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Bardají, Rafael
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3 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.
United Nations lost in hippy dreams
Spanish political scientist Rafael Bardají wants less flowery rhetoric and more pragmatism from the United Nations this time. Commenting in the conservative daily ABC on the speech US President Barack Obama addressed to the UN Security Council on Thursday he writes: "Now that the chamber of the United Nations no longer stinks of sulphur because ex-president George W. Bush has left the scent hippy flowers has descended on those present: it's all good wishes, peace and love for the whole world. I don't know where Obama – to name just one example – got his speechwriter but judging by the sound of it it wasn't far off from the remains of a 1960s Californian commune. Peace, security, clean energy and prosperity. No one can resist. But the problem doesn't consist in describing the troubles that plague us or the ideals we seek to attain but in how to attain them, with which policies and agendas. And so far we've heard little about that from the UN headquarters."
» full article (external link, Spanish)
More from the press review on the subject » International Relations, » Security Policy / Crises / War, » U.S., » Global
War: the old world order
The daily ABC reflects on the Europeans' yearning for peace in a world that has always been in a permanent state of war: "If [the ancient Greek general and historian] Thucydides lifted his head now he would perhaps be unable to comprehend the European Union, in which pacifism has suppressed violence, but he knew precisely how to interpret the rest of the world. The conflicts have not been resolved, and to acknowledge this it is not even necessary to point to what is happening in Georgia and the instinctive reflexes of Russia, which continues to consider itself a great power. We Western Europeans insist on believing in the end of war. In 1909 it was the Labour politician Norman Angell ... who predicted that because of the economic dependencies on the old continent there was no possibility whatsoever of a war between its major powers. ... The futurologist H.G. Wells ... said that the First World War would be the last of the great wars. ... In 1989 the American Francis Fukuyama ... announced the end of all wars following the triumph of liberalism. ... Peace is an invention; war a social phenomenon. You don't have to take a trip to Tiflis to realise this. The 21st century is simply yet another bloodstained century."
» full article (external link, Spanish)
More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » History, » Weltanschauung, » Europe, » Global
Europe faced with terrorist threat
"Spain is a very vulnerable country today", writes the analyst Rafael Bardaji, an expert in international relations. "It is very vulnerable for two reasons: Firstly, because it remains in the line of fire of international jihadism, and secondly because the government hasn't prepared itself enough to face up to this permanent threat and has not educated the population in order to resist it. On the contrary, in the eyes of our enemies, we are weaker than ever at the moment. Al-Qaeda is not an inoffensive organisation that is contented to instil fear by brandishing ominous names. It has demonstrated on several occasions that it intends to act and that, when it can it does so without showing the least compassion. ... Spain is vulnerable and it will become more so every day under this government. It is this weakness that most spurs the terrorists. Mr Rodriguez Zapatero has forced us down on our knees in the face of terror."
» full article (external link, Spanish)
More from the press review on the subject » Security Policy / Crises / War, » Europe, » North Africa
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