James Snell is a senior advisor for special initiatives at the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy. His upcoming book, Defeat, about the failure of the war in Afghanistan and the future of terrorism, will be published by Gibson Square next year.
Taiwan has lost another friend. Or at least it soon will, according to the president of Honduras, Xiomara Castro. She says her country will formally withdraw its diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, in favour of recognising China. If this happens, it will leave only 13 countries (and the Holy See) who recognise Taiwan as independent and
Tunisia has become a police state. This has not happened overnight. But it is still a shocking reversal in democratic development. This is the country whose former dictator was overthrown in a few days in 2011. His was the first scalp claimed by the Arab revolutions of that year. But where the tyrant Zine El Abidine
Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister has said the quiet part out loud when it comes to his country’s attitude towards Syria. Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud told the Munich Security Conference that the ‘maximalist goals’ of the past in confronting Assad’s regime were no longer tenable: [We are] going to have to go through a dialogue with the government in Damascus at some point, in a
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is in Britain for a surprise visit. ‘Freedom will win – we know Russia will lose,’ he told a joint session of Parliament in Westminster Hall this afternoon. This address is the first he has given in Westminster since a video message in March 2022, when the situation for his country was vastly grimmer
Natural disaster always worst affects those who have already lost so much. And so it is in Turkey and Syria, where a double earthquake has killed more than 1,900 people. Across both countries, there are widespread scenes of destruction: apartment blocks reduced to rubble; gas supplies cut off in the middle of a freezing winter;
The Islamic State may have been driven out of its capitals in Iraq’s Mosul and Syria’s Raqqa but that doesn’t mean it has disappeared. In the Philippines, West Africa, and most obviously in Afghanistan, the terror group is thriving. Isis’s tentacles have also spread to Pakistan. Over the weekend, in Peshawar, a terrible bombing took place in
Peace has never seemed further away for Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Several dreadful incidents recently have made that point sadly obvious. The most vicious was a terrorist attack: a horrific shooting in which seven people were killed and many injured outside a Jerusalem synagogue on Friday. We don’t know the organisational affiliation of the attacker,
At long, long last, it might seem that things are coming to a head. After a year of phony excuses, ridiculous claims and constant back-peddling, some of Nato’s bigger nations are planning to give Ukraine some fairly modern main battle tanks. Not very many. And not exactly soon. But I suppose it’s the thought that
It is winter in Ukraine. The ground is frozen and hard. Groups of soldiers on both sides struggle in the cold. The Ukrainians insist they have one advantage over the Russians: their soldiers, unlike mobilised Russian troops, have some effective winter clothing. Traditionally, armies stop moving in winter. They hunker down. It’s less true in
Gina Lollobrigida, who died this week at the age of 95, was known in the 1950s and thereafter for the kind of beauty which drove Italian men to self-destruction; and for performances in films which seemed to define a scrappy, energetic, self-possessed Italian womanhood. During her career, ‘La Lollo’ sculpted, took photographs, did a little journalism
When a man is in a hole, he is best advised to stop digging. When a German chancellor is in a hole, by contrast, he seems to think it his duty to chide others for failing to dig their own. So it is with Olaf Scholz, Germany’s increasingly ridiculous chancellor. Scholz lost a defence minister
After yesterday’s abrupt and humiliating departure of Germany’s defence minister, Christine Lambrecht, beleaguered chancellor Olaf Scholz has today appointed her replacement. If you were expecting a stellar appointment, prepare to be disappointed. If, however, you have followed Scholz’s pilgrim’s progress on the war in Ukraine closely, then you can enjoy the sensation of your low expectations
Difficult though it may be to believe, there is chaos at the top of the German government over its mishandling of the war in Ukraine. Germany’s defence minister, Christine Lambrecht of the Social Democratic party, has quit her post after the most extraordinary series of unforced errors. The war has brought all of this to
Bakhmut is not of immense strategic importance. It’s a backwater, empty of almost all civilian life, and largely in ruins. But the city is where Ukraine’s war of self-defence has been at its most intense for months. The defenders are suffering, under a hail of artillery fire and under constant threat of attack. But the Russians are losing more. Almost
Amid New Year celebrations, and a tide of high-profile obituaries, you might have missed something small and far away, but nonetheless significant. The opposition in Venezuela has dissolved its government-in-pretence. By 72 votes to 29, the country’s national assembly voted its parallel government out of existence. Juan Guaidó can no longer say that he is Venezuela’s legitimate president-in-waiting. Venezuela
Almost as soon as the war in Ukraine began, strange things started to happen in Russia. Buildings connected to the country’s military and its war effort caught fire, saboteurs were suspected – and occasionally caught, according to state TV – and recently, air bases quite far away from Ukraine have started to blow up. All
Shinzo Abe, Japan’s murdered former prime minister, would this week be especially proud of his country. At long last, and after years of protests and strife during Abe’s time in power, Japan has announced a reversal of its uncompromising post-war pacifism. Japan, its current prime minister Fumio Kishida has said, will now begin to rearm. What
Four people associated with the European parliament have been arrested in what seems to be the beginning of a major corruption scandal. The political career of Eva Kaili, a Greek politician and one of the vice presidents of the European parliament, has already been derailed. She has been suspended from office by the parliament’s president, Roberta Metsola –
Iran has announced the first execution of the current crop of protestors. Mohsen Shekari, who was just 23, was hanged earlier today after having been found guilty by a revolutionary tribunal of moharebeh, a crime which means ‘enmity against God’. Other protestors have been charged and convicted of crimes like fasad-fel-arz (‘corruption on Earth’) and baghy, which means ‘armed rebellion’.
Twenty-five people have been arrested by German authorities on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government. A failed coup attempt – and a series of raids involving 3,000 officers – seems like the sort of story that might happen in a far-flung part of the world, not the largest economy in Europe. But early reporting
