| 01 September 2009
In the history of Europe, “golden ages” have been few and far between, but always momentous in their ripple effects: the peak of the Roman empire, the Renaissance come to mind, to which the integration process of the last fifty years can confidently be added. Most of the time, human cohabitation in our very crowded “tiny peninsula of Asia” was a fragile thing. On a world-wide scale, present transitional times should in any case be viewed as a unique opportunity to impress the European experiment on the system of international relations. Yet, the protracted string of negative referenda on institutional reform, the low turnout in recent elections for the European Parliament, and the patchy response to the financial crisis have all cast fresh doubts about the scope and sustainability of the federative project. Irish doubts however did not dissuade Iceland from lining up with Turkey and Balkan states in seeking its economic and political shelter within it.| 22 August 2009
After a hiatus of almost a decade strategic arms control is back on the agenda of the two former superpowers and might lead to a fundamental realignment of U.S.-Russian relationship in the twenty-first century.
The first step towards this new rapprochement - as could have been expected - was taken by the Obama Administration in one of its first official acts after taking office: behind the backdrop of a steadily deteriorating political climate between Washington and Moscow, the newly elected U.S. President offered the Russians to push the symbolical reset button and restart bilateral talks on a variety of issues, especially in the field of nuclear arms control.
| 12 August 2009
The newest rhetoric with regard to the “resetting” of relations between Serbia and the US after the 1999 NATO bombing over Kosovo — the “resetting” that allegedly took place with the visit of the American Vice President Biden to Serbia earlier this year — is phrased as the quest for a “zero point” in Serbian history. This “zero point” would see a “politician with a vision” who would recognise the independent Kosovo, and thus embark upon the future full of rewards and mutual affection with Serbia’s neighbours, all of them nicely cushioned in the motherly embrace of the EU.| 02 August 2009
According to a senior Foreign Office official in 1939, it was better for Britain to become an American dominion than a German Gau. This statement epitomised both Britain’s refusal to compromise, and its future readiness to surrender sovereignty to the USA, rather than share it with Europe. His statement proved accurate, to the extent that in 1966, President De Gaulle even said that Britain had no foreign policy. Why is it, as we shall see, that today Britain has become a subset and instrument of US foreign (=military) strategy? Only history can explain the psychological, political and economic factors that have resulted in the UK becoming a client state of the US …