Bashir al Assad's government killed another 90 civilians on Saturday, firing artillery shells into a village and following up with gunshot-to-the-temple executions. At least 32 children under the age of 10 were among the victims. If you have the stomach to bear witness to the Syrian people's grief, most major news outlets have posted pictures. 

The reaction of the Free World's leaders reads like a parody of fecklessness, but here are the actual quotes from the New York Times article:

In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton focused on what she described as the "vicious assault that involved a regime artillery and tank barrage on a residential neighborhood."

"Those who perpetrated this atrocity must be identified and held to account," she said in a statement. "And the United States will work with the international community to intensify our pressure on Assad and his cronies, whose rule by murder and fear must come to an end."

Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, issued a statement accusing Syria's government of committing "new massacres" and added that France would organize a meeting of the roughly 80-member Friends of Syria group as soon as possible.

The British foreign secretary, William Hague, said Britain was looking for a strong international response and hoped to convene an "urgent" session of the United Nations Security Council "in the coming days."

The New York Times explains that the Obama administration is working with Russia to ease Assad out of power, and that "Mr. Obama, administration officials said, will press the proposal with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia next month...." But it also reveals that Obama administration National Security Advisor Tom Donilon raised the same proposals in Moscow more than three weeks ago. The massacre in Houla is what we have to show for it.

I've just returned from a week of fishing at a remote lake in Canada, blissfully disconnected from just about every other concern in life except for what the fish were biting on. (For any fellow anglers among our readers, the answers are: not much action from the elusive muskie, but lots of action on Cisco Kids for northern pike including a 20-pounder I landed, Yamamoto Senko worms did well for smallmouth bass, and the reliable jig and minnow produced a limit every day of walleye). Our meals were the opposite of the Singaporean haute cuisine that Peter Feaver indulged in during his own recent trip, but for my money it's hard to beat the traditional "shore lunch" we enjoyed of fresh-caught fried walleye, fried potatoes, and fried onions, all cooked over an open fire on a deserted island.

After that northern idyll, my return this week to the United States was jarred by a litany of grim headlines: plummeting stock markets, an unprecedented credit-rating downgrade, yet another round of sovereign debt crises in southern Europe that further imperil the Eurozone, and violent rioting throughout the United Kingdom. Herewith a few thoughts.

The credit rating downgrade puts a painfully vivid exclamation point on my observation a couple of weeks ago about the Obama administration presiding over an America in decline. Like "leading from behind," there's just no way to put a positive spin on the word "downgrade." Yet the downgrade is but the latest symptom -- along with unemployment, growing debt and deficits, and declining markets -- of a more fundamental problem: President Obama has consistently failed to articulate a persuasive account of what drives economic growth. Even more than different priorities over issues like tax rates and loopholes, spending cuts, and entitlement reform, this failure is emblematic of the economy's persistent weakness throughout his presidency. As Jeb Bush and Kevin Warsh lay out in this compelling WSJ op-ed, the Obama administration appears completely devoid of any strategy for economic growth. More pointedly, President Obama has not demonstrated an appreciation for the essential role of business in capital formation and wealth creation. He seems to see the business community as an unfamiliar entity whose primary purpose is to generate revenues for the government, rather than an engine of job creation and improving living standards for American citizens. This is why so many commercial leaders -- from Fortune 500 CEOs to small business owners -- fundamentally mistrust this administration. After all, why trust a White House that fails to appreciate your indispensable role in economic growth, and repeatedly threatens you with higher taxes and increased regulations?

Yet at least Americans are not violently rioting in the streets and looting small and large businesses alike, which has sadly been the case in the United Kingdom. Back during his campaign, David Cameron often lamented what he described as Britain's "broken society" of fractured families, endemic welfare dependency, growing violent crime, and a burgeoning cultural coarseness and dissolution of order and moral standards. It was a grim diagnosis that generated agreement among the likes of Daily Mail readers but snide dismissal as Eton moralizing from other quarters. I observed much of this decline firsthand during my recent years of living in London, where traditional British order and decorum persisted in some pockets but was too often eclipsed by endemic social breakdown and national decline. The riots now display this to the world. On one level they are simply opportunistic hooliganism amplified by social media. But on a deeper level they are a toxic display of the nihilism and pathologies of the Broken Society. Scotland Yard, already reeling from its unseemly role in the recent phone-hacking scandal, has performed ambivalently in this much bigger test that cuts to the core of its legitimacy as the protector of order and safety. Meanwhile the Cameron government, which has always been perched awkwardly between its emphasis of a "new brand" of compassionate Toryism and its traditional role as the law and order party, now faces its own crisis of governance and identity. As the perpetually insightful Tim Montgomerie observes, after some shaky first steps the prime minister seems to have reasserted authority yet now faces a series of new battles that will do much to define his premiership.

