Stop the ‘Munich’ analogies: we’re not heading for a ‘great war’
Scarcely a week passes without some media pundit or attention-seeking historian warning that a Great War is nigh. As always, there are enough signs and portents around to make that ...
Articles
A little hope on climate change
It was technology that got us into this global climate crisis, and it will be technology that gets us out of it. Specifically, technology that lets us go on living ...
Will UK election be an extinction-level event?
“Why did he do it? We were all told it would be the autumn and we were hoping by then we could turn things around. It is very perplexing,” said ...
Crunch Time for Netanyahu?
It has not been a good week for Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu, chief decision-maker in the war in the Gaza Strip that has already cost at least 35,000 ...
South African election: the fall of the ANC
“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born,” wrote Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci in 1929. “Now is the time of monsters.”
Gramsci’s remark is being ...
Thought experiment: buying the Palestinians out?
Last week a despairing reader asked me if the solution to the ‘Middle East Problem’ might be to throw money at it: just buy the Palestinians out. Offer every Palestinian ...
The mother of all climate feedbacks?
“Just like this year, last year the heat wave extended from parts of India to Bangladesh and Myanmar, and all the way to Thailand. This year it went further east, ...
Arctic seals and coral reefs: every little bit helps
“Without extinction, there would likely be insufficient ecological ‘space’ available for new species.”
What? Is this person saying that extinction is a good thing? But what about the scarlet-throated goat-botherer? ...
Indian elections: fascism is not necessarily India’s future
Extreme nationalism always looks foolish or even deranged to those who have not caught the virus, but in India it’s now official.
In January, India’s Ministry of Defence ...
Iran retaliation: A pantomime crisis, not a real war
Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s ‘Supreme Leader’, is embarrassed and humiliated by the complete failure of his drone and missile attack on Israel, but does US President Joe Biden have the ...
There really are rules when it comes to borders
History is mostly a matter of dates, and the key date is always that of the last conquest. All previous conquests are then magically forgiven and forgotten.
This observation is ...
Netanyahu needs the war to continue
What should you do when your government assures you that everything is under control and says there is no need to buy generators, stock up on food and withdraw money ...
Russia: the really dangerous ones are sane
There are plenty of crazies in Russian politics who make bizarre claims about their country’s victim status (“the evil West made us do it”) and issue blood-curdling but implausible ...
Politics behind world’s three famines
There are three incipient famines in the world today, and politics is at the root of all of them. That’s not unusual, actually: famines are almost always political events.
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Haiti: the curse of history
It may seem that the violence and chaos that have gripped Haiti are finally being addressed. The unelected acting president nobody wanted, Ariel Henry, has resigned. An international police force ...
South Korea: Hyper-Competitive and Childless
There are enough people to go around: eight billion now, compared to two billion less than a hundred years ago. Fifty-one million in South Korea, compared to only twelve million ...
The utility of neutrality
Neutrality used to be a European thing, but it is now in steep decline. If it were an animal, we’d have to declare it an endangered species.
For hundreds ...
Nikki Haley: last woman standing
“I refuse to quit. I feel no need to kiss the ring,” said Nikki Haley defiantly. She was talking about Donald Trump’s ring, of course, because she is predicted ...
One day there will be statues of Alexei Navalny in Moscow
Vladimir Putin’s regime had been assassinating Chechen warlords, defectors from the Russian intelligence services and sundry wayward oligarchs for years, but its first political murder was the hit on ...
Turning Japanese
IT did not end well for Karolina Shiino, the young woman who won the title of Miss Japan two weeks ago. She has just handed her crown back after a ...
US and the Mideast: will mistakes of past be repeated?
In the immediate aftermath of the massacre of 1,140 Israeli civilians by Hamas terrorists last October, US President Joe Biden went to Israel and gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu some ...
The fascists are (probably not) coming!
‘Fascism is on the march everywhere!’ shrieked the headline on a recent think-piece by my least favourite foreign affairs commentator (who must remain nameless because I don’t want to ...
Launching rockets has become routine in the Middle East
Not all that long ago, attacking another country’s territory was still seen as a big deal. It was, in legal terms, an ‘act of war’, liable to have unpleasant ...
US elections: the trouble with events
Harold Macmillan, British prime minister about half a century ago, was once asked what was the greatest challenge for a political leader. “Events, dear boy, events,” he replied. The same ...