#democracy

Jun 19, 2019

A Question of Leadership

Photo courtesy of Allison Dinner/ Getty Images Merkel at Harvard I have long been a fan of Angela Merkel. I am even more so after the Commencement Address the German Chancellor recently gave on the Harvard Yard. I was fortunate to be among the thousands of people who turned out to listen. There were several memorable moments during her speech. Merkel recalled her personal story as a young physicist in East Germany, walking in the direction of the wall every day on her way to

Aug 28, 2018

In Defence of Liberalism – and what Liberals Need to Do in its Defence

In a recent issue, the Economist published a plaidoyer for a revival of liberalism – not just of the American sort but of the broader variety that figures on the political landscape of many countries around the world. The Economist has been a protagonist of liberalism since its founding 175 years ago. Several strands have shaped its understanding. Here are some of the more important ones. First, there is the idea that liberalism embraces a wide-ranging political pragmatism th

Aug 26, 2018

La Primavera de Praga, medio siglo después

Foto del periódico ruso Kommersant en el quincuagésimo aniversario de la invasión a Checoslovaquia por el Pacto de Varsovia. (este blog fue publicado en la Página Web: https://cdainstitute.ca el 23 de agosto de 2018.) Durante cuatro meses en 1968, fui un pasante en Praga, la capital de la antigua Checoslovaquia, una ciudad de increíble belleza y gracia, a pesar del peso insoportable de veinte años de gobierno comunista. En teoría, cada día tenía que ir a mi lugar de trabajo –

Aug 20, 2018

The Prague Spring Half a Century on

photo from the Russian newspaper Kommersant on the fiftieth anniversary of the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia (This blog was posted on the website of the Conference of the Defence Association Institute at https://cdainstitute.ca on 23 August 2018.) For four months in 1968, I was an intern in Prague, the capital of the erstwhile Czechoslovakia, a city of incredible beauty and grace despite the unbearably heavy weight of twenty years of communist rule. In theory, every

Aug 1, 2018

Towards Yalta Two

1024px-Yalta_Conference_(Churchill,_Roosevelt,_Stalin)_(B&W) This blog was posted on the CDA-Institute at https://cdainstitute.ca/law-towards-yalta-two/ on 9 August. In February 1945, as it was becoming increasingly clear that Hitler Germany was about to lose World War Two, the leaders of the victory camp – US President Roosevelt, UK Prime Minister Churchill and USSR Communist Party General Secretary and Premier Stalin – met at a much-celebrated meeting in Yalta. Yalta, a res

Mar 22, 2018

Global Futures and their Underlying Drivers

(The view of the globe is from The Great Globe Galley.) On June 21 2018, the TopLink site of the Word Economic Forum posted a sightly revised version of this post under the title of Three Scenarios for the Future of Geopolitics To understand events in the international arena, it helps to distinguish whether our current period is essentially stable or in significant flux. In an article written a quarter of a century ago, during another time of rapid and relentless change, my c

Mar 11, 2018

Putin’s Polling Numbers – and what they may say about Russia’s future

On 18 March, Vladimir Putin will almost certainly be elected to his fourth term as President of the Russian Federation. If we include his first term as Prime Minister from 1999-2000 and his second from 2008-2012, when he was for all intents and purposes still President in all but name, by the end of this next term he will have been Russia’s leading politician for a quarter century. Only Joseph Stalin will have been longer at the pinnacle of Russian and Soviet power. Scoring c

Dec 18, 2017

On the Emerging American Autocracy

The victory of senatorial candidate Doug Jones in Alabama on 12 December over a racist bigot, pedophile and religious zealot, supported by the incumbent President and Republic National Committee, is the first good news that America’s democrats have had in a good while. But to paraphrase Winston Churchill, this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. At best, it may be the end of the beginning. America’s democrats still face an uphill struggle. There has been

Oct 21, 2017

Breaking Up is Hard to do

The photo shows Rajoy and Puidgemont shaking hands in easier times. This article was originally posted on the website of the Canadian International Council on 21 October 2017. Things have come to a tipping point in Spain. The head of the Catalonian Generalitat has refused to withdraw the declaration of independence made after the referendum held in the region on 1 October and announced that the regional parliament will be asked to approve the declaration. This comes after the

Aug 17, 2017

Descent into Dictatorship?