One of the more interesting aspects of my recent two-year sojourn in London was getting to know British conservatism firsthand. The word "Conservative" in the British context is ambiguous in that it can refer to the party ("Conservative" with a capital "C"), the movement, or the ideological persuasion -- or sometimes two of the above, or sometimes all three at once. The commonalities between British and U.S. conservatism are many, and these shared convictions can also be found among conservatives across the Anglosphere, such as in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. These include commitments to free markets, limited government, the family and other mediating institutions in civil society, personal responsibility, robust national defense, and respect for tradition.

Yet on other issues, American conservatism is exceptional. There is very little in the way of a pro-life movement in Britain, for example, and even the most right-wing British Tory wags their heads in bemusement at the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Of course the exceptions and curiosities go both ways; there is little prospect of a grassroots movement emerging in the United States on behalf of fox-hunting, which still finds impassioned advocates in Britain, especially among Tories.

Amidst the commonalities to be found with conservatives on both sides of the Atlantic, there are diversities as well, not only between but among them. For example, there are vigorous debates within conservative camps in both Britain and the United States on numerous foreign-policy and national security issues, such as democracy and human rights promotion (a worthy endeavor or a fool's errand?), defense budgets (increase or curtail?), the Afghan war (vital national interest or quagmire?), and the rise of China (looming security threat or lucrative new market?). Regular readers of Shadow Government have likely noticed some of these debates being played out on our pages among our contributors.

In Britain, arguably the single most important website for British conservatives is the aptly-named ConservativeHome. Under the able leadership of Tim Montgomerie and his crack team, ConservativeHome played an essential role in the resurgence of the Tories in recent years. Combining original content, article aggregation, bespoke polling data, and candidate profiles, the site became a unique forum for debating conservative ideas while advancing the conservative cause. It continues to be an influential voice, and is regularly read by Parliament, Whitehall, 10 Downing Street, and in the British media and think-tanks. And yes, ConservativeHome has the exquisite good taste to link on occasion to Shadow Government posts, thus helping expand our readership in Britain

Following in the tradition of the Beatles, Monty Python, and David Beckham, ConservativeHome is now the latest in a distinguished line of British exports to arrive on U.S. shores. The U.S. version of the site was launched this week, and I encourage all Shadow Government readers to check it out. Its British roots notwithstanding, ConservativeHome USA is ably overseen by Ryan Streeter, a red-blooded American patriot living and working in the heart of the heartland, Indiana. (In full disclosure, Ryan is also a close friend and former White House colleague of mine, as is deputy editor Natalie Gonnella). It promises to be a vital new voice in the pantheon of U.S. conservative websites, and will be an important venue for airing (sometimes diverse) views on domestic and foreign policy, as well as serve as a platform for profiling prospective congressional and White House candidates.

Moreover, ConservativeHome will provide an ongoing link between American conservatism and kindred movements across the Anglosphere. All have much to learn from each other. For example, Tuesday's features will include some thoughts from British Chancellor George Osborne on lessons learned thus far from the ambitious British deficit reduction program. This might be of particular interest to the new GOP majority in the House of Representatives. Other upcoming features this week will include articles by Peter Feaver and yours truly highlighting front-burner national security issues that will confront the new Congress and prospective GOP presidential candidates -- and there will be references to recent Shadow Government posts that offer insight on these issue.

The Shadow Government team extends a warm welcome and congratulations to ConservativeHomeUSA on its launch and maiden week. Do take a look.

There's nothing like a sojourn on the beach in Mexico to catch up on the reading list, and my vacation this past week in Ixtapa provided a welcome occasion to read Tony Blair's new memoir. The book has already attracted much comment and generally favorable reviews, and for good reason. It is a thoughtful and engaging read, as far as political memoirs go. Though the writing is not terribly elegant, it is conversational and clear, and blessed with some nice turns of phrase.

On substance, the book provides a compelling account of the ten years that Blair led Britain, a decade of consequence that included military intervention in Sierra Leone, and wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. His accounts are often defensive, but then considering the criticism that Blair has endured, what might seem defensive can also be seen as a needful, well, defense of the record.

Even Christopher Hitchens, no naïf when it comes to detecting guile, finds the book a persuasive testament to the sincerity of Blair's convictions. Especially his aversion to tyranny and commitment to promoting liberty as a universal value. This may be credible to most U.S. readers, but it will meet with much more skepticism in Britain, where Blair does not enjoy the esteem that he is held in the United States. Many Brits still regard him with a jaundiced eye, a product largely of lingering hard feelings over the Iraq War.

The book's release last month generated headlines in Britain. There was the obligatory tut-tutting over Blair's accounts of his conversations and interactions with the Royal Family. But the real focus was on the plight of the Labour Party, particularly Blair's tortured relationship with Gordon Brown, and the ongoing existential anguish afflicting the party's search for identity (e.g. "are we New Labour, or Old Labour, or Reformed Labour, or Unapologetic Labour, or… ?"). Blair's deep and abiding commitment to his "New Labour" project pervades the book -- and this, as much as personality clashes or conflicting ambitions, accounts for his rivalry with Brown. Unfortunately, now that Labour has chosen as its new leader Ed Miliband (the Brown protégé) over his brother David (the Blair protégé), the New Labour project faces an uncertain future at best.

