Wars, it is said, make people conservative, since they are fought for an idea of home under threat. And yet their innate tragedy is that, even in victory, they usher in a world transformed. We are seeing this revolutionary fable …
Europe isn’t planning for peace
In a surprising reversal from the Oval Office standoff between Zelensky and Trump and the suspension of US military aid to Ukraine, Kyiv, late on Tuesday, announced its willingness to implement an immediate 30-day ceasefire — provided Moscow agrees to …
How Britpoppers killed patriotism
Are the Britpoppers okay? Britain’s distinctive post-boomer bulge generation, they of Jamie Oliver, the 00s London property boom, Posh Twee and “proper chips”, Bloasis and floral shirts and gentrifying Hackney, have gone bananas en masse.
Over the weekend, Trump and …
Europe’s reckless bid for victory
Donald Trump wants peace, now. Volodymyr Zelensky and his European supporters want victory, later. This is what the very public disagreement in the Oval Office on Friday was all about. Peace through victory — essentially the Second World War model …
The secret of Putin’s meat grinder
Vladimir Putin promised a lightning war — but almost three years after his invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s military is bleeding. The number of casualties, alone, is shocking. Even Trump has remarked on the consequences of Putin “grinding it out”. Since …
Angela Merkel: mother of German decline
“Merkel-Nostalgie” has swept a Germany grappling with war, a tanking economy and a collapsed government. The former German chancellor’s autobiography sold 35,000 copies on the day of publication, and Berliners queued for hours to have her sign their copies. As …
Will Putin escalate in Ukraine?
Putin’s nuclear sabre-rattling may be intended to alarm Western publics. But the course of the war has been shaped precisely by Western fear of escalation. In the frankest terms, Nato has not directly entered the war as a combatant because …
North Korea is ready for war
When Trump returns to the White House next year, he’d be wise not to ignore one of the obsessions of his first term: North Korea. For while the Kim regime has been prodded from the news agenda over recent years, …
Putin is no longer Russia’s saviour
At the start of this month, Kyiv’s exhausted forces seemed at last overwhelmed by their opponents’ superiority in manpower and firepower. But once again, they have defied expectations. The Ukrainian Armed Forces’ mass incursion into Russian territory has unfolded at …
Russia’s propaganda machine is failing
Throughout its war against Ukraine, the Kremlin has gone to great lengths to inseparably bind the identities of ordinary Russians to the conflict while also insulating them from its immediate effects. It was always a difficult balancing act, but Ukraine’s …
