Posted by Joerg Wolf in
Transatlantic Relations, US Domestic and Cultural Issues on Saturday, August 30. 2008
 The Economist has a good cover story about John McCain and explains quite well why Americans might elect him as president. It is a good summary for the average reader, who is not a news junkie.
Such an analysis is missing in the commentary of a Washington correspondent with the German public broadcaster ARD: Anna Engelke fails to understand McCain's appeal. Instead she makes a list of problems for McCain (his age, the bad shape of US economy, high debts and deficit, two wars) and concludes that a skilled politician like Barack Obama has to lead in the polls, if you take a "sober look at it."
She mentions only two reasons why Obama does not have a strong lead in the polls: It might be partly due to his inexperience, but it is primarily due to his black skin. Engelke opines that Obama would win this election "with the utmost probability," if he were white.
Continue reading "Understanding John McCain's Appeal to US Voters"
Posted by Joerg Wolf in
Transatlantic Relations, US Domestic and Cultural Issues, US Foreign Policy on Friday, August 29. 2008
In his nomination speech, the Democratic presidential candidate reiterates his commitment to direct diplomacy with Iran and his hawkish position on Pakistan, which I describe at Atlantic-Community.org. I am also asking whether Obama is an Atlanticist and look forward to your views on Germany's security policy of free-riding.
Posted by Joerg Wolf in
Transatlantic Relations on Wednesday, August 27. 2008
Stratfor describes itself as "the world's leading online publisher of geopolitical intelligence. Our global team of intelligence professionals provides our Members with insights into political, economic, and military developments to reduce risks, to identify opportunities, and to stay aware of happenings around the globe."
These intelligence professionals have learned from their super-secret "sources" that "Russia has offered Germany a security agreement." Oooh, that sounds like a great conspiracy.
Since Germany and Russia are the two big powers on the block and want to keep any other power (like the United States) from their region, it would make sense for Berlin and Moscow to want to forge an agreement to divide up the neighborhood - such as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which had secret protocol dividing the independent countries of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania into either the Nazi or Soviet spheres of influence.
Stratfor has this totally insightful and historically correct analysis:
Continue reading "How Intelligent are Stratfor's "Intelligence Professionals"?"
Posted by Editors in
US Domestic and Cultural Issues, US Foreign Policy on Tuesday, August 26. 2008
Rod Dreher, a Dallas Morning News editorial columnist, writes in RealClearPolitics:
"We are all Georgians now," John McCain said in response to Russia's invasion of the former Soviet republic.
We are? Spare me. You couldn't find one American in a thousand who could locate Georgia on a map, but the Republican hothead who would be president is ready to bind America's sacred honor to the place. And more than our sacred honor, our military might, too. Mr. McCain, a tempestuous Russophobe to the marrow, demanded that the U.S. accelerate efforts to bring Georgia into NATO, thus extending a trip wire for war with Russia to Moscow's southern border. Because, you know, having conquered Iraq and Afghanistan while barely breaking a sweat, we're rested and ready to let an adventurous Caucasus nation led by a nut shown on TV chewing on his cravat drag us into World War III.
He does not like Barack Obama's support for NATO membership for Georgia either and wonders whether the Democrats are "so afraid of being baited by the Republicans as cowards that they sign on to any foolish policy proposed by GOP jingoes?"
Dreher is frustrated with the lack of realism in the political debate:
Dr. Bacevich said, "What neither of these candidates will be able to, I think, accomplish is to persuade us to look ourselves in the mirror, to see the direction in which we are headed." That direction, he went on, is deeper into the hole of debt and foreign entanglements involving an overstretched U.S. military. We prefer to believe the romantic image of ourselves and our country and to deal with the world as we wish it were rather than as it is.
Posted by Kyle Atwell in
European Issues, Transatlantic Relations on Monday, August 25. 2008
Ronald Steel, professor of international relations at the University of Southern California, argues that Russia's strong hand against Georgia signals that, “A Superpower Is Reborn” (NYT):
THE psychodrama playing out in the Caucasus is not the first act of World War III, as some hyperventilating politicians and commentators would like to portray it. Rather, it is the delayed final act of the cold war. And while the Soviet Union lost that epic conflict, Russia won this curtain call in a way that ensures Washington will have to take it far more seriously in the future.
This is not just because, as some foreign-policy “realists” have argued, Moscow has enough troops and oil to force us to take into consideration its supposedly irrational fears. Rather, the conflict in Georgia showed how rational Russia’s concerns over American meddling in its traditional sphere of influence are, and that Washington had better start treating it like the great power it still is.
Continue reading "Is Russia a Superpower? Cold War II?"
Posted by Pat Patterson in
European Issues on Sunday, August 24. 2008
This is a guest blog post by Pat Patterson:
Kenneth R. Weinstein, the CEO of the Hudson Institute, wrote a recent article in The Weekly Standard which argues that the divisions within the EU are greater and institutionalized than the more publicized division between the EU and the US.
Many of the policies, most recently instigated by France, have been resisted because they are seen as solely in French national interest and in most cases are the antithesis of the interests of the EU bureaucracy and Germany: "But suspicions linger in Berlin and elsewhere that Sarkozy's true goal in forming the [Mediterranean] Union was to expand France's sphere of influence at Germany's expense."
