Britain’s dependent independent nuclear deterrent

One of the major issues which is claimed to make Corbyn unelectable is his views on nuclear disarmament and the independent British nuclear deterrent. Whether this makes him unelectable or not is an open question – like many trusims it may be inaccurate. That though is an issue for another day. Rather it is interesting to look at the history of the British nuclear deterrent. British scientists were heavily involved in attempts to produce a nuclear weapon. Immediately before the …

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Foreign Policy row could favour Miliband

The developing spat over foreign policy between Ed Miliband and the Tories is interesting. It is very rare for specific parts of foreign policy to be debated in a partisan fashion during an election unless they relate to macro longterm issues such as Europe etc. From the BBC reporting Miliband: “David Cameron was wrong to assume that Libya was a country whose institutions could be left to evolve and transform on their own,” he said. “The tragedy is that this …

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“Adding more weapons to this volatile situation could destabilise the entire region…”

The Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers were in a sunny Downing Street garden yesterday, welcoming that suspect package, and extolling the virtues of demonstrating “peacefully, positively, constructively” [Is that with, or without, a Thompson sub-machine gun? – Ed]  Without, probably…  ANYhoo, on the same day Sinn Féin released the text of what appears to be a different speech to that delivered in Downing Street by the Mid Ulster MP Northern Ireland deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness – made at …

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Cameron’s foreign policy and Chaos Theory

As the frontlines in Libya have swayed back and forth, just as they did almost seventy years ago, so the advisability of David Cameron’s foreign policy adventure has ebbed and flowed. Before Cameron became Prime Minister, the Conservative Party was markedly cautious about an interventionalist foreign policy and said that their foreign policy would: “promote human rights, economic liberalism and political freedom, with humanitarian intervention when it is necessary and when it can be effective”. When he became Prime Minister …

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The domestic problem with Obama’s multilateral approach to wars…

Clive Crooks in today’s FT on Obama’s Libyan tightrope: One imponderable, oddly neglected up to now, is the view of US voters. The mood has been against US involvement. If all goes well, voters will come round and be proud. If not, they will care not a jot about international legitimacy and will ask instead about legitimacy at home. If this is another war, where was Congress? Whose decisions, exactly, are putting US forces at risk? And why was the …

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Conservatives struggle to find a coherent foreign policy?

British Conservative governments generally don’t really do ‘Foreign Policy’. With the exception of the Suez Crisis and the Falklands war, they have tended to err on the side of caution. This government in particular seems to have been almost rigidly focused on domestic issues of rolling back the debt, so that when a genuine international crisis like the Arab Spring uprising comes along they seem have been even less unprepared than their western neighbours. James Forsyth worries that it’s leading …

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Four US views on whether Wikileaks is a force for good?

Four American views on Wikileaks from Reason TV… Mostly sceptical… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

Irish foreign policy grab bag

The first is drugs; the second and third are not sex and rock and roll.  Maybe next week. With Colombian drug-trafficking networks increasingly eyeing Ireland’s south-west coast as attractive real estate to land cocaine for transshipment on to Britain and Northern Europe, the Gardaí and Irish Navy have become Europe’s frontline against narcotraffic.  In this they’re supported by an EU anti-trafficking centre, in which Ireland has taken part since 2007. Success in one corner has led to headaches in another: when …

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Dublin Convention on cluster weapons comes into force

Yesterday, cluster bombs became illegal over much of the world; in no small part because of Ireland.  The Convention on Cluster Munitions, in effect from 1st August, was adopted in Dublin on the 30th May 2008 at the Croke Park Conference Centre. Disarmament is something of a niche specialism for Irish diplomacy  – it was Minister for External Affairs Frank Aiken who introduced in the UN General Assembly the resolution that became the Non-Proliferation Treaty (which Ireland was the first country …

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