Fiona Hill

When I first raised Scottish independence in Washington DC, people just laughed. I think they were haunted by the spectre of William Wallace aka Mel Gibson going around in a kilt yelling ‘Freedom’. Whenever I raised the prospect of a referendum there would be an audible giggle. You could tell people were just not taking independence seriously and were looking at anybody who raised it as being, in their view, a member of the lunatic fringe. That has totally shifted.

From almost every conversation I've had in the last year - with Chinese, with Indians, with just about anybody - the message is always the same... Europe can no longer be trusted. It seems to be moving from being a source of stability to a driver of instability.

I fear we’ll end up in an endless round of recriminations [between the United States and Russia]. What happened to Sergei Magnitsky is appalling, but the problem is all of the instruments we have are difficult to apply.

Pour Poutine, le G8 n'est pas vraiment une priorité et la relation avec l'Amérique non plus. Il est beaucoup plus confortable pour lui de faire sa rentrée de président au G20, où il est le leader informel des nouveaux pays émergents. Cette surprise correspond à son style, mettre tout le monde sur la défensive et maintenir l'ambiguïté sur ses intentions.

The excuse [for Putin missing the G-8 conference] could be legitimate. But on the other hand, maybe neither Obama, nor Putin, wanted to have their first big meeting, with Putin back as the president, at the [White House].