Western Europe

Eastern EU states battle for posts in new foreign service

By AFP

From AFP:  EU foreign policy supremo Catherine Ashton is gearing up to name her first appointees in the bloc’s new diplomatic corps, but East European states are grumbling big nations are cornering the top jobs. Though the carve-up of posts in the European External Action Service (EEAS) was not on the agenda of a two-day […]

Defence cut threat to the special relationship

By James Kirkup, the Telegraph

Britain’s “overstretched defence budget faces a massive cut”

By the Economist

From the Economist:  On September 17th the newly formed National Security Council (NSC), chaired by the prime minister, David Cameron, will begin discussing how to cut Britain’s defence budget. The conversation will be informed by the Strategic Defence and Security Review, which the coalition government embarked upon within weeks of taking office. Whereas the last […]

Uncoordinated Defense cuts threaten NATO’s future

By Tomas Valasek, the Wall Street Journal

From Tomas Valasek, the Wall Street Journal:  As European governments rein in spending, defense budgets are falling, often dramatically. Germany plans to cut its armed forces by a third and the U.K. wants to reduce military spending by as much as 20%.

NATO: A Fat, Bloated, Job Creation Project?

By James Joyner, the New Atlanticist

From James Joyner, the New Atlanticist:  Lost amidst the welcome news of British-French cooperation on military cost-sharing in some tough talk from their ministers of defense on NATO. Last week, I noted that the FT‘s superb reporter Ben Hall buried the lead, waiting until the 13th paragraph of a story to pass along Liam Fox‘s pronouncement […]

Govt scuttles talk of France aircraft carrier share

By Dave Clark, AFP

From Dave Clark, AFP:  France and Britain announced Friday they are talking about sharing the cost of military aircraft programmes, but rejected reports that they plan to merge their aircraft carrier fleets. "In terms of actually being able to share an aircraft carrier, I would have thought that that was utterly unrealistic," Defence Minister Liam […]

Europe and Benign Neglect

By Roger Cohen, the New York Times

From Roger Cohen, the New York Times:  “Europe is the object of benign U.S. neglect,” said Camille Grand, a prominent Paris-based defense analyst. “Obama has not established or re-established a strategic relationship with any single European country or with Europe as a whole.”

U.S. Air Force assumes command of NATO Baltic air policing mission

By defpro.com

From defpro.com:  The 493rd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, deployed from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, assumed command of the NATO Baltic air policing mission Sept. 1 from the Polish air force at Lithuania Air Force Air Base. For the next four months, the squadron, comprising approximately 125 people, is responsible for ensuring the air sovereignty of […]

West gives Serbia tough message on Kosovo

By Adam Tanner and Ivana Sekularac, Reuters

BNAC: Issues Concerning Effective Corporate Governance

It is two years since the financial services sector of many of the world’s leading economies were plunged into disarray. The uncertainty this generated meant that individual and institutional investors were very reluctant to participate in the financial markets resulting in a dramatic decline in asset values, credit becoming largely unavailable and, as a result, […]