In Winston Churchill’s memoirs, he records a meeting with Stalin in October 1944: “The moment was apt for business, so I said ‘Let us settle our affairs in the Balkans… So far as Britain and Russia are concerned, how would it do for you to have 90 per cent predominance in Romania, for us to have 90 per cent of the say in Greece and go 50-50 about Yugoslavia?’ While this was being translated, I wrote out the percentages on a half-sheet of paper. I pushed this across to Stalin… There was a slight pause. Then he took his blue pencil and made a large tick upon it, and passed it back to us. It was all settled in no more time than it takes to set down.”

I was in Georgia – Stalin’s birthplace – last week. The country regained its independence in 1991. But its leaders fear that they may yet be subject to a modern version of the Churchill-Stalin percentages deal – in which the west casually assigns Georgia into Moscow’s “sphere of influence”.

The remainder of this column can be read here. Please post comments below.

I am just back from Tbilisi in Georgia, where I received this unorthodox welcome from a Tbilisi-based academic. “You have heard of the end of the earth. Well this is it. We are the last outpost of western civilisation.” This is not the normal Georgian line. The usual spin is that Georgia is a central part of the west - and always has been - apart from unfortunate periods on invasion by Mongol hordes (Tamburlaine passed through on numerous occasions) - or incorporation into various incarnations of the Russian empire.

There is certainly no denying Georgia’s ancient Christian culture and its historic links to Europe. The question for the Georgians is whether all this history will help them achieve their dearest political and strategic wish - membership of Nato. Right now they are feeling a bit let down because they failed to get a “Membership Action Plan” at the recent Nato summit in Bucharest, although they did get a promise that they will be Nato members - some day. The Georgians think things are a bit more urgent than that, since the Russians are (according to them) rapidly consolidating their grip in the break-away Georgian territory of Abkhazia. (more…)

There is a well-established pecking order of prejudice in western Europe. The British look down on the French, the French look down on the Italians, the Italians look down on the Spanish, the Spanish look down on the Portuguese – and everybody fears and ridicules the Germans.

But the Spanish have upset this xenophobic hierarchy. Spain is now richer, more fashionable and more dynamic than Italy. It boasts Europe’s most lauded chef (Ferran Adrià), its trendiest film director (Pedro Almodóvar) and its richest football club (Real Madrid). Barcelona has become Europe’s most talked about city – invoked longingly as a model by every run-down metropolis in Europe. Spain is chic now, just as Italy was chic in the 1960s.

The remainder of this column can be read here. Please post comments below.

It is not just the US that is holding elections. There is a Spanish general election on Sunday and the streets of Madrid are festooned with campaign posters.

Spanish political slogans have lost a little of their élan, since the civil war and the days of “No pasaran”. The main parties in this election have clearly run out of inspiration on the sloganeering front. Outside my hotel is a huge banner for the centre-right Popular Party, featuring its smiling, bearded leader, Mariano Rajoy. The line on the poster is “Clear ideas, with Rajoy it’s possible.” The main slogan being used by the governing Socialist Party translates as “We are the majority”. To which the obvious response is: well, we’ll see about that on Sunday, won’t we?

Actually, most political analysts are, in fact predicting a narrow victory for the socialist government of Jose Zapatero. At a panel in Madrid yesterday morning, four out of the five panellists predicted a Socialist (PSOE) victory; just one panellist thought that the PP might make it. This is hardly surprising since the PSOE have been ahead in every poll for months, even when polls are adjusted to take account for the reluctance of some conservative voters to own up to their political preferences.

If the PP do fail to make a breakthrough, they should kick themselves. There are plenty of things in today’s Spain that should work well for a rightwing opposition party: the economy is faltering and there has been huge illegal immigration. These themes have come to the fore in recent weeks. Who knows - they might yet produce a surprise on Sunday.

In my earlier musings on the character of my fellow columnist, I left out one other abiding impression from our time at The Economist. It really is a big mistake to get into a prolonged argument with Clive. Once riled he is relentless. The conversation will only end when Clive has nailed your head to the floor (figuratively speaking, obviously).

