Ferment in the US Foreign Service
17 April 2015
The American Academy of Diplomacy has just released a major report called ‘American Diplomacy at Risk’, Read more.
Ukraine crisis: one Western blunder after another
25 February 2015
The announcement by British prime minister David (‘Sleepwalker’) Cameron that Britain is to send military advisers to Ukraine is the latest of a long series of Western blunders that has contributed to the catastrophic crisis in Ukraine. Read more.
Embassies and the Russia-Ukraine conflict
23 September 2014
It is worth keeping in mind – and reassuring – that throughout this undeclared war each party has kept open its embassy in the other’s capital, Read more.
Road maps for careful diplomats
27 January 2014
The ‘road map’ metaphor in important international negotiations, on which I dwelt at some length in the chapter called ‘Diplomatic Momentum’ in my textbook, is alive and well, and why not? Read more.
‘Soft power’ is nothing more than influence
17 January 2014
The term soft power (and its siblings hard power and smart power), employed to embrace a particular category of resources of potential power, originated in the stable of Joseph S. Nye, Jnr., Read more.
16 reasons why I publish books and articles on this site
12 December 2013
Why am I self-publishing on this site? Read more.
Embassy attics and roofs
11 November 2013
The revelations by Edward Snowden, supplemented by aerial photography, have merely highlighted what has long been known to some Read more.
Expeditionary diplomacy
13 January 2013
A lot was beginning to be heard about ‘expeditionary diplomacy’ before the disaster at US ‘Special Mission Benghazi’ on 11 September 2012, somewhat less since. Read more.
Five best books on diplomacy
25 July 2010
On 5 July 2010, at the beginning of a week devoted to ‘Diplomacy’ by the ‘Five Best Books on Everything’ site, I was interviewed on my own choice of the five best books on this subject. Read more.