In this, the second part of my attempt to bring some clarity to what has been going down in the United Kingdom over the past week and a half, I’m going to cover some larger issues. What does this mean for Europe? How about US-UK relations? Read on and you’ll find out.

Gordon Brown and Barack Obama were not the best of friends. This is fairly well known. Many seem to cite the generational argument, as Gordy’s perspective on the world was shaped by growing up around the same time as Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, and Bush 43 as well as his formal Presbyterian Scottish background. Others attribute it to Gordon Browns “crusty” and “angular” demeanor; it was always thought that he was seething underneath, making him difficult to deal with. Whatever the reason, the Obama-Brown relationship was dogged by reported snubs. Much has been made of Obama’s choice to remove a bust of Churchill from the Oval Office. Britain and Europe, though partners with the US in Afghanistan, have tended to be on the second tier of Obama’s priorities. The President saw the prime area of US interest in the future as China and the Pacific.

Obama met Cameron in 2008 on a visit to Britain as part of his presidential election campaign. Journalist Richard Wolffe, who was on the trip and is close to White House staff, wrote in Renegade, his biography of Obama, that Obama’s aides “preferred the energy of the up-and-coming Cameron compared with the dour and dreary Brown”. It should then not be regarded as a surprise that David Cameron had barely stepped inside 10 Downing Street before President Barack Obama was on the phone, in a swift show of friendly intent toward the new British prime minister. On Cameron, Obama said “I find him to be a smart, dedicated, effective leader and somebody who we are going to be able to work with very effectively.Cameron, the youngest British Prime Minister in nearly two hundred years will visit the White House in July. While it’s fairly clear that my allegiance is with Labour, this is an interesting opportunity for both leaders to press the reset button on their nations relationship. In a complete 180 from his previous stance, Obama lauded: “We also both reaffirmed the extraordinary special relationship between the United States and Great Britain, one that outlasts any individual party, any individual leader. It is built up over centuries and it’s not going to go away.”

While the two couldn’t be more different on some issues – Cameron staked his campaign on running against big government – they do share a number of similarities. Both are pragmatic, largely non-ideological, and see themselves as the embodiment of political change. Cameron has pushed his party to the center on social issues, and given the less puritanical views of Europeans overall, the two are not far off.

As for foreign policy, the two countries will likely remain in lockstep. It will be interesting to see how much influence Clegg asserts. My guess is it will be little. Significantly, Clegg was the most anti-US pro-EU of the three. While Clegg may be the most knowledgeable and transformational of the three in his foreign policy views, his leadership abilities are questionable. Cameron’s Conservatives are divided over the issue of the EU, and this pervasive skepticism may limit clout on the continent. The reason the United States is concerned about this is Britain has traditionally been its first line of defense in preventing protectionist policies, trade wars, and keeping trade free.

Intent on cementing their relationship but making clear that Cameron is no “poodle,” William Hague, the new Foreign Secretary, visited Hillary Clinton on Friday. There are a number of topics that were discussed. Continued cooperation on Afghanistan seems to have been a large on and the least contentious. Iran also likely came up. As Brown was largely soft in his condemnations of the country, the new administration is committed to follow Sarkozy’s lead in taking a hard stance to prevent a nuclear armed Iran. Secretary Clinton’s desire to mediate the conflict over the Falkland Islands seems to been brought up and shot down in this meeting as well. The other primary issue was the nation’s differences over the EU. These are likely to be significant as Hague is known to be a Euroskeptic, while Clinton is pushing European Reform.

There is one curveball in all of this. While Brown and Obama may have disliked each other, all indications are that his Foreign Secretary, the up and coming 44-year-old David Miliband got on well with Secretary Clinton. In fact last year, she gushed that he was “vibrant, vital, attractive, smart.” Remember that there is an upcoming election to determine the new leader of Labour. The two frontrunners are Miliband and his younger brother Ed, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary. With David likely to win, Cameron may have a powerful counterbalance in his own country, very eager to take back power, and emboldened by its growing support from disenchanted Lib Dem voters.

