How will the war in Ukraine end? In an election overshadowed by a grim climate of international instability, it is remarkable that the only candidate to seriously address this question so far has been Nigel Farage. Laying out Reform’s foreign …
Who will win a post-heroic war?
Neither the West not its enemies are prepared to fightSome 30 years ago, I coined the phrase “post-heroic warfare” to acknowledge a new phenomenon: the very sharp reduction in the tolerance of war casualties. My starting point was President Clinton’s …
The spectre of another Cuban missile crisis
When a four-ship Russian flotilla sailed into the port of Havana on Wednesday, US authorities were quick to downplay the event’s significance. We were reminded that Russia’s deployments were part of routine naval activity and that it’s not uncommon for …
Europe’s fate rests on Georgia
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the foreign policy of Georgia’s ruling party has been nothing short of schizophrenic. For years, Georgian Dream has been flirting with both the European Union and paradoxically with Moscow, Georgia’s age-old enemy which invaded the …
The betrayal of Ukraine’s occupied villages
Ukrainian villages hold a special place in the region’s collective imagination. Nikolai Gogol, one of Russian Empire’s foundational authors, established them as a favourite place of demons, witches and the undead. Today, they remain a haven for magical realism and …
Putin’s ruthless new plan to win
Over his 24 years in charge, Vladimir Putin has filled his cabinets with an array of mostly indistinguishable and eminently replaceable politicians. Some have lasted for just a few months in the upper echelons of the Kremlin machine, but the …
China is not the answer to Nato
The timing of President Xi Jinping’s visit to Belgrade yesterday was far from accidental: exactly 25 years before, Nato forces bombed the city’s Chinese embassy during Operation Allied Force, the two-and-half month campaign against what was then the Federal Republic …
Kandinsky was betrayed by Left and Right
Expressionism, Nikolaus Pevsner snootily pronounced, was “the art of the ugly, an heroic stylisation of the hideous”. Wassily Kandinsky, its most exemplary adherent, was taxed with the charge of producing “art for art’s sake”. There is, admittedly, some truth to …
Will David Cameron cause WW3?
It’s hard to imagine a better metaphor for the miserable state of UK politics than David Cameron flying across the Atlantic in the hope of convincing America to continue funding a bloody war on Europe’s doorstep — only to fail …
Should you watch footage of terrorist attacks?
On Friday evening, an X personality called Ian Miles Cheong posted a video of Isis terrorists marauding through the entrance of a concert hall in Moscow, calmly shooting to death scores of civilians in their path. I don’t follow Cheong, …
Is it time for a no-fly zone in Ukraine?
In his State of the Union speech last month, President Joe Biden told America that, while he strongly supports Ukraine against Russia’s aggression, he won’t have US troops deployed in Ukraine. “Killing Russians”, he has previously made clear, is a …
The true purpose of Russia’s fake election
There is a brutal irony to the fact that the Russian word for “elections” — vybory — literally translates as “choices”. In reality, this weekend’s “election” is, by democratic standards, no such thing. Russians will have no choice but to …
War didn’t destroy Russian football – Russia did
After Zenit St Petersburg won the Uefa Cup in 2008, beating Rangers in Manchester, the team’s coach Dick Advocaat strode proudly into the press-conference room, only for his phone to start ringing. He looked at the screen, seemingly about to …
Is Nato heading for nuclear war?
On Monday, Europe crossed yet another red line in its ever-escalating, no-longer-so-proxy war against Russia. In a hastily arranged meeting of European leaders in Paris — a response to significant Russian breakthroughs on the Ukrainian frontline over the past few …
Julian Assange is no fool
Earlier this month, the Russian dissident artist Andrei Molodkin announced that he would seal a number of masterpieces — including a Picasso, Rembrandt and Warhol — in a safe designed to destroy them with acid were Julian Assange to die …