November 2011

By Jonathan Power Every so often, but not very often, the tectonic plates in society visibly move. In the last century it was the impact of the Great Recession closely followed by a second massive war in a century that pushed both the victorious and the losers in the direction of a welfare state, albeit the Europeans, Canadians and Japanese moved at a much faster rate than the Americans. If Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany is right and the present financial crisis is the worst upheaval since then, perhaps we are on the cusp of a major change in the governance of not just Europe, Canada and Japan but of the semi-isolationist US as well. The occupied streets and squares of some major cities suggest it. Never before in my memory have protestors gained such support from non-demonstrators. The liberals and social democrats have supported them, but so have the...

November 29, 2011 Jonathan Power Every so often, but not very often, the tectonic plates in society visibly move. In the last century it was the impact of the Great Recession closely followed by a second massive war in a century that pushed both the victorious and the losers in the direction of a welfare state, albeit the Europeans, Canadians and Japanese moved at a much faster rate than the Americans. If Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany is right and the present financial crisis is the worst upheaval since then, perhaps we are on the cusp of a major change in the governance of not just Europe, Canada and Japan but of the semi-isolationist US as well. The occupied streets and squares of some major cities suggest it. Never before in my memory have protestors gained such support from non-demonstrators. The liberals and social democrats have supported them, but so have...

I could not begin to count the number of times friends, and adversaries, have give me the following general line of advice: your views on Israel/Palestine would gain a much wider hearing if they showed more sympathy for Israel’s position and concerns, that is, if they were more ‘balanced.’ Especially on this set of issues, I have always found such advice wildly off the mark for two main reasons.

It changes character, like in quantum mechanics, just by watching.  The French revolution did that in the late 1780s-early 1790s.  However, spring is gone, revolt is in, but so far not revolution.  There are layers of rulers and layers of opposition.  Unveiling has started. If seeds from a winter suicide in Tunisia sprouted buds in early spring, then they must have fallen on fertile soil.  Events turn into processes when “stability” is unstable, as huge power and wealth gaps are.  The trick in the US is to make a person believe in individual mobility; “if you don’t make it that is your fault”. Others see it as a relation: by taking power/wealth from us, they became powerful and rich and we remained powerless and poor.  The former is individualist and person-oriented, the latter collectivist and system-oriented.  See it that way and revolts follow, like Tahrir Square, like Wall Street.  Nevertheless,...

The further north one travels in Europe the fewer immigrants there are. This, of course, has something to do with the weather and by the time one gets to Finland the proportion of immigrants in the population is only 3%, far less than France, Germany, Italy or even the damp UK. Finland has the added deterrent of having a near impenetrable language. But Finland is a highly industrialised country. Not just the home of Nokia but of a large number of high tech companies that do business all over the world. The question is how can Finland manage without large scale immigration? Every other industrialised country has argued that it needs them. Ever since the 1950s, when post war economic growth got into its stride, immigrants have been recruited to do the menial jobs that natives increasingly would rather be unemployed than do- to clean the streets, empty the dustbins...

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Time for a strategy for the transformation of conflict worldwide? Globally, in the 21st century, two unprecedented factors are affecting war: violent conflict is being prevented with the skills of fast-growing localised peace building initiatives, and more wars are ending through negotiation rather than military victory. Yet military expenditure has increased 45% over 10 years, and only minute amounts are spent on the prevention of conflict. Does this extraordinary situation call for a global strategy to change the way the world deals with war?

By Gunnar Westberg Gunnar Westberg has made a revisit with a small group of doctors to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, DPRK Already on the train from Beijing towards Pyongyang do I feel a different atmosphere from that at my visit in 2005. The custom officials look briefly at our documents, register and seal our mobile phones as in previous years, but pay no attention to our computers, written material and CD:s. The train is overflowing with packages and trunks, at least some of it smuggled. At the first DPRK stop an expensive new car picks up four big bags from the train. All houses are newly painted, maybe for the benefit of the Dear Leader who passed through in his special train two years ago. Mobile phones – yes they are here now!

. Once president, after the army coup that ejected the democratically elected Nawaz Sharif, Musharraf cast aside his previous macho character that once had nearly led to nuclear war between Pakistan and India when he led the army to attack the district of Kargil on the border of the divided state of Kashmir. He dropped many of Pakistan’s conditions for making peace with India. Diplomats both in Pakistan and India thought that India would never get a better deal over Kashmir. But although Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India was in favour of the historic compromise he failed to convince his foreign ministry, his intelligence services, the military or much of the public. Going back in time much responsibility needs to heaped on the shoulders of the supposedly most pacific of all American presidents, Jimmy Carter. Carter allowed himself to be thrown off course by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan....