Jonathan Power
The European Union: the twentieth century's greatest achievement?
Since the European elections ten days ago, Europe has been going through a bout of navel gazing and introspection.
When every country has its own legislatures both national and local, what is the European parliament for? Why did so few of the electorate vote, less than ever before? Why did the east Europeans, only recently liberated from dictatorship, vote less than anyone else (with a couple of exceptions)? Why are the British talking as if membership of the Union is a yoke around their necks? In short, what is Europe?
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Jonathan Power
A nuclear-capable Pershing I missile, from the 1960s: the start of the end?
However tense the relationship between India and Pakistan becomes, the government of Manmohan Singh is highly unlikely to initiate or participate in a nuclear war with Pakistan. That would go against the deeply held moral beliefs of the prime minister. Both he and Congress party chairman, Sonia Gandhi, have told me privately that they are utterly repelled by the idea of such an act. Nevertheless, Singh has had few qualms about supporting the build-up of India’s nuclear deterrent, regarding it as an inevitable process given India’s place in the world; and he has been a passionate advocate of the new nuclear deal with the US that has resulted in Washington lifting its 30-year-old embargo on nuclear supplies for India.
Immediately after the Mumbai atrocities, tough talk seem to billow out of quarters of India’s military and foreign affairs establishment. Singh quickly fanned it away. On the Pakistani side, President Asif Ali Zardari also appeared to be in a peace-making mood. Just before the atrocities, he publicly abandoned his country’s â€first use†doctrine, which had meant that Pakistan could use its nuclear weapons even without an Indian attack. He has also, like his predecessor General Pervez Musharraf, reached out for a deal on the central flash point, the disputed state of Kashmir. Neither he nor Musharraf (once he was in power) ever showed they were the type to reach for their nuclear guns.
But does this mean we don’t have to fear a nuclear war between India and Pakistan? Well, it helps. But India could get more warlike if Singh and Congress are defeated in the coming elections. The main opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, is the one that first publicly demonstrated India’s nuclear deterrent. Meanwhile, on the Pakistani side, there is a growing chance that the war in Afghanistan and the American attacks inside the borders of Pakistan will fan the militancy of a growing part of Pakistani public opinion, with hysterical consequences.
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James Crabtree
Its deadline day here in the Prospect office, and we are all breaking the very slightest of sweats to get the magazine finished – so our apologises if the blog is a little light on traffic. Our next edition, though, will feature a strong lead opinion from Tim Butcher on the current crisis in Congo, which has been rattling on for the last few weeks. The coverage has, as Butcher argues, largely misunderstood the genesis of the fighting between what passes for a Government, and the Rwandan-backed rebels of General Laurent Nkundu. The focus has, perhaps unsurprisingly, been on the complex ethnic tensions Tutsi and Hutu tribes; a frame informed, arguably, by Western guilt over the genocide in neighbouring Rwanda. Butcher, though, sees other, more pecuniary causes. Anyhow, learning more about Tim, I came across this video, part of the material for his (apparently excellent) book Blood River. It’s a fascinating insight into the country, and worth a watch. In it, Tim appears to travel through large stretches of Congo – one of the world’s largest countries – on a motorbike, with only a fierce pygmy as his guide. Click on the picture to see it, and check out Butcher’s piece in next month’s Prospect.
Home Videos, Congo style
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