Continue reading "European Disunion"
Posted by Editors in
European Issues, Transatlantic Relations on Sunday, August 24. 2008
As part of our media partnership with Blogactiv, we are cross-posting this article by Stanley Crossick, the founding chairman of the European Policy Centre.
 Francis Fukuyama was wrong. We have not been witnessing the end of history, but the return of history.
One reason for this is that we have not learned the lessons of history. But who did not at least think that 1989 had brought to an end four decades of Cold War in Europe and the establishment of a long term Pax Americana?
The US and Europe, led by market-obsessed economists, focused on economic and democratic reform in Russia and anchoring former Soviet countries in first in NATO and then in the European Union. Little attention was paid to Russian sensitivities or western behaviour perceived by Russians to be humiliating. We should have recognised that permanent change had not taken place: historical Russia was on vacation.
Continue reading "The Return of History"
Posted by Nanne Zwagerman in
European Issues, US Foreign Policy on Saturday, August 23. 2008
In an interview with the Kommersant, the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle, confirmed that the Russian response to Georgia's attack on South Ossetia was legitimate. He also stated, however, that Russia went too far by invading Georgia 'proper', and that Russia now has to abide by the cease-fire agreement and stop hinting at regime-change in Tblisi. A small bit of an AP report in the International Herald Tribune:
John Beyrle [...] told the Kommersant Friday that Russia "gave a well-grounded response" to a Georgian attack on Russian peacekeepers, but exceeded its authority by invading Georgia proper.
Ambassador Beyrle has presumably been green-lighted to give this statement, and he has also stated to the Kommersant that Saakashvili acted without the consent and against the advice of the United States in attacking South Ossetia. This signals a certain ratcheting-down of tensions between the U.S. and Russia, and a readiness on the side of the U.S. to come to an accommodation.
The full interview is available in Russian, here.
Late update: Telo notes in the comments that the translation of the AP might be off, and that the relevant statement by Ambassador Beyrle implies that the Russians had a reason to respond, but is ambiguous on whether that reason was completely sufficient.
Posted by Editors in
European Issues on Thursday, August 21. 2008
Nicolas Sarkozy is so proud of what the EU at the behest and through FRANCE has achieved in Georgia:
At the behest of the French presidency, Europe put itself on the front lines from the outset of hostilities to resolve this conflict -- the third on European soil since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Throughout the first phase of this latest crisis, Europe's commitment was decisive: It was the European Union, through France, that created a space for diplomacy
¡No Pasarán! comments on Super-Sarko: "Proud to be Ineffectual."
Posted by Editors in
German Politics, Transatlantic Relations on Thursday, August 21. 2008
The Guardian:
A German diplomat has criticised a group of Bundestag MPs over their behaviour on a recent visit to San Francisco, accusing them of using a racial slur and of choosing sightseeing and shopping above meetings with US counterparts. Rolf Schütte, the German consul general in San Francisco, wrote to the foreign ministry in Berlin to express his outrage. His confidential letter, which is furious and frank in tone, has been leaked to the German press and created a public debate about the legitimacy of publicly funded foreign political trips and whether they should be more tightly controlled.
One of several articles in the German press: Die Welt: USA-Dienstreise wird für Politiker zur Blamage
Correction of the Guardian article: Not a member of parliament, but a parliamentary staffer is accused of the racial slur.
Posted by Joerg Wolf in
Transatlantic Relations on Tuesday, August 19. 2008
"Georgia crisis sparks Anti-American sentiment in Germany," declares Dialog International: I know George W. Bush is unpopular in Germany (as he is in the US) but I was unprepared for some of the pro-Putin opinions that have been expressed in the German media and especially in the German blogosphere. There was considerable Schadenfreude on many German fronts that Russia's invasion of Georgian territory was a blow to the foreign policy of the US, and the conflict in Georgia is viewed by some as a proxy war between Russia and the US, with jubilation that Putin has been victorious on all fronts. Is the German media really supportive of Putin? Compared to US media that might indeed be the case, because large parts of the US media tend to support poor little Georgia -- one of the first Christian nations, as McCain reminds us -- against the big Russian bear, who ran the communist, evil empire. Okay, the US media is a bit more sophisticated, but many media reports painted a picture of good guys and bad guys:
Continue reading "German and US Media Coverage of Georgia War is Biased! What a Surprise!"
Posted by Joerg Wolf in
Transatlantic Relations, US Foreign Policy on Monday, August 18. 2008
Wess Mitchell, director of research at The Center for European Policy Analysis, writes that the EU's largest states are more interested in avoiding a rupture with Moscow than in protecting the vital interests of the Union's eastern members. Therefore, the United States should announce its intention to transfer the entire Europe-based American military establishment to new locations in Central Europe. Read his Op-Ed for the Atlantic Community: "How America Should Respond to Resurgent Russia
One familiar commenter suggested:
We are in agreement about the need for the US to redeploy its forces in Europe. We are in disagreement as to the direction. You want them moved eastward and I want them to move west, as in to the United States. The US should withdraw from Europe until such time as the Europeans take their security seriously. They don't and have not for a long time. I am sure the members of the chocolate summit can devise a treaty which will make the Central European nations feel secure.
Here's part of Wess Mitchell's response:
Continue reading "Responding to Resurgent Russia: Should US Troops Go East or Go West?"
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