Land of the Rising Sun?

A week is a long time in politics; in a quake zone it can seem forever. It was just last Friday that so much destruction was wrought on north eastern Japan. Few cannot have been moved by the images beamed around the world. As one US reporter said, it was like Apocalypse Now meeting My Worst Nightmare. Ocean-going trawlers thrown onto dry land, houses smashed like matchwood, and a death toll already over 11,000. An appeal has now gone out for more body bags and coffins as local supplies are overwhelmed. Our thoughts are with the relatives.

To make long term matters worse the quake and accompanying tsunami ... ironically a Japanese word ... has renewed the arguments about nuclear power, thought by some experts to be capable of generating one fifth of world energy supplies in the near future.

Strategic Defense review won't fly!

Every organisation understands the importance of an effective strategy and that one of the key indicators of crises is the failure to meet its stakeholders expectations. As reports from Libya signal a rapidly deteriorating situation where protest dissolves into a civil war, the role of the British Armed forces and the Coalition's defence strategy is brought into stark focus.

Following the strategic review which seems to have been neither strategic or about the UK’s defence can we really feel that the Coalition approach to defence is providing support to businesses trying to deliver export growth to the UK in difficult parts of the world. Think of the emerging risks not just to Libya but to the Arabian Gulf states and North Africa, both during current events and going forward as nations struggle to find stability. How much further can this spread? What other opportunities to resolve old conflicts may arise? Where are the new safe havens for pirates?