The bottom line is this: it should be an interesting five years in the United Kingdom. While I am doubtful of David Cameron, he has seemed to me to be a smooth and polished speaker with little substance, he has proven to be a strong and pragmatic leader so far. Clegg has been neutralized. Gordon Brown’s career is over. Obama is glad that Britain has turned to the right? And the next time we bring up this subject, it will likely be when the real debate begins on how to deal with the country’s debt. That will be quite a scene.

Well the dust has begun to settle. Nick Clegg, the media’s darling lost big, and his fledgling party made for the biggest disappointment of the night. Although they took a substantial portion of the popular vote, they actually lost seats to everyone’s surprise. Labour was crushed, signaling the end of Gordon Brown’s tenure as Prime Minister and the end of New Labour’s 13 years in power. In reality, Labour actually did rather well considering. They held onto a number of seats they were expected to lose and caused a hung Parliament. David Cameron, who so desperately wanted to be Prime Minister fell just short of the number of seats that he needed. The bottom line is that in the UK’s confusing political system, everyone lost.

The young, naive and power hungry Cameron and Clegg forged an alliance that put both in positions of power, yet will ultimately bring about their downfall. After a brief flirtation with Labour, Clegg sold his party out for five years of personal gain. The Lib Dems were once seen as a viable progressive alternative to the two major parties, and a safe way to vote against the Tories. By aligning with them, Clegg has already driven droves of his past supporters to join Labour, which now can claim to be the only true progressive party in the UK. Cameron, the conservative version of Barack Obama in his nation, in that he is a post-partisan figure who has modernized his party and its views, made concessions that were extremely unfavorable on policy issues and made members of his party quite uncomfortable. Namely, he has agreed to a referendum on proportional representation, the Lib Dem’s main platform. Yet based on this marriage, if Cameron were to renege on any of his promises and Clegg decided to break the coalition, it would trigger an election in which the Lib Dems would ultimately be crushed.

It has been said that whichever party won this election would be out of power for a generation. The Tories have had a sparking reputation in the suburbs on London, the base of their power, while the extremities, such as Scotland have been largely Labour territory since the Tories have more or less ignored them. Based on the painful budget cuts that Cameron and his government will be forced to make, this disparity will become even more apparent and many will feel deserted. Labour, on the other hand, while battered and bruised, has a chance to regroup. Had they formed a coalition with the Lib Dems, it would be rule by a minority government, albeit one that garnered over fifty percent of the vote. It would be virtually impossible to get anything done, and Labour would have been viewed as stealing the election in order to preserve power. While Gordon Brown was a capable and well respected leader on economic issues, which is what Britain needs right now, he is of a different generation, lacks charisma and has a less than glowing reputation amongst his aids based on his temper. It’s time for Labour to regroup and reinvent itself once again under new leadership.

Coming up in Part II is an evaluation of the greater picture, specifically the future of its relationship with the United States.

For more, read:

Prime Minister Cameron’s Speech Outside Number 10 Downing Street

Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Deal: full text

So I’d guess that you’re probably wondering how I was able become involved in such an endeavor. Well, it’s no secret that I care very deeply about international development and also global environmental issues. Despite this interest, I’ve never had an opportunity to see with my own eyes what the situation looks like on the ground. Certainly as a Westerner raised in a middle-class family (by our standards), I am privileged and I am cognizant of this. Yet I’m not sure if I can ever fully grasp what life is like on one or two dollars a day through what I read in books and see on the internet. So when I heard that my college, Grinnell, was taking three students to Rajasthan, India, I jumped at the opportunity and was lucky enough to be selected to go.

The purpose of the trip is for myself and my two peers from Grinnell, as well as seven students from Northwestern University, our partner in this project, to design independent research projects, gather information while in Rajasthan, and analyze our results upon returning to the states. As a second component, we are working with the highly regarded Jal Bhagirathi Foundation, an NGO that deals with water scarcity issues in the region. The first few days will be devoted to working with the Foundation’s scholars and hearing their perspective on the problem. Much of the Indian state of Rajasthan is located in the Thar Desert. In fact, it is the most populous desert region in the world and not coincidentally the second poorest state in all of India. In such a water rich nation as the United States, it is hard to grasp the extent of the water crisis that is going on around the world. Farmers in Rajasthan have rioted because they lack the necessary water to irrigate their crops. Further, the quality is extremely low, as the water they do have is often brackish, saline and has unsafe concentrations of substances such as fluorine that make it unsafe to drink. The state and federal governments in India have been at a loss in finding a solution, despite the fact that up until fairly recently, these people lived on this same land sustainably and successfully for over a millennium. Research suggests a large part of the reason these people might be so poor and undeveloped compared to surrounding states is their lack of access to resources such as water. In the coming years, climate disruption due to increased carbon in the atmosphere will only make the situation worse. Droughts will become more frequent as the monsoons continually fail. Aside from Africa, South Asia will be hit harder by climate change than any other place in the world (although things look pretty bad in Australia too).

