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Articles from Syndicated Column "Against the Current" (for Project Syndicate)
A League of democracies?
Robert Skidelsky
Project Syndicate
| Friday, June 13, 2008
| 
Russian
Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate, has been calling for the creation of a “League of Democracies.” This new international group would possess a formidable military capacity, based partly on NATO and partly on a “new quadrilateral security partnership” in the Pacific between Australia, India, Japan, and the US. Neither Russia nor China, of course, would be invited to join: indeed, McCain wants to exclude Russia from the G8.
The League is necessary, argues McCain, because in matters vital to the US, such as fighting Islamic terrorism, humanitarian intervention, and spreading liberty, democracy, and free markets, the US and its democratic partners must be able to act without permission from the United Nations
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The Apocalyptic Mind
Robert Skidelsky
Project Syndicate
| Tuesday, May 13, 2008
| Russian
It was only to be expected that former US Vice President Al Gore would give this month’s Burmese cyclone an apocalyptic twist. “Last year,” he said, “a catastrophic storm hit Bangladesh. The year before, the strongest cyclone in more than 50 years hit China....We’re seeing the consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continual global warming.”
Surprisingly, Gore did not include the Asian tsunami of 2004, which claimed 225,000 lives. His not so subliminal message was that these natural catastrophes foreshadow the end of the world.
Apocalyptic beliefs have always been part of the Christian tradition. They express the yearning for heaven on earth, when evil is destroyed and the good are saved.
In their
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Recovering from Kosovo
Robert Skidelsky
Project Syndicate
| Sunday, April 13, 2008
| Russian
Kosovo’s recent unilateral declaration of independence brought back memories. I publicly opposed NATO’s attack on Serbia – carried out in the name of protecting the Kosovars from Serb atrocities – in March 1999. At that time, I was a member of the Opposition Front Bench – or Shadow Government – in Britain’s House of Lords. The then Conservative leader, William Hague, immediately expelled me to the “back benches.” Thus ended my (minor) political career. Ever since, I have wondered whether I was right or wrong.
I opposed military intervention for two reasons. First, I argued that while it might do local good, it would damage the rules of international relations as they were then understood. The UN charter was designed to prevent the use
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The moral vulnerability of markets
Robert Skidelsky
Project Syndicate
| Thursday, March 13, 2008
| Russian
Today, there seems to be no coherent alternative to capitalism, yet anti-market feelings are alive and well, expressed for example in the moralistic backlash against globalization. Because no social system can survive for long without a moral basis, the issues posed by anti-globalization campaigners are urgent – all the more so in the midst of the current economic crisis.
It is hard to deny some moral value to the market. After all, we attach moral value to processes as well as outcomes, as in the phrase “the end does not justify the means.” It is morally better to have our goods supplied by free labor than by slaves, and to choose our goods rather than have them chosen for us by the state. The fact that the market system is more
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Vladimir de Gaulle?
Robert Skidelsky
Project Syndicate
| Thursday, December 13, 2007
| Russian
The greatest disappointment of the postcommunist era has been the failure of the West – particularly Europe – to build a successful relationship with Russia. Most policymakers and experts expected that, after an inevitably troublesome period of transition, Russia would join the United States and Europe in a strategic and economic partnership, based on shared interests and values. The pace of change might be doubtful, but not its direction. Vladimir Putin’s massive electoral triumph in this week’s Duma elections has put the lie to that notion.
Today, shared interests have shrunk and values have diverged. A resurgent Russia is the world’s foremost revisionist power, rejecting a status quo predicated on the notion of a Western victory in
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