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A messiah is not enough. To reshape t'world the US must first reform itself | Timothy Garton Ash
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Obama's foreign policy so far has had disappointing results. But if he made a shaky start, more blame lies with othersWhen was the last time you heard anyone enthusing about Barack Obama's foreign policy? When was the last time you did so yourself? O...
Bearing witness is a sacred trust | Timothy Garton Ash
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Every writer of reportage ought to learn from the Kapuscinski controversy. Creative non-fiction is a slippery slopeHad he lived a few years longer, Ryszard Kapuscinski might well have won the Nobel prize for literature. Although these things are shro...
Don't be afraid of a hung parliament | Timothy Garton Ash
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Ignore the doomsayers. The lack of an overall Commons majority can lead to strong and reforming governmentBritish voters must not be intimidated by an unholy alliance of currency traders and the Daily Mail. The pound is plummeting, we are told, becau...
The agonies of the eurozone reflect a far more significant hidden deficit | Timothy Garton Ash
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The spirit that once led Europeans into union has vanished, just as we now face the euro's widely predicted flawsSo Antigone had a part in this tragedy too. That's Antigone Loudiadis of Goldman Sachs, who arranged a complex currency swap deal t...
We need judges to investigate our spies, not spies to berate our judges | Timothy Garton Ash
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To keep us safe and free, a new government must set up a judicial inquiry into the entanglements of our secret servicesSo let us name them and shame them, these dangerous, complacent, self-righteous, wishy-washy liberals who threaten our national sec...
The sight of Ukraine's lumpen victor should stir the EU's own into action | Timothy Garton Ash
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Yanukovych's election is a startling historical turn, but the country can still have a more prosperous, free and European futureUkraine is not yet lost. Yes, it's a gobsmacking reversal that Viktor Yanukovych, whose election fraud in Ukraine's 2004 p...
Nuclear arms will soon proliferate. So here's a plan to scrap them all | Timothy Garton Ash
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The tipping point is close when every country will want to be another nuclear France. Changing our global course is vital'Peaceniks" is not the word that immediately comes to mind as you contemplate this array of smartly dressed present and former...
We Googlistas want a global debate on information freedom. Why are others so coy? | Timothy Garton Ash
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Davos: A new digital cold war is afoot. At stake is something much larger than just a rivalry between the western and eastern superpowersFour cheers for Google. Risking the loss of potentially huge long-term profits in the Chinese internet market,...
If Britain wants change that counts, there's an election it can vote in today | Timothy Garton Ash
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Ideological differences between the parties are hugely exaggerated. What matters most is to transform the systemCall it the Politician's Paradox. Democratic politicians must insist that their party deserves to win every election. But if one party...
Media-savvy designer Islamists must not distract us from the real danger | Timothy Garton Ash
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From Denmark to Detroit the threat of violence is ever present. Banning these showmen is not a clever way to tackle itShortly before one o'clock on Tuesday I was awaiting a friend for lunch in the Atrium, a cavernous Westminster eatery frequented b...
These protests should shame the west into a change of policy on Iran | Timothy Garton Ash
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Political change in Tehran is not just a moral matter. It's our best hope of achieving Obama's nuclear objectivesWhile the west has been on holiday, Iranians have again risked their lives to protest against an increasingly desperate, oppressive regim...
As threats multiply and power fragments, the coming decade cries out for realistic idealism | Timothy Garton Ash
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A foiled terrorist attack must not lure us back to simplistic illusions. Strategic co-operation between old and new powers is the order of the next decade if we are to tackle the big issuesAn Islamist terrorist caught trying to crash a plane over Det...
As at Auschwitz, the gates of hell are built and torn down by human hearts | Timothy Garton Ash
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A wrenching debate about antisemitism in Poland's past leads us, in the end, to ask questions about ourselvesBetween Hanukkah and Christmas, the sign over the entrance to the Auschwitz extermination camp is stolen. Polish police recover it and catch...
This parody of the nanny state helps neither children nor adults | Timothy Garton Ash
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A new agency is to vet one citizen in four to see if we are abusers. There is a better way to balance freedom and safetyI'm afraid that the government has not gone far enough in its efforts to protect our children. It is not sufficient for the n...
Sarkozy is half right: all Europeans must understand the Swiss mistake | Timothy Garton Ash
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What really matters is not minarets, but that we all, Muslims included, commit to the essentials of a free societySo Nicolas Sarkozy, responding to the minaret ban in Switzerland, admonishes us to practise our faiths with "humble discretion...
Obama has charted an Afghan course. Britain must lead the way on Pakistan | Timothy Garton Ash
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European states should not simply make foreign policy in reaction to Washington, but look to our own vital interestsObama has spoken, but we must think for ourselves. What are our vital interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan? It is our vital inte...
With this timid choice of leaders, the EU may have the faces it deserves | Timothy Garton Ash
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The holders of the new top jobs can perfectly represent a Europe that does not dare to project its values as a continentTintin and Mrs Tiggy-Winkle would command more respect on the world stage." This comment in a reader's letter to another newspape...
Obama's Beijing balancing act points to the new challenge for the west | Timothy Garton Ash
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There needs to be a real conversation about competing values. But the firewalls mean it cannot properly beginTo mark the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Barack Obama goes to Beijing. Europe is so then, China so now. And as global power sh...
Europe's next chapter starts now. It rests on looking beyond our borders | Timothy Garton Ash
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Monday's celebration in Berlin was a brilliant closure. The opening of a European foreign policy looks more shakyWell, they did it beautifully. Despite the rain, I found the official celebration of the fall of the wall in Berlin night a genuinely, ev...
Berlin's moment of freedom that turned world history
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"Twenty eight years and 91 days!" said the elated east Berliner I met walking up the Friedrichstrasse soon after the wall was breached. On the day the Berlin Wall went up, 13 August 1961, his parents had wanted to go to the cinema in west Berlin, but...
