Us politics

In a culture war you can’t be too picky about who your friends are, even less your celebrities. The stars never come out for President Donald Trump, not during his campaign and certainly not at his inauguration. Where President Obama danced an elegant waltz while Beyoncé sang At Last and Stevie Wonder, Puff Daddy and Sting looked on, Trump’s big moment was accompanied by the crooning of Erin Boehme (me neither). Suddenly, things have changed. Kanye West – the rapper whose global celebrity is still juggernaut-sized despite not having released any decent music since 2007 – has done the previously unthinkable: he’s started tweeting pro-Trump messages. Unsurprisingly, West’s tweets – which have included a picture of himself wearing a Make America Great Again cap personally signed by the

People are expressing bemusement that Presidents Trump and Macron should get on well, since they seem such different people. Surely a clue lies in their shared title. They are the only important executive presidents in the western world, so they have that particular combination of real power and ceremonial pomp which is rightly denied to prime ministers. They love it. Besides, they are not so different, though M.Macron is Gallicly suave and Mr Trump is Yankee brash, and the former is small and thin, the latter neither. Both seem to be egomaniacs who believe in and embody führerprinzip (though luckily neither leads a country which gives it anything like full

Twenty-one years ago the sun finally set on the British Empire with the handover of Hong Kong. Now, the sun is setting on what is known as the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States. It would be easy to blame Brexit for London’s increasing irrelevance in Washington. After all, the U.S. foreign policy establishment has been rapidly pro-European Union since Henry Kissinger supposedly said that Americans needed to know who to call if they wanted to call Europe. Since then, when a president wanted something from the Old World the British prime minister was their helpmate. There is no question that France has manoeuvred to fill

‘The whole of the Balkans,’ Otto von Bismarck said, ‘is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.’ He was right, until he was wrong. Times changed, and so did the map. In 1914, with Bismarck gone and no one to restrain the Kaiser, terrorism in the Balkans sparked a world war. How much of Iraq was worth the bones of the thousands of Americans who died in Iraq? Only in the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq did the United States turn an enemy state into an ally. How much of Syria is worth the bones of a single US Marine? None of it, because time and the map

In his inimitable fashion, President Trump has put Russia on notice that the era of playing kissy-face with the Kremlin has come to an abrupt halt. “Get ready Russia,” he announced. It’s bombs away for the Trump administration. The Bolton doctrine has now become the Trump doctrine. Trump’s tweet is being decried as taunting Vladimir Putin but that is what he does best. Trump is turning foreign policy into a game show, complete with real warfare. Maybe he will conduct Twitter polls asking where he should bomb next. Putin, you could say, has run into his doppelgänger and then some. None of this should really come as a surprise. Trump

Donald Trump has promised Syria’s bloody regime that it will pay a ‘big price’ for the chemical weapons attack in eastern Ghouta, which left dozens dead. And many agree Bashar al-Assad should face the consequences of his appalling actions. But the United States – and the West – would do well to stop and ask themselves a question before they rush in: what are they actually hoping to achieve? After all, the United States’ approach to Syria and its pattern of failed strategies does not inspire much confidence. The US has pursued three distinct policies in the country over the last five years: its diplomatic process was designed to lead to a post-Assad

Oh America, what have you done to your kids? Consider David Hogg, the 17-year-old survivor of last month’s massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and now omnipresent media agitator for tighter gun-control laws in the US. That young Mr Hogg’s instant reaction to being criticised by a news anchor was to whip up a virtual mob to try to have her sacked is a terrifying testament to the new intolerance among America’s young. We are starting to see what the cult of self-esteem and the ideology of the Safe Space have wrought: a new generation that cannot handle criticism; which is positively allergic to divergent views;

John Bolton – owner of the finest moustache in American politics since Teddy Roosevelt – has been appointed Donald Trump’s new national security adviser. He replaces the outgoing HR McMaster, a veritable survivor who managed to last 395 days at the White House. That’s two terms plus a recess appointment in MAGA years.  Hysteria is now the default mode of American politics so it was inevitable that Bolton’s appointment would be reported like a newly discovered post-script to the Book of Revelation. Even so, we should try to gain some perspective on the man who will be guiding President Trump’s national security policy (to the extent Trump has a national