So my task, and that of the other students, is to come up with a solution to this problem. It’s pretty hard to believe that this is what they actually expect of us. Finding even a partial solution might prove elusive. Knowing comparatively little about the region and the problem, it’s pretty arrogant to expect us Westerners to come in and make a positive difference. I view the purpose of my trip as a chance to listen. My project deals with determining the effectiveness of NGOs focus on water education or teaching self-help principles. A great deal of my research will be based on interviews and quantitative metrics I record while talking to people living in rural desert villages (with the help of a translator) and also through the NGOs themselves. The general idea is that I will analyze the two and find out whether what these organizations are doing meets the needs of the people. I will explain this in further detail as time goes on. As Rajasthan was heavily influenced by British colonization, the second part of my study will be looking at what I can draw from interactions with Native Americans, Westerners and similar NGOs in the American Southwest and also in Australia with the Aborigines. With some luck, I will come up with an epiphany that might provide useful insights based on the information I gathered and as a relatively unbiased outsider.

This should be exciting. I am also stopping in Delhi twice (on the front and back end), which will be just another view of the great country of India and I hope to write about that as well. Please do offer feedback along the way. I’d really like to hear your perspective as well.

Okay. I know. You’re thinking that the tragic earthquake in Haiti is an extremely sensitive issue and this isn’t the right time to talk about it in any way other than by expressing sympathy and sorrow. Indeed, it is the worst natural and humanitarian disaster the Western Hemisphere has seen since at least Hurricane Katrina and possibly much longer. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few days, the media has reminded us time and time again it’s a “double-whammy” so to say. Few nations had less capacity to deal with such a tragedy than Haiti.

This is the point I want to focus on. Haiti is practically in the backyard of the richest nation in the world. The two former colonies, of France and England respectively, were the first two nations to gain independence in the Western Hemisphere, both over two hundred years ago. Yet their histories as independent nations couldn’t differ more. Haiti, along with Afghanistan and East Timor are the only nations outside of Africa on the United Nations Human Development Index list of least developed countries. Nearly eighty percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day. Haiti has had a consistently unstable government, has little social capital and is basically bankrupt of natural resources. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that they’ll need more than a little push from the outside world if they ever are to sustainably climb out of poverty.

America’s generous aid to Haiti has done little, and in fact its policy toward the nation is nothing short of a disaster in and of itself. Matt posted a link yesterday explaining this in further detail. Just think about the difference in terms of lives saved a Haiti with strong government institutions and without makeshift infrastructure could have made. By comparison, the quake is expected to claim 45,000 to 50,000 lives while one of the same magnitude in the Bay Area in 1989 took only 63 lives. The stories should not focus on how unfortunate this natural disaster is but rather the extreme poverty that caused it.

Everything happens for a reason. As cruel as the situation may seem, we must take it as an opportunity to rethink our approach to tackling global poverty if any real good is to come from it. The international effort currently going on to provide relief is one of admirable and unforeseen proportions. It is something we can all be proud of. Yet it is a microcosm of what is wrong with our past efforts. The President has pledged $100 million in aid, thousands of basic first aid kits were be dropped at the airport along with food and water, and hundreds of highly trained search and rescue workers have made their way to Haiti. But they’re all worthless if we don’t know how or maybe even can’t deploy them and all of the assistance is stuck at the airport. Both our macro and micro level efforts have failed. It’s time for some new ideas.

David Brooks in his column today suggests that we tackle the issue of culture as an impediment to growth, despite what our politically correct age tells us. Referencing “The Central Liberal Truth” by Lawrence E. Harrison, he explains that Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10.

