireland Sunday warning that by agreeing to a bailout, the Irish economy has actually doomed its economy. To recap, in 2009 the Irish government decided to nationalize four major banks […]

read more

New "wave" of migrant labor more likely to be ripple

Germany and Austria opened their labor markets for the EU class of 2004 over the weekend, the last EU nations to do so. However, based on press reports from Germany and Poland, there appear to be divergent views regarding how much labor will actually transfer. The Frankfurter Allegmeine Zeitung believes that any Pole seeking work […]

read more

Ever deeper Union?

European leaders seem to ardent letter writers, after Sarkozy’s and Berlusconi’s co-missive to EU Commission President Barroso, the latter has now replied. In the case of the Franco-Italian letter dealing with a – supposed – immigration crisis caused by more than 20,000 recent arrivals from Tunisia, most observers focused on the proposal of a temporary […]

read more

Could the Arab Spring improve multiculturalism's vital signs?

A judge ruled today that the trial of controversial Dutch minister Geert Wilders trail can resume in two weeks. Wilders has compared the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf. “I’ve had enough of Islam in the Netherlands – ban that fascist book,” he said. In fact he was wrung up on both comments individually; the judge […]

read more

Germany post Baden-Wurttemberg

Elections in two German states (Länder) led to one historic result while confirming the national government’s unpopularity and its perceived mishandling of a number of (inter)national and local issues. A historically unprecedented development is the emergence of the Greens as a third major party which will lead a coalition on eye level – there is […]

read more

EU Security Policy Disintegrates Over Libya

EU Security Policy Disintegrates Over Libya

Okay, I’m ready to reconsider my previous criticism of Catherine Ashton and her seeming fecklessness on hammering out a common EU foreign policy. Though it’s been clear since the Libyan crisis began that EU coordination has been disorganized at best, this summary from Deutsche Presse-Agenteur demonstrates that any hope for a coherent security policy, in […]

read more