Daniel Korski

Counter-insurgency warfare is meant to be different from traditional war-fighting in one particular way: it recognises the military’s limitations. It accepts that soldiers may be able to fight off insurgents, but only reconstruction in, and outreach to, local communities can stave off renewed conflict. In that way, counter-insurgency is based on getting civilians to play an active role. But despite this new military orthodoxy, and some four years after the Taliban began its fight-back against NATO’s Afghan mission, the number of civilians deployed into theatre has been disappointingly low. Neither the US nor Europe have dispatched the hundreds of development specialists seen as crucial for success.

The discovery that Iran's regime has, yet again, deceived the international community and secretly built an additional nuclear facility has made world leaders re-focus on the issue. On Friday, the US, UK and France said the UN had to be given immediate access and urged tough new sanctions. Even Russia expressed concern. Today, the Iranian regime's  response came. According to Ali Akbar Salehi, who heads the Atomic Energy Organisation, Iran will keep its uranium enrichment level at up to five percent - much lower than bomb-grade. "We don't want to change the arrangement of five-percent enrichment merely to produce 150 to 300 kilos of 20-percent (enriched) fuel," ILNA news agency quoted the nuclear chief as saying.

So, the report written by ISAF commander, Stanley McChrystal, to President Obama on NATO’s Afghan mission has been published. It does not contain a request for more US troops, but most analysts think it is only a matter of time before a request is sent from Kabul. In the recently-published report, McChrystal says: “While the situation is serious, success is still achievable.” But serious changes will be required. These will have to address what McChrystal calls “The weakness of state institutions, malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials.” The US general also admits “ISAF's own errors”. Bear in mind, though, that the report was written before the recent presidential elections went awry.

The latest results from Afghanistan's presidential election are showing that the incumbent President Hamid Karzai has garnered 54.1 percent of the vote after 92 percent of polling stations declared. Crucially, this puts him above the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a run-off with rival Abdullah Abdullah. But the result has been greeted with derision by observers, while the Election Complaints Commission (ECC) has said a recount and inspection should be done for any polling station where 600 or more votes were cast, or where any single candidate got more than 95% of votes. So what happens next? First of all, expect a fight to develop between the Independent Election Commission and the Election Complaints Commission.

Last week, French President Sarkozy spoke to the annual gathering of his country’s ambassadors. Since he came to power, the French leader has used the annual event to welcome his countrymen back from their holidays and garner a few headlines. This year proved no different with an attack on the Iranian regime receiving the most attention. In a powerful line, the French president pointed out: "It is the same leaders in Iran who say that the nuclear programme is peaceful and that the elections were honest. Who can believe them?" He went on to say that he thought tougher sanctions would have to be discussed if Tehran does not change its position. But the speech was boilerplate Sarkozy – expansive, energetic, and ambitious.

There is now much talk of the need to grow the army or build more ships, even in times of economic distress, lest Britain slip down the scales of international importance. Britain is – and will remain – a world power. Not a superpower, of course, but one of three major powers in Europe, and one of only two with a military and diplomatic reach to complement economic and ideological clout. Britain will need to have military capability, including a nuclear capability, to remain powerful. But the one thing Britain will need above all else, especially if defense expenditures are set to fall and our military is loosing esteem in the eyes of the US, is a world-beating diplomatic presence.

I am just back from holidaying in Sweden. And while I dutifully kept away from blogging, I did follow the news and the developing Swedish-Israeli dispute, the implications of which may yet become global. For those of you who have yet to read up on this story, it all started last week. In an article for Aftonbladet, Donald Bostroem recounted Palestinian allegations that IDF soldiers killed Palestinians to harvest their organs, and implied a link to the recent arrest, in the US, of organ-trafficking suspects. Many of the suspects were Jewish. Having read the article, the Swedish Ambassador to Israel issued a strong condemnation, saying she found the article "as shocking and appalling to us Swedes as it is to Israeli citizens.