Brexit & Foreign Policy

North Korea: What is to be done?

In some respects, managing the North Korean regime is rather like the British government negotiating with Irish republican separatists in the days leading up to and following the Downing Street Declaration and the Good Friday Agreement; talks continued, in one way or another, in spite of attempts to by various elements of the Irish separatists to derail them, in large part because the British government would not be baited into breaking them off, weathering outrage after outrage to keep the process alive.

Sierra Leone – the quiet fightback

His Excellency Mr Edward Turay, High Commissioner for Sierra Leone, discusses the improvements in his country and his optimism for the future.

We need to move on from the clichés and misunderstandings about China

The coverage of David Cameron’s visit to Beijing has brought the usual litany of clichés and misunderstandings about China, drawing unabashedly on a fine tradition of western depictions of the Oriental “other”. China is unfailingly presented as a totalitarian state, headed by inscrutable politicians with “plastic smiles”. Its population is an undifferentiated mass, herded into conformity by severe limitations imposed on personal freedom.

Cost of Trident delay inevitable result of the compromise of coalition

Defence secretary Liam Fox’s admission that the Trident delay announced in last month’s Strategic Defence & Security Review (SDSR) will cost up to £1.4 billion attracted fresh criticism of the government’s handling of the issue. John Woodcock, the Labour MP for Barrow – where the submarines are built – claimed the coalition was “playing politics with Britain’s national security” by delaying the decision on Trident renewal for five years so as to avoid a Liberal Democrat revolt on the issue.

Is Anglo-French co-operation on nuclear warheads illegal?

Much of the British media has dedicated the last few days to questioning the strategic and fiscal pitfalls/merits of the military and nuclear agreements signed by David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday. However, the legal context to the nuclear part of the agreement raises some interesting questions, and has largely been ignored.