Category: International order
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Britain Against the Yookay: Nation Against Empire
Philip Cunliffe identifies the source of the increasing fragmentation of British politics and society in the imperial structures of the state, and its long experience of relying on devolved government and sectarianism to frustrate the national self-determination of the colonised. We live in the Yookay. Everyone instantly recognises their lives and surroundings in the social…
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Geopolitics at the End of the End of History
Lee Jones recently spoke to a conference of logistics professionals about the rapid changes in global politics. He argued that the current chaos is the result of the continuing decay of the old neoliberal order, and that this is leading to the militarisation of international relations, regionalisation of the world economy, and the redundancy of…
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Changing the Regime, Building the Nation
Philip Cunliffe explains why nation-building is the solution to the impasse in Western politics identified by Perry Anderson as the Regime. In a recent essay for the London Review of Books, Perry Anderson plots out the deadlock confronting political parties of both left and right across Western states, and notes that this deadlock paralyses both…
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Munich 2025: Trump, Vance and the end of Anti-Fascism
Philip Cunliffe asks whether Trump 2.0 marks not only the decisive end of the post-Cold War era, but also the end of an ideological framework that has dominated global politics since the 1940s. As European leaders were arriving for the Munich Security Conference 2025, Donald Trump was on the phone to Vladimir Putin talking peace…
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Vance Widens the Horizon
Peter Ramsay on JD Vance’s era-ending Munich speech. I knew I was far from alone as I gasped with astonishment listening to JD Vance speak at the Munich Security Conference last week. It may be a low bar, but this was the most powerful and enjoyable political speech I can recall. There was no soaring…
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Multipolar Neoconservatism
Alex Gourevitch assesses Donald Trump’s rapid and disruptive intervention into global politics, and exposes the evasion of domestic renewal that lurks in Trump’s apparent territorial ambitions. Is there anything to celebrate about Trump’s national security policy? There is no doubt that he has checked off a number of items that would be on any real…
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Now Trump is Out of Excuses
Peter Ramsay argues that the American election is not only a stunning defeat for the world’s authoritarian liberal elites, but also a victory for democracy, albeit a temporary and equivocal one. Above all, the result means that Trump’s brand of populism is out of political excuses, and we are about to find out if it…
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Two Cheers for the Chagos Deal
Philip Cunliffe argues that the deal with Mauritius over the Chagos Islands is in the national interest, even if it was done for the wrong reasons. The British government has finally relinquished its sovereign claim over the Chagos Islands, Britain’s last African colony. Although an international treaty has yet to be finalised Britain has in…
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The Heart of Starmer’s Government
As the war in Eastern Europe escalates with Ukraine’s raid on Russia, Tara McCormack asks why Keir Starmer has pledged to put Ukraine at the heart of everything his government does. Britain’s new Labour government can be accused of vagueness and even dishonesty in its campaign to get elected. However, in one area at least…
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Why the Nation Matters
With a General Election looming, Peter Ramsay spoke last week at the London School of Economics about why the survival of the British nation is in doubt and why the politics of culture war are an evasion of the problem rather than a solution. Here is an edited version of what he said. Benedict Anderson…
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Who’s Afraid of the WHO?
For more than a year many anti-lockdown campaigners have been scaremongering about a World Health Organisation power-grab entailing new draconian measures in the event of another pandemic. With news that the WHO’s revised International Health Regulations will be much less intrusive than feared, Lee Jones and Shahar Hameiri argue that framing the WHO as the…
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Conscription and the Void in Foreign Policy
Recent discussions in Britain over the reintroduction of conscription only expose the dangerous void between rulers and ruled, argues Lizzie Finnegan. The outgoing Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Patrick Sanders, recently stirred public controversy by proposing that the British armed forces should be significantly expanded by training and equipping a ‘citizen army’ capable…
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Their Fight, Not Ours
As the West goes to war against Yemen, Alex Gourevitch examines the demented character of Washington’s imperial policy in the Middle East and its remoteness from Americans’ national interest. In a recent comment, President Biden admitted that American attacks on the Houthis in Yemen were not working but that they would continue anyway. It is…
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Political Thinking vs Moral Posturing
The Hamas attack on southern Israel was a terrible sectarian massacre of civilians. The Western left’s willingness to apologise for it, or in some cases even celebrate it, is a dangerous development, giving a free pass to depraved acts carried out in the name of religious supremacism and anti-Semitism. However merely condemning Islamist violence and…
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The Embers
10th October 2023 British politics has been overshadowed this week by news of the atrocities committed by Hamas in its attack into Israel. Peter Ramsay reflects here on the responses from British commentators, too many of which fall into one or other of ‘two poisonous half truths’. Below Ollie Richardson takes a look at other…
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When Failed States Go to War
The atrocities committed by Hamas fighters in Israel represent a political failure that is matched by the stupidity of the reaction to them in the West, argues Peter Ramsay. The massacres, hostage-taking and humiliation of prisoners during the Hamas attack on Israel are vile and shocking: as vile and shocking as they were predictable. For…
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Brexit from NATO
“It took two decades of provocation by NATO before Russia was finally faced with the prospect of American nuclear missiles along its 1000 mile-long border with Ukraine and decided to invade.”
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Narcissism Goes to War
Peter Ramsay reviews Benjamin Abelow, How the West Brought War to Ukraine: Understanding How US and NATO Policies Led to Crisis, War, and the Risk of Nuclear Catastrophe
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Whatever Happened to the National Interest?
“Embedded in the idea of the national interest is the principle that there is a greater good that can be institutionalised through state structures and policy, and that political power can be meaningfully exercised to protect a people’s collective interests.”
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Morgenthau Rides Again: Why is Germany Deindustrialising?
“A Morgenthau Plan Redux is being imposed on Germany not because it has suffered military defeat, but rather as the outcome of a US-led proxy war on Russia, a war that is succeeding in inflicting more immediate damage on Germany than it is on Russia?”
The Northern Star 