America’s descent into chaos moved into a higher gear this past week. It will take a lot of civil courage on the part of a lot of Americans to put the dictatorship genie back in the bottle. The actions and rhetoric emanating from the Oval Office strongly suggest that Trump’s term in office will be characterized by an effort to establish a dictatorship across the United States of America. Ok, go pour yourself a stiff drink and if you are still up to it, read this and think fur

Aug 3, 2017

President Trump in Europe: how to discredit and dismantle an Alliance

At the G20 Summit that took place in Hamburg on 7-8 July, Presidents Putin and Trump met on at least three occasions. Two of them were rather typical for this kind of event, the third not at all. The first was not really a meeting, just a handshake at the opening session. The second saw the Russian and American Presidents holding a bilateral. As is typical of this kind of event, the two leaders were seconded by their respective foreign ministers and supported by their interpr

Nov 4, 2016

Canada and the US Election

While Canadians do not have a vote on 8 November, you could be forgiven for believing that they do. Like in the States, this is almost all America’s neighbours to the north talk about. Canadians tend to see the US electoral process as a combination of the crazy and the curious, in contradistinction to their own. For example, in 2015 current Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was elected after the longest campaign in Canada history, which lasted all of eleven weeks! Trudeau won a m

Oct 31, 2016

Donald and Adolf

Trump and Hitler have much more than hair issues in common. Of course, the America of 2016 is not the Germany of 1933, and Donald Trump is not Adolf Hitler. That said, there are a number of chilling similarities in their approaches and eerie parallels in their propos. Hitler was anti-Semitic, anti-Gypsy and anti-Handicapped.Trump has taken hostile positions against Mexicans and Muslims. He has insulted Invalids. On top of that he has shown himself to be a Misogynist, somethin

Oct 8, 2016

Canada in CAR ?

This blog originally appeared under the title of “Towards a Canadian Return to Peacekeeping: Part 3 – Exploring Canada’s options for a peace and stabilization mission in the Central African Republic (CAR)." The Central African Republic is one of the four countries that are presently being considered for a Canadian peacekeeping mission. The others are Mali, whereas in the case of CAR there is currently no Canadian presence, as well as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and S

Sep 29, 2016

Brexit or Bremain: a long and winding road ahead?

The partisans in favour of the UK leaving the European Union (EU) prevailed with almost 52 percent of the votes cast in the referendum on 23 June 2016. The turnout was around 72 percent of the electorate, an impressive number. But is the UK really on its way out? I am not so sure. What I am certain of is that this will not be a simple process. It will be complicated, complex and long, probably much longer than the three-year window presently being discussed. If the UK activa

Aug 25, 2016

Putin and Erdogan Do a Deal (sort of)

On 15 August, the Russian and Turkish Presidents met in St Petersburg. This was their first encounter since their two countries’ bilateral relations went very seriously south after Turkey shot down a Russian jet in November 2015. The two leaders made all sorts of nice noises about their commitment to repairing their relations after the fall-out of recent months. But it was clear that Putin, interested in wresting Turkey from its western moorings of now well over half a centur

Aug 3, 2016

Coup, Counter-coup, Consequences – Part 4: Where do Turkey’s relations with the West go from here?

In the wake of the coup, Erdogan has thrown down gauntlets to the US and the EU that they will have difficulty picking up. First, Erdogan has demanded the extradition of Fethullah Gulen arguing that he instigated the coup of 15 July. The US is demanding proof. A Minister in the Turkish government has accused Washington of complicity in the coup. Another cabinet member has likened Gulen to Bin Laden. He did not evoke Islamic State (IS) but he could have. At the same time, ther

Aug 2, 2016

Coup, Counter-coup, Consequences – Part 3: The turn towards authoritarianism

The third blog in this series looks at the transition of Erdogan and his AKP party to an overtly Islamist stance It is hard to pinpoint with any exactitude when, let alone why, Recip Erdogan transformed from being a figure seeking to modernize Turkey and its institutions to one pursuing a backward-looking Islamist agenda. Some analysts hold that Erdogan may have been a closet Islamist from the early stages of his career. It is a fact, however, that in 1998, after spending ten

Jul 29, 2016

Coup, Counter-coup, Consequences – Part 2: The Erdogan-Gulen Connection

This, the second in a four-part series on the coup in Turkey, looks at the relationship between the erstwhile allies, President Erdogan and Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish clerical leader living in Pennsylvania, who has been accused of instigating the coup. In his remarkable rise to power, Erdogan has been allied with the Gulen Movement and its leader Fethullah Gulen, a leader of a vast organization that has promoted education in Turkey and in many other countries around the world

Jun 30, 2016

Ukraine and the Sino-Russian Relationship

This piece served as the basis for a presentation transmitted via Skype from Kiev, Ukraine to Kingston, Canada for a conference organized on the militarization of Russian foreign policy in June 2016 Introduction A young state, founded only in 1991 as the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine has since gone from one crisis to another. Its growth pains assumed a new quality in 2014, however, with Russia’s seizure of Crimea and the incursion of Russian military elements into Eastern U

David M Law

The Way I See it

David M Law

The Way I See it