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Great Britain, license to kill: The geopolitics of James Bond

November 30, 2012

What role should a post-imperial Britain play in the world? This question has dogged us since at least 1962, when the former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson made his infamous remark. Arguably, though, the new Bond film has an answer: Our role is to kill bad guys competently and with style. Throughout Skyfall, it […]

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 […]

Striking Pakistan

September 26, 2011

Since the September 13th attacks in Kabul, relations between Pakistan and the United States have become so bad that it is rumoured the baddies in the next Indiana Jones film will be the ISI, which is much more damaging to a country’s reputation than being listed as a state sponsor of terrorism. On Thursday, Admiral […]

Afghanistan: A timeline

August 12, 2011

I was surprised to discover recently that there is no comprehensive, publicly available timeline of the war in Afghanistan. This was also annoying, as it meant I had to construct my own. Here is what I have so far, but will continue to build it and hope others will contribute too. My aim is cover […]

Mistaking Libya for the world

April 6, 2011

There is nothing like an international crisis to make pundits think they are foreign policy experts, as I wrote last month; and a common problem with their “take” is that they believe the crisis tells us something troubling about the future. When Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, the media predicted a new Cold War. I […]

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 […]

Steven Metz: Islamophobia and the crumbling of American strategy

February 7, 2011

Although I don’t agree with the conclusions, this guest post by Dr. Steven Metz is an excellent critique of American grand strategy since September 11th and the corrosive effects which Islamophobia has had. He is the author of more than a hundred publications on future war, the emerging security environment, military strategy, defense policy, international […]

Crispin Burke and Courtney Messerschmidt: Shi Lang!

January 19, 2011

The rise of China and its implication on security in East Asia is conspicuously missing from the blog, but this guest post by Crispin Burke and Courtney Messerschmidt begins to correct this. It puts concerns about Chinese military technology into a more critical perspective, especially its new aircraft carrier. Crispin is a US Army captain […]

No closer friend, no greater ally

January 13, 2011

American readers, and French ones, and anyone who lives outside the United Kingdom might have missed that the Special Relationship ended this week. President Obama ended it with a shocking ‘kick in the teeth’, when he said the United States doesn’t ‘have a stronger friend and a stronger ally than Nicolas Sarkozy and the French […]

Napoleon or Wellington?

October 14, 2010

Xavier Rauscher and I like to indulge in some Anglo-French banter now and again, and tonight we happened upon the eternal question: who was better, Napoleon or Wellington? I personally believe Napoleon is overrated. He was a good commander with flashes of brilliance, but that was at the beginning of his career against armies unused […]

A reply to Melanie Phillips in defence of David Cameron and Conservative foreign policy

July 29, 2010

Melanie Phillips has written a blistering attack on the Prime Minister and his foreign policy, accusing him of everything from cowardice to incompetence but stopping short of sodomy. As crazy goes, the diatribe is pretty crazy. David Cameron is ‘dangerous’ to the national interest, as shown by his speech in Turkey on Tuesday. He praises […]

Two takes on Iran

July 23, 2010

To begin filling the unforgiveable gap on Iran, I recommend to readers these two discussions on the threat posed by it having a nuclear capability. I hadn’t heard of Tom Schelling before watching the video, so it was a wonderful introduction. Although he considers an Iranian nuclear capability an unfortunate but containable threat, he raises […]

Common values do not mean common interests

July 21, 2010

One of the popular misconceptions in international relations is that countries which share common values automatically possess common interests. It’s an attitude that is not only flawed historically but also dangerous as an influence on contemporary policy, like the attempt to create a ‘European’ foreign policy. Twenty-five nations with different customs, historical experiences, strategic cultures […]