Putin isn’t dangerous because Russia is strong – but because it’s so weak January 30, 2017 “Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking.” – L Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz As a child, I remember being fascinated by the populist allegory The Wizard of Oz. My favourite part of the story – sure to cause me to burst out laughing even when I knew what was coming [...]
The chess player and his needy friend: What Vladimir Putin really wants from Donald Trump January 9, 2017 Chess players are a particularly rare bird in the political risk ecosystem. The only major aim of such chess playing – and it is certainly an important one – is the acquisition and retention of political power over the long term. Chess players’ dogged, patient, rational, long-term pursuit of coherent strategic, political and geopolitical ends [...]
America would gain nothing from cosying up to Putin’s declining Russia February 27, 2017 It has been three years since Russia’s stunning annexation of Crimea. It is the worst kept secret in Washington that the new administration of Donald Trump would like to turn the page on the US-Russian hostility that followed, in a transactional effort to remake US foreign policy. At the heart of Trump’s Jacksonian nationalism is his [...]
Is Donald Trump right that Nato is obsolete? January 17, 2017 Mary Dejevsky, a writer and broadcaster, says Yes. Nato was an alliance of the Cold War and became obsolete as soon as the Soviet Union was dissolved. The West’s failure to disband it – or at the very least rename it and reform its purpose – in response to the demise of the Warsaw Pact [...]
Tottenham Hotspur: 27 iconic photos that capture White Hart Lane’s storied history | City A.M. May 13, 2017 Tottenham’s Premier League meeting with Manchester United on Sunday will likely have little bearing on Spurs’ final position this season yet, regardless of the result, this game will linger long in the minds of those present. Even after memories of the action on the pitch fade, the White Hart Lane crowd will take every opportunity [...]
Tottenham Hotspur: 27 iconic photos that capture White Hart Lane’s storied history | City A.M. May 13, 2017 Tottenham’s Premier League meeting with Manchester United on Sunday will likely have little bearing on Spurs’ final position this season yet, regardless of the result, this game will linger long in the minds of those present. Even after memories of the action on the pitch fade, the White Hart Lane crowd will take every opportunity [...]
Founding Fathers 1, populists 0: The US constitution is taming Trump February 20, 2017 “Through all the gloom I can see rays of ravishing light and glory.” – John Adams to his wife Abigail, July 3, 1776, after Congress voted for Independence “Good people don’t go into government.” – Donald Trump Donald Trump’s first month in office ended with a bizarre, rambling press conference that made incompetence into a [...]
How decadent elites lost control of politics the world over October 10, 2016 To outsiders, Colombia’s recent referendum on ending its 53-year war with the Stalinist revolutionaries of the Farc seemed the ultimate no-brainer. Putting a merciful halt to a conflict that has killed a horrendous 220,000 souls would seem to require little thought. Yet when earnest President Juan Manuel Santos put his peace deal to a nationwide [...]
The global financial crisis 10 years on: six charts that tell the story July 31, 2017 It is hard to believe but it is 10 years since the start of the global financial crisis. Triggered by a collapse in the US housing market it caused the deepest recession in living memory and the near-collapse of the financial system. Banks failed, government institutions were bailed out, stockmarkets crashed and countries had to [...]
Blame discredited elites for the decline and fall of the West in 2016 December 19, 2016 “The more I practice the luckier I get.” – Golfing great Gary Player In essence, political risk analysis is like nothing so much as American baseball: there is an undoubted element of chance to the game and even the best player strikes out with soul-destroying regularity. Saying this, it is not dumb luck that the legendary [...]