The allegory is one in which a scorpion depends on the frog for its passage across a flooded river, by hitching a lift on the frog’s back. The frog distrusts the scorpion; but reluctantly agrees. During the crossing the scorpion fatally stings the frog swimming the...

Dominique De Villepin, former Prime Minister of France, who famously led France’s opposition to the Iraq war, recently described the term “Occidentalism” (currently the prevalent sentiment in much of Europe) as being the notion that “the West, which for five centuries...

Tom Friedman uttered his dire warning in the New York Times on Thursday last: I believe that if Israel rushes headlong into Gaza now [unilaterally] to destroy Hamas — it will be making a grave mistake that will be devastating for Israeli interests and American...

I wrote last week that the root to the current US conflict with Russia was the omission, at the end of WW2, of a written treaty setting out the boundary and definition of western “interests,” and pari passu, those of Russia cum China’s security and commercial...

As is well known, the Mackinder ‘Pivot of History’ doctrine (1904) of ‘he who controls the Asian heartland controls the world’ was cemented into the US zeitgeist as the unassailable doctrine that a united Heartland – which might challenge the US – must never be...

The Ukrainian offensive has petered out – even CNN says it: '[The Ukrainians are] still going to see, [whether] in the next couple of weeks, there is a chance of making some progress. But for them really to make the progress that would alter the balance to this...

It is getting very messy. Verging on insanity. A new indictment with four charges in respect to the events of 6 Jan has been issued to former President Trump – who has now been charged with more than 75 crimes. These latest charges however are likely only to further...

Biden: “Putin has already lost the war … Putin has a real problem: How does he move from here? What does he do?” Secretary Blinken repeats ad infinitum the same mantra: ‘Russia has lost’. So does the head of MI6, and Bill Burns, the head of CIA, opines, (replete with...

To be blunt, both the US and Europe have stalked brazenly into traps of their own making. Caught in the lies and deceit woven around a claimed inheritance of superior cultural DNA, (vouchsafing, it is said, almost certain victory), the West is awakening to a...

Hubris consists in believing that a contrived narrative can, in and of itself, bring victory. It is a fantasy that has swept through the West – most emphatically since the 17th century. Recently, the Daily Telegraph published a ridiculous nine minute video purporting...

President Putin has said that he is open, at any time, to talks with an American interlocutor. Why then, has no one come forward? Why, when there is growing anxiety amongst the American public that the war in Ukraine seems locked into forever escalation, and fears are...

The backlash has started. It has been slow to emerge, and is lagging that of the US, yet it has begun in earnest. It is, as Wolfgang Münchau, a former FT journalist and editor of EuroIntelligence, has observed: “a seminal shift (for Europe), with important...

More than a year into Russia’s Special Operation, the initial burst of European excitement at western push-back on Russia has dissipated. The mood instead has turned to “existential dread, a nagging suspicion that [western] civilisation may destroy itself,” Professor...

The economic forces – those post war strong tailwinds – that have shaped the last 35 years, and which accelerated gilded journeys through the western “plentiful era,” are no longer blowing in a favourable direction. They were already slowing, but now are reversing....

The sense that things are bad, and getting worse, is palpable. There is an undeniable eschatological tint to today’s zeitgeist. Spiralling geo-political factors all suggest extreme turbulence ahead. Biden and the Democrats discover – to their surprise – that they are...

The message sent by the Chinese Defence Minister’s three-day visit to Russia is clear. His reception – a high-profile event – was intentionally invested with high visibility. And at its symbolic centre was a meeting with President Putin on (Orthodox) Easter Day which...

The question posed at this point is: Is the collective West nearing the end of a cycle? Or are we still in mid-cycle? And is this a four-generational mini-cycle, or an epochal point of inflection? Is Russo-Chinese Entente and the global tectonic discontent with the...

Consequential Strategic Change – Upon leaving his meeting with Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping said to Putin, “Change is coming that hasn’t happened in 100 years – and we are driving this change together”. The ‘Entente’ was sealed during hours of talks over two days, and...

Hysterics at the Chinese balloon overflying the US – taken to volume 11 – through scrambling a hush-hush Raptor jet (F-22) to ‘pop’ it, and then bally-hooing the ‘pop’ as Raptor’s first ever ‘air-to-air kill’, may be a source for quiet derision around the world, yet...

There is too much ‘noise’ in the system, and it is obscuring the view. Davos has always been ‘weird’. But this year, the kookier aspects were so obvious. The WEF is dying on the vine. The ‘vision’ seems ever more fantastical, and the hubris – inherent in the...