Perhaps most interesting for the U.S. audience is Blair's take on the U.S.-British relationship. He writes unapologetically of his clear commitment, even conviction, on the strategic priority of the alliance with the United States. It is always revealing to see the United States through another world leader's eyes, and in Blair's account, America really is indispensable, evidenced vividly by his entreaties to enlist President Clinton behind the Kosovo bombing campaign and eventually the credible threat of introducing ground troops.

Yet the relationship went both ways, and no world leader stood more firmly onside the U.S. during our day of need than Blair. It is bracing to read his remarks to the British people on the evening of September 11th: "We… stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from the world." Lofty rhetoric, to be sure, but rhetoric that Blair backed up with actions, even at considerable sacrifice by his nation and political cost to himself.

As he says in the book, "I believed in the alliance with America, I thought its maintenance and enhancement a core objective of British policy, and I knew that alliances are only truly fashioned at times of challenge, not in times of comfort." Blair also rejects the frequent charge that Britain's alliance with the United States has hurt its interests and global standing: "… our alliance with the US gave Britain a huge position. Those who thought our closeness with America was a problem in the rest of the world could not have been further from the mark. On the contrary, it gave us immediate purchase."

Yet as much as Blair makes a persuasive case for the shared interests and values that form the structural foundation of the U.S.-British alliance, his tenure in office also demonstrates the ineluctable role of personal leadership. The alliance flourishes under leaders committed to it, such as Clinton, Blair, and Bush. Absent such leadership, it drifts. Just look at the diminishing of U.S.-British relations under Gordon Brown and President Barack Obama, or the continuing questions it faces under Cameron and Obama. As Hitchens points out, most previous British prime ministers believed they faced a zero-sum choice between either closer ties with the United States or with Europe; Blair demonstrated that it was possible to maintain strong ties with both.

The book has its flaws. Perhaps the most significant is Blair's rather blithe treatment of the massive growth in Britain's domestic spending under his government. Yes, his New Labour brought some needed market-based reforms, more choice and competition to some areas of government. But it also oversaw an expansion of annual government spending on an unsustainable scale, from £243 billion to £403 billion.

This reckless trajectory continued under Gordon Brown, until the economic recession choked off the tax revenues from the embattled private sector, leaving Britain with crippling deficits. Now as the Cameron government tries to balance the nation's books with profound cuts in government spending, the already- stretched defense budget is not being spared, as announced last week (for two thoughtful takes, see these posts by my Shadow Government colleagues Kori Schake and Tom Mahnken).

These cuts unfortunately hinder Britain's ability to be a robust security partner for the United States. It would be a regrettable irony of the Blair legacy if his government's bloated domestic spending came to undermine his visionary commitment to the U.S. alliance.

On Monday, Britain's coalition government released its National Security Strategy, A Strong Britain in an Age of Uncertainty. On Tuesday, it released its Strategic Defense and Security Review, Securing Britain in an Age of Uncertainty. On Wednesday, it announced around $130 billion in government spending cuts over the next five years, the most severe cuts in government spending since World War II.

The National Security Strategy is a well-crafted document -- one that articulates enduring interests, identifies and evaluates risks, and sets clear priorities. In the process, Britain's new National Security Council examined a range of potential contingencies and decided that the gravest threats facing Britain are those posed by terrorism, cyber warfare, foreign military crises, and natural disasters.

Prime Minister David Cameron's government is to be commended for cutting government spending to rein in Britain's ballooning deficit. However, the British experience provides a cautionary tale of how social spending can crowd out defense. Cameron's campaign pledge to fence off Britain's hugely expensive and inefficient National Health Service (NHS) meant that other parts of the government, including the armed forces, were forced to bear the brunt of cuts. As a consequence, 42,000 British servicemen and defense civilians will lose their jobs so that thousands of NHS bureaucrats can keep theirs.

As severe as the cuts are, they could have been worse -- and still could be. Defense received an eight percent cut, while other parts of the British government were slashed by as much as 25 percent. Although the Royal Navy will scrap its flagship aircraft carrier and forfeit the ability to launch aircraft from sea until at least the end of the decade, Britain will launch a new carrier, one that will be equipped with a catapult to allow it to launch the naval variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. If Britain follows through with the plan, it will acquire a carrier that is more interoperable with the U.S. Navy than its current carrier. The Cameron government also committed itself to modernizing Britain's sea-based nuclear deterrent, but will reduce the number of launch tubes on the submarines as well as the number of warheads they will carry.

Still, one can't help but feel that the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defense and Security Review (SDSR) are further evidence of a diminution of Britain's role. They represent but the most recent sign of the Europeanization of Britain -- the emergence of a Britain that not only focuses closer to home, but also one that increasingly emulates Continental habits.

The SDSR notes that even with the cuts in the British defense budget, Britain will still meet NATO's target of devoting two percent of GNP to defense. That Britain now judges itself by that standard is disconcerting; Britain is, or should be, more than a super-sized Belgium.

