Afghanistan
What the withdrawal from Afghanistan says about us
When the Secretary General of Nato announced last week that all alliance troops were to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, it…
Has Britain learned from its failures in Afghanistan?
As the Americans prepare to leave Afghanistan, and in the UK we hold our own Defence Review, should we not…
The British army in the 21st century under scrutiny
In his history of the Pacific War, Eagle Against the Sun, Ronald Spector described the state of the US army…
The wars go on
America’s longest war has just entered its 20th year. The US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to overthrow the Taliban…
Joe Biden’s endless wars
In just over a week, the Empire hopes to strike back. Joe Biden personifies the foreign policy of endless war…
Pompeo: Biden will give ‘hundreds of billions of dollars to a theocratic, corrupt regime’
Washington DC Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned on Monday that if Joe Biden wins the November elections, an incoming…
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…
