Afghanistan
Trump and the troops
This article is in The Spectator’s January 2020 US edition. Subscribe here. Thanksgiving Day, the most American of holidays, found President Trump…
Neither ‘Mad Dog’ nor ‘Warrior Monk’, General Jim Mattis is a thoughtful strategist
General Jim Mattis ended his remarkable career as a four-star US marine general, and finally as US secretary of defense.…
In Afghanistan, Trump and the Taleban want the same thing – Americans out
‘Incoming! Incoming! Incoming!’ As morning alarms go, this one leaves a lot to be desired. Normally I wake up to…
The woman who wrote Afghanistan’s electoral laws lives on a houseboat in Bristol
By the age of eight Vaira Vike-Freiberga had learnt that life was both ‘very strange and very unfair’. Her baby…
An important story but not for the faint-hearted: Deadliest Day podcast reviewed
One of the advantages that podcasts have over the scheduled array of programmes is the space that can be given…
Female contestants in Afghanistan’s X Factor are dicing with death
The cheering fans, the dramatic Hollywood-style drum rolls, the excitable host all sound just like The X Factor or The…
The Lion of the Punjab: the short, brutish career of John Nicholson
‘I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion’, said Winston Churchill as prime minister in 1942,…
Why women are still fuming over my Desert Island slips
It never occurred to me, when I was interviewed for Desert Island Discs back in November, that I’d actually be…
Is forgetting a modern disease?
If you were to ask me by the end of the week what I had written about in this column…
It’s hard to preserve the primacy of head over heart while watching this doc about refugees
Anybody who wants to maintain a strong and untroubled stance against mass migration to Europe should probably avoid BBC2’s Exodus:…
Serial returns with a story of loyalty, resilience and punishment
The new season of the Serial podcast (produced by the same team who make This American Life) was launched last…
While we weren't looking, the Taleban surged back in Afghanistan
So many lives lost, a trillion dollars spent, yet the Taleban is resurgent
Islamic State is making its threats a reality
Isis could be on the brink of creating a terrifying new world order
Iran’s hidden war with the West – and what we can do to fight back
It’s up to Britain to ensure that the nuclear dealdoes not allow a greater threat to the Middle East
Why the Middle East needs more kings
What the Middle East needs is more constitutional monarchies
Niall Ferguson's biography of Henry Kissinger is a masterpiece
I have met Dr Kissinger, properly, only three times. First, in Cairo, in 1980, when, as a junior diplomat escorting…
The way we treat our heroes is a disgrace
Matthew Green, former Financial Times and Reuters correspondent, remains unimpressed by officialdom’s response to casualties who aren’t actually bleeding: Ever…
As the Hindenburg burned, you could hear radio news being born
It’s really hard to imagine now a world before 24-hour news, continually and constantly accessible in a never-ending stream of…
Portrait of the week
Home Tom Hayes, aged 35, a former City trader who rigged the Libor rates daily for nearly four years while…
Ali Baba and the 300 hostages: the kidnappers who prey on desperate migrants in Europe’s border badlands
The kidnappers who prey on desperate migrants in Greece’s border badlands
My dirty secret: I don’t care either way about state surveillance
The Snoopers’ Charter. I ought to care about this. I’m a sort of libertarian. I believe in personal freedom. I’m…
Was Genghis Khan the cruellest man who ever lived?
From the unpromising and desperately unforgiving background that forged his iron will and boundless ambition, Temujin (as Genghis Khan was…
The dark side of Delhi
When Sara discovers that her husband died in India, rather than being killed in Afghanistan as she was told, she…
Mercenaries could transform the fight against Isis – if we let them
Private military contractors have done wonders against Boko Haram. They could against Isis, too
Lesley Blanch: a true original on the wilder shores of exoticism
Lesley Blanch (1904–2007) will be remembered chiefly for her gloriously extravagant The Wilder Shores of Love, the story of four…
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