How could Israel let this happen? As footage of Gazan motorbikes pelting through holes in Israel’s “smart” border fence started to circulate, of paragliders descending on a desert rave, of entire families being kidnapped or butchered in their homes, that …
The West is losing the plot
Since the rise of psychoanalysis in the late 19th century, philosophers, psychologists, historians, and cultural theorists have all sought refuge in the comfort of so-called “narratives”. In university classrooms across the world, this nebulous term is now frequently deployed when …
How America weaponised the West
In the month that has passed since Emmanuel Macron issued his call for greater European strategic autonomy, two rival camps have gone to battle over its legacy. The first is populated by Atlanticists such as European Commission president Ursula von …
How Russia and China overtook the West
For the past year, Nato countries, led by the US, have strived to nudge the rest of the world into providing military aid for Ukraine and sanctioning Russia, in the hope of isolating the latter. They have, by and large, …
The demonic power of oil
For nine days in January 1901, mesmerised spectators on a hill in south-east Texas watched a deluge of oil erupt high into the air and descend back to earth. Nobody before had discovered oil in the volume found at Spindletop. …
Capitalism killed the American West
I spent a long time being told to read Bernard DeVoto before I got around to it. People who loved him often seemed surprised I hadn’t already read his histories. There’s a very specific type of person who tends to …
How Western elites exploit Ukraine
The war in Ukraine poses a palpable threat to Western democracies, but this has little to do with Russia posing an inherent strategic threat to the United States or its European allies. No — more so than the Russian state, …
Green hypocrisy hurts the poorest
Roughly a half century ago, rising energy prices devastated Western economies, helping make the autocrats of the Middle East insanely rich while propping up the slowly disintegrating Soviet empire. Today the world is again reeling from soaring energy prices; but …
How China ghosted Hollywood
Filmmakers often end up as propagandists. Hollywood’s biggest directors went to the front lines, cinematically speaking, during the Second World War. Luminaries like Frank Capra, John Ford and John Huston made Why We Fight films to rally a war-weary nation. …
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 …
Why we’ll end up eating bugs
It’s that special time of year when the global elites gather together at Davos. Or rather it would be, if it weren’t for Covid. Thanks to the Omicron wave, the World Economic Forum 2022 has been postponed.
But don’t despair. …
Why Biden has sacrificed Ukraine
Every January I think of eastern Ukraine. Wherever I am in the world, it’s never as cold as the winter months I spent there during the height of war between Kyiv and Moscow between 2014-2015. Technology stops working, your knees …
