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If you still subscribe to this blog, you may have noticed that it has not been updated for months. There is a reason for this: I have launched a new blog called European Geostrategy!Please subscribe here.Latest posts:The Falklands: the European Union...
Latest on European Geostrategy
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See European Geostrategy for three new articles:• Thinks tanks and European security strategy• Time for a European Union grand strategy• Russia-America relations: the European litmus test?• Please also sign up for email updates from European...
Emigrating...
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As any regular readers will know, I’ve been sharing my thoughts on European foreign policy over the past two years using this forum. Today, however, I decided to take up an offer to write for the new Ideas on Europe initiative—so from now on, my...
Hats off to the First Sea Lord
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Today, the First Sea Lord, Admiral Jonathan Band, had published an article in The Guardian on the ongoing need for a powerful naval fleet. This comes at a time when ‘sea-blindedness’ has risen both in Britain and across much of the rest of the Eu...
Mapping ten years of European expeditionary operations
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This new map has recently been produced and published on the website of the Council of the European Union:Click to enlargeIt charts every European civilian mission and military operation since 2003. What is interesting is that the missions and operat...
The rise of the New Old Threats?
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Last Wednesday, I went to speak at a seminar on maritime security organised by the Institut des hautes études de défense national (French Institute for Higher Defence Studies or IHEDN) and the new Swedish Presidency of the European Union. I was inv...
A recipe for national suicide?
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So, yesterday, the Institute for Public Policy Research revealed their long-awaited report on the future of British security strategy. While I have not read the entire report, I have thoroughly reviewed the Executive Summary, which contains a ream of...
Power and values in European foreign policy
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In democratic societies, we often like to think that we use our power for a higher purpose—like making the world a better place. Indeed, this has been an overriding principle of foreign policy for many of the most powerful western societies since t...
Addressing the European Parliament
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On Monday, 30th March, I found myself speaking at a workshop arranged by the European Parliament’s Sub-Committee on Security and Defence in Brussels. With my colleague, Luis Simón, I was giving a presentation to the Sub-Committee’s MEPs on ‘Ge...
From the Suez Canal to the City of Shanghai
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Today, the paper I worked on during my time at the European Union Institute for Security Studies in Paris was published. Entitled From Suez to Shanghai: the European Union and Eurasian maritime security, it provides an initial foray into the emerging...
Gas, Russia and the European Union
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In this month’s edition of The World Today, James Sherr, the leading Russia expert in Chatham House, has an excellent article on the perilous state of European energy policy (or lack thereof). The title of his piece, ‘Final Warning’, could not...
Gas, Russia and the European Union
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In this month’s edition of The World Today, James Sherr, the leading Russia expert in Chatham House, has an excellent article on the perilous state of European energy policy (or lack thereof). The title of his piece, ‘Final Warning’, could not...
The maritime geopolitics of Eurasia
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For any regular readers who have noticed my recent absence, I apologise. For most of Autumn 2008, I was given the opportunity to live and work in Paris. I was appointed as a Visiting Fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies, to und...
The maritime geopolitics of Eurasia
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Please click on the play button below to watch! And press the pause button for some of the longer blocks of text.• A version in ‘High Quality’ can be viewed on Youtube. This will make the text clearer. For any regular readers who have noticed m...
The maritime geopolitics of Eurasia
NEW
Please click on the play button below to watch! And press the pause button for some of the longer blocks of text. • A version in ‘High Quality’ can be viewed on Youtube. This will make the text clearer. For any regular readers who have not...
Europeans need a ‘British’ navy, not a ‘German’ army
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Over the weekend, the new British Defence Secretary, John Hutton, said in an interview in The Sunday Times that the time had come to consider the creation and mobilisation of a European army. He said the idea was simply ‘pragmatic’, and even went...
Europeans need a ‘British’ navy, not a ‘German’ army
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Over the weekend, the new British Defence Secretary, John Hutton, said in an interview in The Sunday Times that the time had come to consider the creation and mobilisation of a European army. He said the idea was simply ‘pragmatic’, and even went...
Europeans need a ‘British’ navy, not a ‘German’ army
NEW
Over the weekend, the new British Defence Secretary, John Hutton, said in an interview in The Sunday Times that the time had come to consider the creation and mobilisation of a European army. He said the idea was simply ‘pragmatic’, and even went...
France’s strategic defence review: leading the debate
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Guest article by Luis Simón NavarroOn Tuesday morning, President Nicolas Sarkozy presented in Paris a new strategy of security and defence for the next fifteen years, before an audience of some 3500 people, including military officials, police offic...
France’s strategic defence review: leading the debate
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Guest article by Luis Simón NavarroOn Tuesday morning, President Nicolas Sarkozy presented in Paris a new strategy of security and defence for the next fifteen years, before an audience of some 3500 people, including military officials, police offic...
