No second thoughts were needed before signing up for Dr Giulio Pugliese’s seminar on Taiwan and the Risk of World War III which took place at Villa Schifanoia, Florence on May 7. The ‘credit’ for the eye-catching title went to Dublin resident Bill Emmott, formerly editor-in-chief of The Economist magazine and now Chairman of the…
Michael Sanfey reflects on a fast-paced first 50 days of Donald Trump President Trump’s strongest opponents could hardly deny that he has started out of the blocks of his second term at a blistering pace. A sign of this is how analysts and media commentators chose to assess his first 50 days rather than his…
Perfectly reasonable for academics to call for Ireland’s neutrality to be kept under active review, writes Michael Sanfey There’s a song that used to be sung by football fans to taunt the rival team’s supporters – ‘Oh you’re all very quiet over there’. This ditty applies well to some Irish academics and public intellectuals who…
Jean-Claude Juncker’s 70th birthday last month went largely unnoticed. If not quite a forgotten figure now, Juncker has largely faded from international view having for many years been the leading politician in his home country of Luxembourg, and a key player in EU affairs, especially in regard to crafting the Maastricht Treaty, later crowning his…
When US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, on the occasion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) 75th anniversary meetings in Washington DC last week, wrote an article for the New York Times entitled ‘You Can Count on a Strong NATO’ my alarm bell started to ring. If NATO were as ‘rock solid’ as the…
Readers familiar with the Irish actor and comedian Jimmy O’Dea might recall his monologue: “Thank heavens, we are living in Rathgar.” When I was a diplomat in Portugal some years ago, I used to say to myself, “Thank heavens that I live in Estoril”. It’s a very beautiful place about 25km from Lisbon. Driving home…