Garvan Walshe is a former National and International Security Policy Adviser to the Conservative Party Democracy doesn’t defend itself. It only survives if citizens and the politicians they elect defend political institutions and keep those who would destroy them out of power. This is the idea behind militant democracy, whose name we owe to the […]
An outline of détente should be accompanied by tougher measures against the hardline regime itself. Classifying the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation is an obvious first step.
The country has interests in a reasonable relationship with Russia, its relationship with the West is far more critical.
The current protests are economic in nature, but build on discontent and cynicism with a monarchy that stifles debate while failing to deliver improving living standards.
Russia now aims to dig in on the Dnipro and in the parts of the Donbas it has had plenty of time to fortify, while using its air and missile forces to deprive Ukraine’s cities of power and water.
Iranians have risen in rebellion against the petro-dictators of the Islamic Republic.
Netanyahu prefers to hug the centre of his governing coalitions, playing parties to his right and left off against each other, and keeping power in his own hands. Now he has become a hostage to the right.
Signs are needed because the new Prime Minister’s first speech on Tuesday fell short in two ways, one arguable, the other rather less so.
If the system had once been able to accommodate hopes for reform, dividing moderate and radical opponents, now it has dashed them completely. Everyone who’s not with the regime has turned against it.
Interrupting other pipelines would cause havoc on the energy markets and prevent Europe heating itself this winter. They would be no different to German attacks on allied food convoys in the First and Second World Wars.
The old parties now need to grub around for support from others that used to endorse one or other of the totalitarian ideologies responsible for mass murder in Europe during the twentieth century.
Russia is running out of time be able to split Europe with high gas prices: it looks now as though it won’t. In this round of energy blackmail, Putin has come off no better than Arthur Scargill.
We have let autocracies grow rich too long. As the old Roman saying had it: if you want to live in peace, prepare for war.
As Russian special forces hunted him in central Kyiv, Zelenskyy famously said he wanted “ammunition, not a ride”. Now give him the tools so he can finish the job.
Voters want the government to focus on reducing the cost of living, keeping a lid on the wage-price spiral, and, because of the war, national security.