Thursday 16 July 2026 Few political slogans have enjoyed such remarkable longevity as “America First”. The words are simple, instinctively appealing and capable of carrying profoundly different meanings depending upon the era in which they are spoken. During the late 1930s and early 1940s, America First represented a powerful coalition determined to keep the United States out of another catastrophic European war. Eight decades later, Donald Trump transformed the same slogan i

Thursday 16 July 2026 Few political leaders have invested as much personal authority in the armed forces as Xi Jinping. Since assuming power in 2012, Xi has consistently argued that the Chinese Communist Party must exercise absolute control over the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), reviving Mao Zedong’s dictum that “the Party commands the gun”. Yet despite more than a decade of anti-corruption campaigns, structural reforms and ideological indoctrination, Xi has repeatedly foun

Thursday 16 July 2026 For a political system built around a single individual, the disappearance of that individual from genuine public view creates an unavoidable problem. Modern Russia has become a state in which the institutions of government matter less than the perceived permanence of Vladimir Putin himself. Consequently whenever the Russian president vanishes from public life for extended periods, speculation inevitably flourishes. Recent months have again witnessed pre

Thursday 16 July 2026 In the midst of a war for national survival, continuity of leadership is generally regarded as a strategic asset. Frequent changes at the apex of government risk disrupting long-term planning, unsettling allies and encouraging adversaries to believe that political uncertainty is taking hold. It is therefore unsurprising that President Volodymyr Zelensky’s decision to dismiss Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov after only six months has prompted widespread

Wednesday 15 July 2026 John Stockwell belonged to a generation of American intelligence officers forged in the furnace of the Cold War, who entered public service convinced that they were defending liberal democracy against totalitarian expansion. Unlike many of his contemporaries, however, he did not retire quietly behind the walls of secrecy that surround intelligence work. Instead, after thirteen years with the Central Intelligence Agency, he chose to expose what he believ

Wednesday 15 July 2026 Western political and legal thought has long tended to distinguish clearly between war and peace. States are either at war or they are not. Armed conflict is declared or acknowledged. Treaties are signed. Ceasefires are monitored. International law, diplomacy and commerce all function more easily when this binary distinction is maintained. Russia has rarely viewed the world in such uncomplicated terms. Instead Russian strategic culture has traditionally