A year ago I speculated on what a Tory foreign policy might look like. One thing that I didn't anticipate is that it might look so much like David Cameron himself. That is, not content to delegate the national security portfolio to capable ministers such as William Hague and Liam Fox, Cameron has emerged as a major foreign policy player in his own right. Whether a distinctive "Cameron Doctrine" in British foreign policy might emerge remains to be seen. What appears so far is an effort to reassert the U.K.'s posture on the global stage through building new alliances, repairing old ones, bolstering British commerce, and generating headlines through "straight talk."

Cameron's first weeks in office were heavy on domestic policy, marked by his proposed dramatic budget cuts and decentralizing National Health Service reforms. Although evoking outrage from the usual interest groups (especially public sector unions), such measures will be indispensable for returning the U.K. to fiscal solvency, restoring broad-based economic growth, and reigniting the U.K.'s moribund entrepreneurial sector. More recently, Cameron's global travels from the U.S. to Turkey to India have been marked by a series of brash statements. Whether confident assertions of national interest (defending BP in Washington), shameless pandering (criticizing Israel in Turkey), or impolitic yet true criticisms (denouncing Pakistan's ties to terror groups in India), Cameron is serving notice that he intends to be the main voice of British foreign policy.

Less noticed but equally interesting has been Foreign Secretary William Hague's tenure. Hague and Cameron seem well-aligned on policy though divergent on style. True to form, Hague has been systematically laying out a vision for the U.K.'s role in what he calls the "networked world" through a series of thoughtful speeches. Fortunately Hague seems to have eschewed his previous declinist rhetoric about the U.K.'s global posture; perhaps with the responsibilities of office comes a renewed commitment to U.K. leadership.

Herewith a few questions and question marks on the Cameron government's foreign policy:

• Where are the LibDems? The story in the weeks before the May 4 election was the stratospheric ascent of the LibDems; the story since they joined the government is a plummet just as rapid. As Max Hastings put it, Nick Clegg's plunge from a 72 percent approval rating to just 8 percent "makes Icarus seem a success story." On the other hand, Clegg's leveraging of one golden campaign week in May into a perch as deputy prime minister looks now like perhaps the shrewdest capitalization on an inflated asset bubble since AOL merged with TimeWarner. Meanwhile, on the question of governing, the LibDems have barely been seen or heard on foreign policy issues. This may change if they take a stand against funding for full replacement of the Trident nuclear deterrent.
• Whither Liam Fox? The potentially odd-man out in the Cameron-Osbourne-Hague leadership triumvirate is Defence Minister Liam Fox. Smart, conservative, and strong-willed, he is making his presence known but may have limited influence due to his distance from the Cameron inner circle.
• Will the overtures to India bear fruit? The kerfuffle over Cameron's Pakistan comments threatened to overshadow the significance of his visit to India. Leading a delegation of five Cabinet Ministers and numerous business leaders, Cameron made India the first and only Asian country on his itinerary -- and made clear that the U.K. seeks a broad-based commercial, security, and diplomatic upgrade in its relationship with India. Ironically, amidst the Obama administration's ongoing neglect of India, it may be the Cameron government that carries forward the Bush administration's legacy of elevating the strategic partnership between India and the West.
• What about Afghanistan? Cameron has tried to straddle fragile and diminishing public support for the U.K.'s Afghanistan deployment with the security imperatives of the NATO mission by announcing a withdrawal date of 2015. Even this, however, sends a signal of irresolution to British troops in theatre. In private conversations I had last week with several British Army officers, every one voiced frustration that a specified withdrawal date demoralizes their forces and encourages the Taliban enemy. (No surprise, they found the Obama administration's July 2011 drawdown date even more indefensible). The Afghan question has major implications for other U.K. concerns as well. For example, as Walter Ladwig has pointed out, Cameron's hopes for a partnership with India hinge in part on the U.K.'s sustained and successful commitment to a stable and peaceful Afghanistan.
• What hath Brussels to do with London? (or, What about the EU?) During the decade-plus of the Tory sojourn in the political wilderness, pundits incessantly tut-tutted about how the EU issue would forever bedevil Conservative efforts to regain power, as the party was wracked by internal divisions between its Euroskeptic and Europhile wings. Now into the third month of the Tory government (in coalition with the Europhile LibDems), EU issues have been on the back-burner. Will EU concerns stay simmering along as second-tier concerns, or will they re-emerge in some way as a first-order threat to government unity?
• And of course...what about the "Special Relationship"? Considering the various BP distractions, David Cameron's recent visit to Washington seemed to go well enough. The rapport between Cameron and Obama is much improved over the flaccid Gordon Brown-Obama relationship. Relations between Hague and Secretary Clinton are likewise cordial. Press conferences and photo ops aside, the real tests will be whether and how much the leaders come to confide in and depend on each other on a regular basis. And even more, how they act in the eventuality of an international security crisis -- such as a large-scale terrorist attack, or a military confrontation with Iran.

What does the ongoing BP oil spill imbroglio in the Gulf have to do with the war in Afghanistan? Probably not much, from the vantage point in the United States. But here in London this week, the two issues are being linked in some ways that should be worrisome for the Obama administration. 