Even if we cannot understand the sources of poverty in a befuddling country such as Haiti, we don’t have to care in order to bring about real change. Controversial as it may be, what Haiti might really need is for local leaders to bring about a highly intensive culture of achievement with tough and measurable demands. Cultural change is hard. But maybe this cultural catastrophe that destroyed what little Haiti had is enough of a space, and opening, to build something new with the help of a vigilant, thoughtful and creative outside world. Helping Haiti clean up and get back to where is was is not acceptable. We must take advantage of the worst of times in order to shake off our rigid and false assumptions, bringing out the best in humanity.

On a side note, USAID finally has a new chief. Despite the fact that he was only about a week into his new job before disaster struck, initial reports have the Clinton recruit performing admirably.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared on Meet the Press this past Sunday that this is a war against those who attacked us. Thus, we must restore security to Afghanistan and then leave. To some extent, she and the Obama administration have it right. This is not necessarily a war against Islamic extremism or any ideology at all. It is a war of necessity to protect American security and also that of Pakistan, Iran, India and the entire region. Yet it can be argued that Vietnam was also an attempt to preserve stability in the region and protect American interests lest the entire world turn to communism. The difference is that communism was the disease, an incurable virus at that. Terrorism based in Afghanistan is a symptom that can be treated, but not cured, until adequate attention is paid to the root cause.

So what is wrong with Afghanistan? Nearly all of its ills can be traced to the fact that it is arguably the greatest development disaster of our generation. In fact, according to the United Nations Human Development Index, Afghanistan ranks 181^st out of 182 countries for 2009. Seventy-two percent of the population above fifteen years of age is illiterate. That number soars to nearly ninety percent for women. The average citizen lives on less than $3 per day. Life expectancy at birth is only 43.6 years. Its population is increasing by nearly 3% each year. It is the only non-African nation to be ranked in the “low human development” category.

Poor governance is a large part of the problem, but the reason why Afghanistan lags so far behind its neighbors is that it was never even given a chance. It has been ravaged by wars for decades, from the Cold War, rule by the Taliban and the current American occupation. The country is so unstable, specifically in the southern region, that parents are afraid to send their children to school. Health clinics cannot stay open. In the recent election, women were too fearful to leave their homes to vote. The reason its birthrate is twice that of India is because it has been in desperate need of soldiers. When presented with this picture, it is no wonder that the country is a breeding ground for terrorists.

American forces are part of the problem, but a simple surge and hasty exit from the country will prevent us from being part of the solution. What the people of Afghanistan need is hope. A surge of 40,000 American troops may not sound like what the people of any nation want, but it will help secure the country, prevent the Taliban from ruling again and end the American presence sooner rather than later. That will allow its people to start living their lives again. If we want to quash terrorism out of the region, we can’t stop there, though. We must train Afghanistan’s own army as the wise Carl Levin (D-MI) has argued. Hamid Karzai poses his own problems, but diplomatic engagement along with some well conditioned aid might solve his tendency towards corruption. Lastly some assistance on human development meant to expedite the peoples of Afghanistan’s journey out of poverty could bring its own long term benefits.

These measures could easily be fully fleshed out in their own column, but I hope I have convinced you that they are necessary. Security is the number one impediment to development, and a surge of troops is entirely necessary to achieve that. Yet Obama must recognize that he cannot stop there if he hopes to bring a meaningful and lasting peace to the nation. He must deliver to the people of Afghanistan the same hope that he brought to his own country, hope that maybe some day each individual will be able to reach their full potential in life.

Take offense, Kim Jong-il. Jacob Heilbrunn of Foreign Policy recently declared that Ban Ki-Moon is in fact the world’s most dangerous Korean. Undoubtedly, this is a bold statement to make. Then again, the United Nations has been so often overlooked and overshadowed, especially during the Bush years. What do we really know about a man who, by virtue of his title, is one of the most powerful and influential diplomats in the world? The answer is not much, and I can include myself in that group, but that’s part of the problem. Before we rush to judgement, I think it’s about time that we take a step back and have a fair look at Ban Ki-Moon to see if he really is as bad as the recent glut of press has made him out to be. Ultimately I found that, no, he’s not so great, though there actually are a few things I quite like about him and our worldview probably prevents us from giving him the credit he deserves.

