Nick Ottens is a public affairs officer for the Dutch Animal Coalition and a board member for Liberal Green, the sustainability network of the Dutch liberal party VVD. He is a former political risk consultant and a former research manager for XPRIZE, where he designed prize competitions to incentivize breakthrough innovation in agriculture, food and health care. He has also worked as a journalist in Amsterdam, Barcelona and New York for EUobserver, NRC, Trouw, World Politics Review and Wynia’s Week, among others.
While the Obama Administration is seeking to cut several billions in defense spending, an independent review panel last week determined that the United States are inadequately preparing for future warfare. Does the American military really need more of everything though? The Independent Quadrennial Defense Review Panel, chaired by former defense secretary William Perry and former […]
Britain has to cut and it has to cut dearly. Along with tax hikes, the new Liberal-Conservative government is preparing to slash public spending across the board in order to restore balance to the budget. The armed forces, having suffered budget cut after budget cut in the preceding years, won’t manage to escape this renewed […]
The Obama Administration’s China policy is one of sending mixed messages.
Republicans are playing a dangerous game pretending that the United States should wage a third armed conflict in the Middle East.
Once Europe adopts a common foreign policy, America could no longer take advantage of internal division.
The Chinese are furious about what they see as American meddling in their sphere of influence.
The British prime minister wants a “stronger, wider and deeper” relationship with India.
In the name of protecting people against themselves, smoking is heavily taxed and increasingly banned around the world.
Although hardly “crippling” its regime, the sanctions imposed upon Iran by the United Nations, Europe and the United States for its illegitimate nuclear program appear to have some effect at isolating the country. Brazil and Turkey approached Iran earlier this year to negotiate and reached a nuclear fuel exchange agreement in May under which Iran […]
Britain’s premier says it’s wrong to let Turkey guard the camp but not allow it to sit in the tent.
Pakistan is pivotal to America’s strategy in South Asia but it has little reason to continue to act as an ally.
There is little news to be gathered from the classified Afghan war reports released by WikiLeaks.
The fast growth of Asia’s cities is chaotic and rife with problems. But that is not unusual.
Republicans have high hopes for November’s midterm elections for Congress and for good reason. The president and his party are deeply unpopular with moderate and conservative voters, in spite or rather because of their push for health care and financial reform; monumental legislations which the opposition has been able to taint as unprecedented government takeovers. […]
Former Director General of MI5, Britain’s internal security service, Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller described the invasion of Iraq as a mistake on Tuesday, noting that the attack had exacerbated the terrorist threat to the country and was a “highly significant” factor in how “home grown” Muslim fundamentalists justified their actions. Manningham-Buller told the Chilcot inquiry that […]