Two particular stories have featured in headlines in the major U.K. newspapers this week: BP's plummeting share price from President Obama's rhetorical attacks, and the London visit by Secretary Gates and General Petraeus urging a continued strong U.K. troop commitment to the NATO mission in Afghanistan (followed by Prime Minister David Cameron's surprise visit to Afghanistan today).  Separate though they may be, the two stories are combining to produce one narrative in the minds of many British citizens: the Obama administration is attacking a pillar of our economy while urging us to sacrifice even more blood and treasure in Afghanistan. 

BP of course bears the most blame for the catastrophic spill, as well as responsibility for stopping it and remedying the damage. And in the first few weeks after the rig exploded, there was little sympathy for BP even here in the United Kingdom. Most U.K. media coverage initially focused on the horrific environmental damage being wrought as well as the Obama Administration's apparent insouciance as the oil continued to gush.

But now that attacking BP (or "British Petroleum" as Obama calls it, even though that has not been the company's name since 1998) has emerged as a core tactic in the Obama Administration's scramble to arrest their own falling political fortunes, they risk doing real damage to relations with a key ally and the largest non-U.S. troop contributor to Afghanistan.

As recently as two months ago, BP was Britain's largest company by market cap, and is a core holding of most British pension funds. In other words, it is not just BP executives or investors in the City who take a hit when BP's share price plummets, but also every average Brit who has any type of stake in a retirement fund.  Which is most of the country -- many of whom have also grown weary and skeptical of their nation's military role in Afghanistan. 

Last week had already demonstrated one unintended consequences of the administration's intensifying campaign against BP: the vocal attacks that drive the share price down also erode billions of dollars in market value and diminishes the resources BP will have available to pay for the damage, clean-up, and compensation. The White House needs to be mindful of not going too far and triggering a second unintended consequence of further eroding British support for their force posture in Afghanistan. Fortunately at the U.K. end, Prime Minister Cameron, at least up to this point, is trying deftly to strike a balance and not further escalate tensions with the United States either over BP or over Afghanistan.

Pursuing a unified grand strategy is always a hard task, but this situation shows even more acutely the challenges of linking domestic and foreign policy such as the Obama administration's National Security Strategy attempts to do. Last week it was American strategic interests in Asia that got short shrift, as Obama cancelled (again) his Australia/Indonesia trip to focus on the BP spill. This week it is the U.S.-U.K. relationship that is suffering, as a beleaguered White House tries to shore up its domestic political standing at the expense of relations with a key ally.

The final frenetic 24 hours of campaigning are kicking in before tomorrow's elections here in the United Kingdom. And there is a tenuous yet palpable sense that momentum has shifted in favor of David Cameron and the Conservatives. Whether this late surge will be enough to overcome a hung parliament and produce a Tory governing majority remains anyone's guess.

Five factors all broke in the Conservatives' favor over the past week. First, the feckless Gordon Brown made his open microphone "bigoted" voter gaffe -- and in one fell swoop further demoralized his Labour base while reinforcing the concerns of undecided voters that he is just another calculating politician whose public pandering belies a private condescension towards the populace. Second, Cameron acquitted himself well and by most accounts won the third (and most important) television debate. Third, because Brown's "oops, is this mic on?" moment highlighted voter concerns over unchecked immigration, it also shined an unfavorable spotlight on the Liberal Democrat platform's support for an immigration amnesty -- just when Nick Clegg's burst of fame was starting to lose its luster. (And you know you have an immigration problem when even immigrants themselves are complaining about excessive immigration). Fourth, already leading with their chin on immigration, the LibDems took another punch courtesy of the week's headlines about Greece's economic travails. The LibDem platform's support for Britain joining the Eurozone, already unpopular, looks even less appealing to voters reading about a 110 billion euro bailout of the profligate Greeks. Fifth, the Tories enjoyed almost a clean sweep in media endorsements, which still carry a lot of weight here. Besides the expected support of the Telegraph, the Sun, and the Daily Mail, the Conservatives picked up some pleasant surprises in backing from the Times, Financial Times, Daily Express, and the Economist.

The Economist is especially bracing on the dire state of the British economy:

But in this British election the overwhelming necessity of reforming the public sector stands out. It is not just that the budget deficit is a terrifying 11.6% of GDP, a figure that makes tax rises and spending cuts inevitable. Government now accounts for over half the economy, rising to 70% in Northern Ireland. For Britain to thrive, this liberty-destroying Leviathan has to be tackled. The Conservatives, for all their shortcomings, are keenest to do that; and that is the main reason why we would cast our vote for them.

As my colleague Alan McCormick points out in today's Wall Street Journal Europe, the UK's only prospect for a sustainable economic recovery will come from empowering private sector entrepreneurs, not further expansion of government. And it is here that prospects of a hung parliament -- and its accompanying gridlock, credit rating downgrades, weakened pound, and stagnation on economic reform -- may have chastened voters into staying with the Tories rather than flirting with a protest vote for the LibDems. Sometimes wishing "a pox on all their houses" can bring, well, a pox on all houses including one's own.