So I’m going to accept his invitation. Let’s call it quits. History can judge whether Obama is an orator to be ranked alongside King, Kennedy at el. But I think we should take a broad view of what history means. Let’s wait at least 200 years before we form a definitive judgement.

While we’re waiting, can I offer some short-term predictions. Obama will win the nomination. Obama will win the presidency. Obama will then deliver an inaugural speech that is so brilliant and moving, that even I will be reduced to tears (without the assistance of an onion.) And within 18 months Clive Crook and many of Obama’s former fans will be bitterly disappointed - so it will be left to me to argue that he’s not so bad really.

Meanwhile, I was amused by this analysis of my relationship with my present and former colleague that appeared on the comments section of the Crook blog: (more…)

Europe seems intent on slicing itself up into ever smaller pieces. In the next month, Kosovo is likely to declare independence – making it the seventh new country to emerge from the wreckage of Yugoslavia. The Soviet Union has given way to 15 new states. Even in western Europe, there is talk of Belgium dividing in two, while a pro-independence party has taken power in Scotland.

People tend to treat countries that split up a bit like married couples. It is a sad event. And it is true that a unilateral declaration of Kosovan independence could cause a new crisis in the Balkans.

But if the formation of new countries can be achieved peacefully, it is usually a cause for celebration. This is the age of the small state.

The remainder of this column can be read here. Comments can be made below.

I read in today’s FT that the clash between King Juan Carlos of Spain and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has become a video cult-hit on the internet.

It is good viewing. So, in line with my policy of tracking YouTube moments in international politics, I feel moved to re-publish it.

To Britons of a certain generation - my generation - the name George Soros will always carry a certain mystique. In the US he may be regarded primarily as a billionaire with liberal views and in Eastern Europe he is associated with the Open Society institutes. But in Britain he will always be thought of above all as "the man who broke the Bank of England". Soros’s successful speculation against the pound in 1992 is widely believed to have caused "Black Wednesday", when Britain was forced out of the European exchange rate mechanism. The whole experience was a memorable crash course for the British public (and indeed the British government) in the power of global financial markets.

Curiously, perhaps, very little odium attached to Soros himself, after this unfortunate incident. He might have humiliated the government and forced a devaluation. But nobody seems to hold it against him. On the contrary, he is widely admired in Britain and is regarded as a something of a guru. I am as vulnerable to the Soros mystique as the next man, so I was intriuged to meet him for the first time at a small(ish) dinner for the launch of the European Council on Foreign Relations last week.

(more…)

What is the answer to the rise of fundamentalism across the Muslim world? For years Europeans and Americans thought they knew the antidote: secular democracy.

In the Islamic world, Turkey has been the shining example. Not only is the country a member of Nato; it has also been held up as proof that a country can be simultaneously Muslim, prosperous, secular and democratic. So what are we to make of events in Turkey now? Secularists have demonstrated in huge numbers because they are terrified by the prospect of the indirect election of a mildly Islamist president, and the army has hinted that it may stage a coup to protect the secular character of the state. Secularism and democracy seem to be at war.

The paradoxes do not stop there. American neo-conservatives hoped that the invasion of Iraq would create a new bulwark of pro-western democracy in the Islamic world. But while the US has failed in this aim, it has managed to inflict grave damage on its strategic relationship with its most important partner in the Muslim world: Turkey.

The remainder of Gideon’s weekly column can be read here (FT.com subscription required).

The accepted narrative about France - at least in the United States - is that the country is a total mess. The economy is a wreck; society is falling apart; radical Islam is on the march and the fascists are on the rise. The first round of voting in the French election on Sunday has provided a corrective to this gloomy orthodoxy.

There were two really good pieces of news, which are testament to the health of French democracy. First, voter turn-out was amazingly high - over 84% of the electorate voted; compare that to the 56% in the last American presidential election and under 60% in the last British general election.

(more…)