Mr. Heilbrunn and I do see eye-to-eye completely on at least one matter: the bar was set pretty low for Ban Ki-Moon. Kurd Waldheim was rather useless and his efforts were often overshadowed by Henry Kissinger. It was also revealed in the 1980’s that he was a Nazi war criminal. Oops. On Boutros Boutros-Ghali’s watch the UN missed out on a million people being massacred in Rwanda despite the UN mission there, and the following year tens of thousands of Bosniaks being ethnically cleansed within UN safe zones. Kofi Annan’s otherwise relatively successful tenure has been marred by the Oil-for-Food scandal.

Enter Ban Ki-Moon who took over on January 1, 2007. He entered with a stunning resume, growing up as a star pupil in South Korea and gaining a mastery of English. While at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, he studied under Joseph Nye who remarked that he had “a rare combination of analytic clarity, humility and perseverance.” As a diplomat within Korea’s Foreign Ministry, however, he gained a couple of nicknames that were not so flattering despite his impeccable work ethic: “the bureaucrat,” a reference to his administrative skill and attention to detail, but also his lack of charisma and subservience to superiors, and “the slippery eel” for his impressive ability to dodge questions. Nevertheless, he eventually rose to its top job, allowing him to gain the international reputation that allowed him to win election as Secretary General.

Before I get into the current mess, I want to note that Ban Ki-Moon has sought to make climate change his signature issue just as peacekeeping and the Millennium Development Goals are associated with Kofi Annan and he should be applauded for this. “For my generation, coming of age at the height of the Cold War, fear of nuclear winter seemed the leading existential threat on the horizon. But the danger posed by war to all humanity—and to our planet—is at least matched by climate change,” he has stated. I am excited to see what role he plays in the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen this December. That one event will likely define his legacy, for better or for worse. As that goes without mentioning his commendable leadership in Burma and Darfur.

Here’s where the trouble starts: Mona Juul of Norway, second in command at the UN for her nation, wrote a damning confidential internal memo on Ban Ki-Moon. Of course, it leaked (full text) about ten days ago and became a big deal because Norway is a major funder of the United Nations. “At a time when solutions by the UN and multilateral agencies are more necessary than ever to resolve global conflicts, Ban and the UN are conspicuous in their absence,” concluded the report according to the Norwegian Press.

No matter how talented and well-intentioned he may be behind the scenes, Mr. Heilbrunn’s June article that started the trashing of Mr. Ban is right by saying he is the proverbial tree falling in the forest with no one around to witness its crash. If you don’t hear him, does he really exist? In essence there is a strong argument to made that he has lived up to his prior reputation. His silence might be more troubling than a failed but visible attempt to throw his weight around on any of the overwhelming number of important issues around the world that the UN should be involved in. It should come as no surprise then that Ms. Juul called him both “spineless and charmless.”

It should also come as no surprise that George Bush, through Condoleeza Rice, pushed extremely hard to see that Ban Ki-Moon was successful in his campaign to become Secretary General. He likely needed this external support, as his speeches reportedly “lulled to sleep” those listening.

Yesterday the Washington Post entered the fray, criticizing his “quiet” outreach to autocrats. His inability to hold these leaders accountable undercuts the United Nations’ moral authority, which is reality is the UN’s most powerful tool for affecting world affairs.

What happens to Mr. Ban when his five year term, for which he has just-reached the half-way point, is over is anyone’s guess. Many have regarded him as a one-term Secretary General. It is believed that Hillary Clinton and Susan Rice view him quite negatively. The key, however, is China which holds a great deal of power as it is still Asia’s turn in the informal rotation of the position. Ironically enough (or maybe not so ironically considering their own take on foreign affairs) China likes Ban Ki-Moon a lot as do many nations on the Asian continent. An opinion piece from Sunday’s Korea Times offers a vigorous defense of Mr. Ban and alleges racism as the subtle motivation of his critics. Maybe in face we in the West have something to learn from him as Asia rises to prominence this century. Maybe, just maybe the way we have been going about international affairs is all wrong.

Further reading:

Q&A with Ban Ki-Moon