By Syd Barrett

The dire straits the Prime Minister is in, as he starts his seaside summer holiday, will no doubt turn his thoughts to a reshuffle to show he's still in charge.

Here at Defence Viewpoints, we care little about whether Margaret Beckett will make a dramatic return to the Cabinet as "Minister for the Today Programme" (for our overseas readers, an influential morning current affairs radio show, much listened to by those in the "Westminster Village"). Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who we see from time to time on the train from Newcastle to London, may well be the Leader-in-waiting, but is not relevant to our thoughts. And as to the various young guns whose names are bandied around, we think more about the Turks of the ATK than the young Turks of the Labour Party.

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By Simon Serfaty

Since the Cold War, and 9/11 especially, the United States and NATO, along with the states of Europe and their Union, have attempted in a series of separate documents to define a new strategic course. These have included NATO's Strategic Concept in 1999 (informally amended with the Comprehensive Political Guidance of 2006), the US National Security Strategy (NSS) of 2002 (revised in 2006), and the European Security Strategy (ESS) of December 2003.

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