Yet even with these five favorable breaks, polls are still tight and the Conservatives may not run the tables they need in enough marginal seats to snag a majority. Thursday night will be a very late night indeed as the UK, and the world, watches the returns come in.

It is a good day to be a Liberal Democrat. Now before loyal Shadow Government readers think that we've completely jumped the shark, let me clarify: we are not throwing our lot in with the McGoverns, Dukakises, and Boxers of the world. Rather, it is a good day for the Liberal Democrats here in the U.K., a party generally unknown to Americans but which raised its profile in a big way with leader Nick Clegg's performance in last night's first-ever televised U.K. election debate.

The LibDems are a curious amalgam of a party with no precise analogy in the American context. The best I can come up with is a mix of Blue Dog Democrats, 1990s Perotistas, a twist of Ralph Nader, a dash of Ron Paul, hints of Dennis Kucinich and John Anderson, and a family tree going back to the Democrat-Republicans of the early 19th century. They are in general more economically centrist than Labour, but also to the left of Labour on other issues such as European integration and civil liberties. Though created just two decades ago in a merger of the Liberal Party and the Social Democrats, in at least some strains they trace their roots back to Gladstone.  

The rough consensus here in London today is that Clegg -- who is also known to Josh Keating's readers as "Christopher Hitchens's former intern" -- outperformed frontrunners Gordon Brown and David Cameron. (For an indispensable overview of coverage and commentary, check out ConservativeHome. And for those readers on coffee break who want to view a quick summary for themselves, check out this cheeky but, in a way, accurate 60-second version of the debate). Part of the story is that, as Stephan Shakespeare put it, Clegg won just by being there alongside the two main candidates. The visual effect was of three equally viable contenders. Clegg capitalized on this rhetorically by dismissing Brown and Cameron as "these two" and presenting his party as the untainted, fresh face of reform.

Yet while there are few if any plausible scenarios in which, even in a hung parliament, Clegg would actually become Prime Minister, his performance last night served notice that the LibDems will be a force in this election and might even be able to leverage some important Cabinet posts. Both Labour and the Conservatives have lost much of the initiative, and now need to reckon with LibDem arguments and candidates. Look for the Tories to even more vigorously dust off their slogan from the 1992 elections that "a vote for the LibDems is a vote for Labour." And look for David Cameron especially to target Clegg as much as Brown in the next debate on Thursday.

None of this is to say that either Cameron or Brown actually "lost" the debate last night. Both turned in respectable performances, and Cameron in particular had some strong moments, especially in his opening and closing statements. As a colleague of mine put it, the real winner is the British electorate, as this inaugural TV debate seems to have sparked renewed interest in the election and added a new dimension for the voters to evaluate. With two more debates to come (one on foreign policy, one on the economy), this story is just beginning.

What does all of this mean for the May 6 elections? Hard to say. Most polls continue to show a narrow but consistent Conservative lead. The big unknown is voter motivation and turnout. Overall voter cynicism and apathy still remains high, a result of the Parliamentary expenses scandal, economic malaise, and failure of any candidate to develop a truly compelling message. Some of Cameron's advisors will counsel him to tack even more to the center and toss some artful "me toos" in Clegg's direction. But as the sagacious Nick Wood argues, Cameron's better shot at victory will be to lump Clegg and Brown together and draw a clear distinction for the Conservative message. Last week's story of Tory opposition to Brown's proposed National Health System tax hike was a good start, and helped elicit strong support from the business community.

One of the U.K.'s top pollsters told me this week that voter motivation and likely turnout levels remain unusually hard to decipher even at this juncture. Will Labour's traditional bases in the industrial north be motivated to show up at the polls? Will Conservative voters, energized by a fresh slate of candidates and fed up with being out of power since 1997, stay hungry enough to win? The pollster said that not until the polling numbers of early next week come out -- reflecting weekend campaigning as well as any enduring debate effect -- will we see an accurate picture of the playing field.

What if -- perish the thought -- a Shadow Government contributor made a policy suggestion that turns out not to work? In the interest of self-scrutiny and blogosphere accountability, that just might be the case with this recommendation by yours truly from a couple months ago that President Obama build a close relationship with soon-to-be-elected British Prime Minister David Cameron. A recommendation I still stand by -- but only if Cameron actually does get elected. Which is now by no means certain, as the May 6th election date looms and UK voters begin to tune in. A spate of polls here in the UK in the last couple of weeks show the Conservative lead dwindling to the point of discomfort. Yes, the Tories are still ahead, but margins as low as 4 points are nothing like the steady lead of about 15 points that they had enjoyed for much of the past year -- numbers that it seems were driven more by voter disdain for Labour and Gordon Brown than by a genuine embrace of the Tories. And given that the electoral map is heavily biased towards Labour, as Gerald Warner points out the Conservatives probably need to win 41 per cent to Labour's 29 per cent to ensure an effective majority. Put another way, David Cameron needs to get 2 million more votes than Gordon Brown merely to draw even in Parliamentary seats.

