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foreign affairs in strategic context
Browsing All Posts filed under »India«
Sykes-Picot is not to blame for Syria
For many in the Arab world, the Sykes-Picot Agreement is what the Yalta conference was for many conservatives in the United States during the Cold War. It is a betrayal of a people seeking freedom, a damning indictment of Great Power politics, and the source of all the problems in the Middle East. As with […]
From the Archives: Civilization III
June 12, 2012
Daniel Knowles of the Telegraph wrote a great piece on the video game Civilization today, which I used to play constantly before I went to university. The following is an account I wrote of a scenario I played in August 2007 (it was the day before I received my A Level results, so I had […]
Can democracy save us from Pakistan?
December 14, 2011
British policy in Central and South Asia is in a bit of a bind. We want stability in Afghanistan, a special relationship with India, and have signed up to a strategic partnership with Pakistan. The problem for us in achieving our goals in the region is that the latter two see a stable Afghanistan as […]
Ellis of Benghazi!
August 16, 2011
This letter, which has been classified for fifty years, sheds a fascinating light on British foreign policy in the early 21st Century and the career of Lord Litherland (more popularly known as “Ellis of Benghazi”…) 16th August, 2011 To the Rt. Hon. William Hague MP, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs My dear, […]
Gaddafi, ‘threat’ and the art of seeing behind hills
April 1, 2011
I have kept quiet about Libya since the intervention began, as I felt it’d be better to wait for things to go pear-shaped and then sing the ‘I told you so!’ song. Facebook has been handy for venting my frustration, however, and last night I asked if there was any proof to the claim that […]
Making grand strategy
November 11, 2010
How do we make grand strategy? Jason Fritz wrote a piece on this yesterday, asking if good grand strategy needs an enemy. He uses Winston Churchill as inspiration, who argued in his memoirs that a theme throughout British history is focusing our efforts on resisting great existential threats. That has become ‘somewhat useless’ as a […]
Ellis and Rauscher on Europe
October 17, 2010
I shouldn’t argue with Xavier Rauscher as I’m expecting him to write something for the blog, but we all have to do what we feel is right in our hearts. Today, we have been arguing about Europe. Like most of the world, I tend to treat the European Union with contemptuous indifference; like any Frenchman, […]
Up to a point, Lord Copper…
August 24, 2010
Tim Montgomerie, the editor of influential blog ConservativeHome, has written an article in the London Times today (£) defending George W. Bush and his legacy. He credits the president with many deserved but underrated achievements, from Africa and his outreach to moderate Islam to a burgeoning special relationship between India and the United States. ‘The […]
To be bold…
August 1, 2010
Melanie Phillips is not the only conservative pundit to criticise David Cameron for his recent bluntness about foreign affairs; he has also been censured by thoughtful Tories like Charles Moore and Dominic Lawson. The problem that both men had with the Prime Minister’s remarks is that he was telling his audiences what they wanted to […]
Looking for the ‘grand strategy’ in an Anglo-Indian partnership
July 26, 2010
The Prime Minister is going to India this week, heading a large team that includes Cabinet ministers and leading companies. ‘[It] is likely to be the most heavyweight British delegation to the country since the Raj came to an end’, according to one report. George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, made a similar point […]
August 16, 2012
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