Fifty years ago, the world was put on notice that infinite economic expansion on a finite planet is a recipe for disaster. It came in the form of The Limits to Growth. It wasn’t our only warning. During the heady …
Putin has secured a Macron victory
Let’s call them “The Three Moscowteers”. Until Russian bombs and rockets fell on Ukraine last week, three of the leading candidates in the French Presidential elections were enthusiastic supporters of Vladimir Putin. Between them, Éric Zemmour, Marine Le Pen and …
Europe must prepare for war
Beregsurány, Hungary
At dusk on Hungary’s Beregsurány border crossing with western Ukraine, a small, but constant flow of displaced people was making its way across the border. They were mostly women, children and old men: Ukraine has reportedly banned men …
Sanctions won’t save Ukraine
Unsurprisingly, the West has decided it won’t send its sons and daughters to die for Ukraine. Instead, it hopes to cripple Russia with economic sanctions. Will such measures bring about the end of the Russian invasion? Will Vladimir Putin scuttle …
The Ukraine crisis started with Suez
Oil prices are surging. Brent crude has broken through the $100 per barrel mark — the highest level since 2014. And this could just be the start of a new oil price shock.
Russia is the world’s second biggest exporter …
Vladimir Putin’s dangerous madness
“He’s lost his fucking mind.” It’s Monday night, and I’m speaking to my friend, the American-Ukrainian author Vladislav Davidzon. We have both just watched Vladimir Putin’s televised speech from the Kremlin, and he — like Putin — is no longer …
We deserve better than these weaklings
Vladimir Putin is many things. To Boris Johnson, he is “irrational”. To Joe Biden, he is “a killer”. To Barack Obama, he is the “bored kid at the back of the classroom”.
I suspect that Putin is all of these …
The liberal order is already dead
In the summer of 1990, I stood where the wall had been and wondered at what had happened to Europe. I wasn’t alone: the rest of the city, the rest of the continent, was wondering too.
I was 18 years …
Why the West fell for Putin’s bluff
“Russia says some troops returning from Ukraine border,” blasts the update from the BBC. My phone buzzes feverishly: WhatsApp and Facebook ping; Twitter DMs light up my screen; Signal messages come in from Ukraine and Russia. It will only get …
How Europe’s hypocrisy enables Putin
Almost a year before Putin closed in on Ukraine, British policymakers saw the whole thing coming. Russia would become “more active around the wider European neighbourhood,” stated the Government’s 2021 Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy. Presented …
The Medicis Knew How to Level Up
What’s the point of levelling-up? The government’s white paper on the subject was published yesterday — to less than glowing reviews.
But there’s a school of thought that its authors were doomed from the start. If you believe that geography …
The rise of Europe’s fake populists
After seven inconclusive rounds of voting, on Saturday the Italian parliament re-elected Sergio Mattarella as the country’s president and official head of state. It didn’t come entirely as a surprise. As I noted on UnHerd, the two most likely winners …
What Ukraine can learn from Israel
Almost eight years ago I watched a Ukrainian teenager lob a can of Mojito Royce Ice into a ditch and had the first stirrings of what the future might hold. It was May 2014, and I had travelled to the …
Putin’s next move
A couple of weeks ago, in a biting sleet wind, I visited the graveyard of the tiny village of Bohoniki in Poland’s far north east, home to Poland’s minuscule Tatar Muslim minority, descendents of the Mongol Golden Horde. On the …
Putin has history on his side
If you set off from Kiev and drive east, heading across the flat fields of central Ukraine, after about four hours you’ll come to a city called Poltava. By post-Soviet standards it’s not such a bad place, with a sleepy, …