Talking about nuclear war used to be taboo. Even during the Cuban Missile Crisis, both Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy refused to invoke the idea of it. But the story of 21st-century international affairs is, in certain regards, one …
Feudal overlords still rule the world
As far as “world order” is concerned, the future may resemble the pre-modern past. The characteristic political institution of modernity is the nation-state. But before the era of European nation-states was inaugurated in Westphalia in 1648, Europe and much of …
Russia’s 18th-century war
Every war must end, but no war need end quickly. Neither world war makes the top 10 in longevity. The nearest parallel to the Ukraine war is the Dutch War of Independence (1568–1648), fought between a smaller but more advanced …
Will Putin’s gamble pay off?
“Let that motherfucker send as many slaves as he wants. It won’t make any difference. We will send them back to Russia in boxes, like we did to the ones he sent already.”
“Ivan” pauses. He is involved in civilian …
Can Europe survive the age of strongmen?
The latest military assault by Azerbaijan’s oil-rich dictator Ilham Aliyev on tiny, democratic Armenia places the European Union, once again, in an awkward position. On the one hand, as EU leaders never cease to remind us, the continental bloc stands …
Why the West should have more kids
Kristina Ozturk is about as far from the model of Soviet motherhood as can be imagined. A 25-year-old former stripper, she and her husband Galip have been farming out their foetuses to surrogates to allow them to have 22 children …
Why Putin can’t capture Kherson
When I lived on Kyiv’s main boulevard, Khreschatyk, in 2014, I often wondered what it would be like to see Russian tanks rolling down its centre. Last week, I found out, after residents sent me photos of the Ukrainians parading …
Suwalki: the most dangerous place on earth
“Outside a war zone, Suwalki is probably the most heavily armed region in the world,” the Polish anarchist explained. I had just told him I was travelling there; he responded with a grimace. The Suwalki Gap — a 100km stretch …
The fate of Europe lies in the steppes
On the road between the frontline cities of Sloviansk and Bakhmut, in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, three stone statues stand mutely by the side of the road, observing the coming and going of military traffic with impassive detachment. Known as …
Vladimir Putin’s fascist fetish
This weekend, 150 days will have passed since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and started an all-out war that his flunkies assured him would last no more than three days. News from the ground is mixed. On the one hand, Russia …
Our Russia strategy has backfired
Whatever the origins of the Ukraine war, the West and Russia are now engaged in a broader confrontation that is not confined to the military struggle: the war has become a competition in pain-tolerance.
This is, as Thomas Schelling wrote, …
Refugees could weaken Russia
On the evening of 24 August last year, Karin Garretsen and her 10-year-old son rode their bicycles to the sprawling army camp on the outskirts of their village in the Dutch countryside. Some Afghans who had fled the Taliban takeover …
Kyiv’s war for independence
The square is an ocean of black and green tents flying yellow and blue flags. Their canvas openings flutter serenely in the breeze amid surroundings of organised chaos. Violence has come to this place. Torn up paving stones lie in …
Severodonetsk will decide Ukraine’s future
More than 100 days on, the fate of Russia’s campaign to capture the entirety of the Luhansk region still hangs in the balance. If the whole Luhansk region falls, the rest of Ukraine’s east may very likely follow. Both the …
Putin’s war is just beginning
A hundred days ago, Putin did what he was always going to do: press the red button on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. While US and British Intelligence warned an attack was imminent, much of the world was shocked by the …