Add to this the unprecedented television debates scheduled between Cameron and Brown which introduce a whole new wild card -- surprisingly, such televised campaign face-offs haven't ever before been done here in the land of Prime Minister's Question Time. While popular expectations are that the deft Cameron will have the upper hand, Brown might be able to play the underdog role to his advantage and pleasantly surprise just enough viewing voters to tip the scales. And playing (to put it in American terms) the Ross Perot-Ralph Nader-spoiler role, Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats just might win enough seats to be king-makers in a coalition government (though don't take the comparison too far -- Clegg is a more credible leader than Perot or Nader, and the Lib Dems are a viable third party). With all of this electoral uncertainty, even talk of a possible "hung Parliament" is becoming commonplace.

Even as President Obama's future British counterpart remains unclear, the overall U.S.-U.K. relationship is in rocky straits. Existing strains in the alliance were worsened by Secretary Clinton's awkward remarks about the recent Falklands imbroglio. Her words may have caused hardly a blip in the United States but dominated headlines here in London, and provoked another bout of British hand-wringing over alleged American disdain and the perilous state of the Special Relationship. Yet just when U.S.-U.K. ties are in serious need of sustained attention from each nation's respective head of government, on both sides of the Atlantic domestic issues are consuming all of the oxygen (e.g. the health care debate in the United States; elections and the economy in the United Kingdom). 

Letting this drift continue will only harm vital U.S. interests. Many of the front-burner international issues that the Obama administration faces -- such as Afghanistan, Iran, energy security, and the fragile global economy -- cannot be addressed without active European involvement, and the U.K. still remains the key linchpin for US ties with NATO and the EU. Not to mention that President Obama still needs to forge a real friendship with at least one and preferably several world leaders. His delayed-but-upcoming trip to Indonesia and Australia offers a chance to connect with, respectively, SBY and Kevin Rudd. The White House should add to this list the U.K. Prime Minister who emerges on May 6 -- whoever he is -- and sit down with him very soon thereafter for fish and chips, a pint of bitter, and a nice long talk.    

By Dov S. Zakheim

Kabul has changed in many ways since I was last here in early 2004. Traffic is impossible at rush hour; there are many more signs in English; more shops are open. And the city has become a military citadel -- the military bases have grown, security precautions have been ramped up significantly. Parts of the city look like an expanded bunker.

Troop morale, including among allied forces I spoke to, remains high. There weren't many among the troops here who heard the speech -- there is a nine and one half (yes, one-half) hour difference with DC time. All agree, however, that President Obama made the right decision regarding an additional troop surge. As one officer put it, it was important that the president supported the commander on the ground, as, it appears, most troops here do.

But some of those I spoke with, military personnel and police trainers, both Americans and allies, men and women, are deeply troubled by Obama's announcement that troops would withdraw by July 2011.

A Canadian and Brit (female) both felt that the announcement could undermine their mission. A young American soldier (male) could not stop talking about the negative impact of the announcement. Two American officers, one male and one female, both agreed that the Taliban now have an incentive to "wait us out."

I have no doubt that unless the administration clarifies what it means by its statement regarding withdrawal, the announcement will have a serious, and negative, impact on morale here. And that would be unfortunate. Our forces, and those of our friends and allies, do not expect to "transform" this poor backward country. But they are determined to leave this place only when Afghanistan is safe and stable and not a moment sooner. They need to be reassured that this mission is intact and that their political masters intend to see it through.

MASSOUD HOSSAINI/AFP/Getty Images

By Will Inboden

A default conversation starter in political and media circles here in London goes something like "So, what will the Conservatives actually do once they take power next June?" (the assumption being that victory is inevitable; at the least very likely). For all of David Cameron and the Conservatives' political success in becoming poised to win nationwide elections, their policy priorities remain elusively vague. This is certainly true on domestic policy, but even more so on foreign policy, which remains an enigma to many British observers. The politics of this are understandable. Why spell out specific policies which might elicit criticism and turn off some voters, especially when Gordon Brown's manifest governing failures make almost any opposition party look good in comparison? 

Yet how Cameron and his team will actually conduct British foreign policy will do much to define their governing success or failure. Moreover, the UK remains America's most important ally, and what kind of partner a Cameron government would make is (or should be) of considerable interest to the Obama administration. Here are some observations on a potential Tory foreign policy:

1. No Sudden Moves. The main thing that jumps out about a Tory foreign policy is that nothing jumps out. The Conservatives have not spelled out any substantial changes of course from the current UK global posture and priorities: stay close to the US; cautious linkage with Europe; rhetorical homage to multilateral institutions; a wariness towards Russia; ambivalence about Afghanistan; a polite increase in economic pressure on Iran; and general encomiums about development, democracy and human rights, and free trade. Not much here that Gordon Brown's government would disagree with. The Tories even want to avoid giving rhetorical offense, hence their description of their foreign policy as "liberal Conservative." A phrase which, to American ears, sounds as incoherent as "free market socialist", but is at least plausible when Cameron explains it: affirming universal rights and freedoms yet mindful of human frailty and skeptical of utopianism.

