Defence, security and diplomacy
Clausewitz
Europe and Libya
Diplomatic gymnastics
Mar 1st 2011, 14:53 by The Economist online
OUR Charlemagne columnist has been assessing the responses of European nations to the Libyan uprising, awarding their governments gold, silver and bronze medals for their performance:
FOR some reason that I cannot quite explain, watching the European Union’s policymakers trying to keep up with events in the Middle East brings to mind an amateur gymnastics event.
Read the whole post on Charlemagne's notebook.
About Clausewitz
In this blog, our correspondents provide reporting and analysis on the subjects of defence, security and diplomacy, covering weapons and warfare, spooks and cyber-attacks, diplomats and dead-drops. The blog is named after Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian soldier and military theorist whose classic work, "On War", is still widely studied today.
Advertisement
Economist blogs
- Americas view
- Asia view
- Babbage
- Bagehot's notebook
- Banyan
- Baobab
- Blighty
- Buttonwood's notebook
- Charlemagne's notebook
- Clausewitz
- Daily chart
- Democracy in America
- Eastern approaches
- Free exchange
- Global Leadership
- Gulliver
- Johnson
- Leviathan
- Lexington's notebook
- Multimedia
- Newsbook
- Prospero
- Schumpeter's notebook
- The World in 2011: Cassandra
Most commented
- Charlemagne: No time for doubters
- Banyan: Taiwan's commonsense consensus
- China's pre-emptive crackdown: The people doth not protest
- Turkey and Europe: Mr Erdoğan goes to Germany
- China's foreign policy: Setting sail for Libya
- Language and opinion: Framing climate change
- Precautions in Xinjiang: Catching a whiff of jasmine in Kashgar
- Qaddafi and his ilk: Blood and oil
- Turkey's election: A Muslim democracy in action
- Venezuela's economy: Oil leak
Over the past five days
Most recommended
- Qaddafi and his ilk: Blood and oil
- China's pre-emptive crackdown: The people doth not protest
- KAL's cartoon
- Banyan: Taiwan's commonsense consensus
- A special report on feeding the world: The 9 billion-people question
- The Arab uprisings: Endgame in Tripoli
- Energy prices: Tax away vulnerability
- China's foreign policy: Setting sail for Libya
- Labour law in America: Showdown in Madison
- Venezuela's economy: Oil leak
Over the past seven days
Advertisement
Subscribe to The Economist's free e-mail newsletters and alerts.
Subscribe to The Economist's latest article postings on Twitter
See a selection of The Economist's articles, events, topical videos and debates on Facebook.
Advertisement
Readers' comments
The Economist welcomes your views. Please stay on topic and be respectful of other readers. Review our comments policy.
Sort:
Here's a comment someone (not me, alas ) put up on another website. Apologies in advance for plagiarism.
Hillary Clinton (on the 'phone): Hello EU? What are you guys doing about Europe? Why are you leaving it all to the Brits, the Italians and the Greeks?
(reply) "I'm sorry, we are totally out to lunch at the moment. Please call back later.
Press 1 to hear what impotence sounds like in 26 different languages."
re previous post. sorry, that should have read Libya, not Europe. Here's the 'correct version'
Hillary Clinton (on the 'phone): Hello EU? What are you guys doing about Libya? Why are you leaving it all to the Brits, the Italians and the Greeks?
(reply) "I'm sorry, we are totally out to lunch at the moment. Please call back later.
Press 1 to hear what impotence sounds like in 26 different languages."
Found it! The correct URL for the original to the above is
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/gavinhewitt/2011/02/europes_sear...
Posted by Champagne _Charlie (No 3 in the list)
Apologies to all who might feel that i should have posted this instead of the above two. You would be quite right.