Putin holds all the cards in Belarus September 7, 2020 One of the greatest problems in political risk analysis is that the heart so often gets the better of the head. Because we want a political outcome to happen, we think that it will. Karmic justice must apply to all situations in history, with the good rewarded and the bad punished. But this is to [...]
Pandemic hysteria is blinding us to the virus’s real risks August 31, 2020 I have long held off writing this column, as I well know it will lead to some hysterical responses. Nevertheless, the credo of any good opinion writer surely must be to be fearless, to fly in the face of received opinion if the cause is just. And there has rarely been a greater need for [...]
By ignoring the Civil War in Libya, the EU risks its stability August 24, 2020 The art of statecraft consists in large part of separating risks which cannot be tolerated from those which have to be lived with. This key political realist imperative is all but lost on the European Union. While EU leaders are focused on Belarus, which will remain close to regional power Russia whatever the outcome of [...]
In picking Kamala Harris, Joe Biden continues his successful front porch campaign August 17, 2020 To know some history, to comprehend the story of the past, is the invaluable guide in understanding the political present. For example, if I had a pound for every time it has been printed that the upcoming 2020 US presidential campaign is unprecedented, I’d be rich. I confess my first thoughts were also along these [...]
Lebanon’s greatest tragedy is its political class August 10, 2020 Following this past terrible Tuesday, it is easy to think about what happened in Beirut as a horrible act of God, of impersonal fate intervening to devastate this already crumbling country. But instead it is rage at Lebanon’s corrupt and incompetent political class that ought to be the dominant emotion. Following Tuesday’s gargantuan explosion — [...]
The duelling narratives that will define November’s US presidential election August 3, 2020 There is a theory behind every presidential campaign, a basic narrative as to why the specific presidential aspirant and the specific moment are met, why the candidate is uniquely gifted to help the country through its present moment of peril. Of course, more often than not, this amounts to nonsense. For every Franklin Roosevelt or [...]
A grown-up Japan marshals the world’s anti-China coalition July 27, 2020 Intellectual coherence has its advantages. While much of the western world has recently taken a holiday from history — as the US is weighed down by the melodrama of Donald Trump, the EU by the sleep-deprivation soap operas of its summit meetings, and the UK by profound confusions about how to respond to coronavirus — [...]
In allying with Iran, China signals the start of Cold War II July 20, 2020 To read the lion’s share of today’s headlines, you would think the western world is in its final days, a Rome tottering on the edge of the abyss. And yet geopolitically, for all our leaders’ unheroic bungling of the coronavirus pandemic, our primary strategic rival China has had a far worse innings. Overconfident President Xi [...]
Europe is no longer America’s sidekick when it comes to China July 13, 2020 With the death of the thrilling composer Ennio Morricone this past week, I have been thinking (and humming) a lot about the Spaghetti Westerns that made his name. For the spaghetti trilogy contains just about every human emotion it is possible to think of. Love, hate, revenge, loyalty, honour, cruelty, and power — they are [...]
Russia remains dangerous, but don’t confuse it for a superpower July 6, 2020 It is one of those news stories where the incident perfectly fits the larger political risk profile. During the past week, the New York Times reported that a Russian military intelligence unit paid bounties to Taliban-linked militants in 2019 to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. One imagines the reasoning for this was to decisively derail [...]