2. What about the Great Powers and Grand Strategy? Tory statements on the great powers and grand strategy are thus far generally anemic. Take Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague's major foreign policy address last month on a Conservative foreign policy. A grand vision, and the great powers, were both either absent or at best at the margins. There was a discussion of bilateral irritants with Russia, and a nod towards improving ties with India, though little appreciation for India's dramatic trajectory as a democratic power in its own right. Elsewhere on Asia, Hague showed some ambivalence about China, and barely mentioned Japan -- a worrisome oversight of the world's second largest economy. Germany and France only show up in the context of reforming EU processes, not as powers in their own right. Also thus far lacking among Tory leaders is any substantial geo-strategic analysis of the state of the world. There are the usual platitudes about globalization, the challenge of failing states, balancing interests and ideals, etc. But there is little of sophistication said about the underlying shifts in balances of power, the tension between the nation-state and sub- and trans-national actors, the salience of ideology, or the tectonic forces of history.

3. Process, Process, Process. Perhaps the most specific Tory policy commitments are about administrative process, specifically to establish a National Security Council (based on the US model) to coordinate the activities of the various ministries, and to launch a national security review process modelled on the new US Quadrennial Development and Diplomacy Review. Both are sensible steps, especially since ineffective processes can easily derail sound policies. But the prominence of process reforms in Tory statements inadvertently reveals the paucity of other substantial new policy ideas.

4. Diminished Resources, Declining Power. Tory foreign policy statements include repeated acknowledgements, both implicit and explicit, that the UK is a declining power with diminishing resources and influence. In Hague's words, "looking a decade or two ahead, powerful forces of economics and geography elsewhere in the world will make it harder for us to maintain our influence... Britain stands to lose a good deal of its ability to shape world affairs." This comes from a combination of Britain's century-long decline from its global power status, and the more recent budget shocks caused by the economic crisis. Yet there is the risk that British decline becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, or an excuse for maintaining domestic welfare spending at the expense of national security needs, or for passivity in international politics. To his credit, Hague makes clear that the Conservatives will work to arrest this decline and try to maintain British power and influence, though with an inescapable sense that world forces are aligning elsewhere.

5. Ambivalent about Aid; Anemic on Trade. The recent Tory Green Paper on development reaffirms the dubious commitment to devote .7 percent of GDP to overseas development aid. "Dubious" because this number derives originally from a public relations campaign and not a strategy, smacks of the old and discredited massive budget transfers approach, when what is really needed is a combination of more effective aid giving and a more robust focus on business enterprise as the only sustainable driver of growth and enabler of human capital. Fortunately elsewhere the Green Paper does just that, and also focuses on making aid monies more accountable for results and more tied to governance reforms. On promoting free trade, the Tories need to show not just lip service but leadership, particularly against the prevailing global climate of protectionism.

6. What about jihadism? The Conservatives generally display a clear-eyed understanding and resolve about the jihadist threat. Cameron has spoken out eloquently in this regard. Yet perhaps the most bracing discussion of jihadism comes not from a foreign policy official but from Michael Gove, the Shadow Education Secretary, whose book Celsius 7/7 (the title a rebuttal to Michael Moore's scurrilous Fahrenheit 9-11) places Islamism alongside other totalitarian ideologies such as fascism and communism, and who may exert more influence on national security than one would expect from an education official. Cameron and his team will need to be more specific and more consistent in placing the Afghanistan mission in the context of the conflict with global jihadism, especially if it means bolstering their troop deployment amidst declining public support.

7. America (Still) Sets the Agenda. One gets the inescapable sense that British Conservatives (like Labour) still look to the United States to set much of the foreign policy agenda, irrespective of which president occupies the White House. On policy, Cameron and Hague peer towards American leadership on front-burner issues such as Afghanistan, Iran, and the Middle East Peace Process, as well as relations with China or strategic shifts such as the ill-fated "reset button" with Russia. While Cameron has made a clumsy effort to put some rhetorical distance between the US and UK with his call for a "solid but not slavish" relationship, all serious signs from the UK side are that the Anglo-American relationship would continue to flourish under Conservative leadership. How the Obama administration would respond remains to be seen; will Churchill be welcomed back into the Oval Office?

Even amidst the vagaries and uncertainties, in the overall measure the Tory foreign policy team, particularly Hague and Liam Fox, seem to possess wisdom and gravitas. Moreover, there are not any Tory leaders or policies that elicit significant concern -- there is nothing even close to a latter-day Lord Halifax in this Shadow Cabinet. Yet nor are there any Conservative ideas yet advanced that seem compelling in the face of the profound challenges of today's world, or that inspire hope for a landmark new era in British foreign policy. This may yet come -- often a leader's convictions and capabilities do not emerge until in the crucible of power, and it is events still unforeseen that will define the Tory tenure. For now, one hopes that Conservative leaders are studying up and thinking carefully about Britain's role in the world, even if they are not saying much.