19 th  Century Methods for 21 st  Century Problems  Following the abduction of  Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, combined with the National Security Strategy (NSS)  release in December of 2025, the Trump Era of “Gunboat Diplomacy” consolidated as the world watched on with morose horror. The Trump “Corollary,” as it were, is to represent an abandonment of international good faith and an embracing of the world's brutal dictators, Vladimir Putin and many more  across th

As this article goes to press, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, has reportedly  been killed in a joint U.S.–Israeli airstrike. His death marks the most dramatic escalation in U.S.–Iran tensions since the 1979 revolution and introduces a new variable: succession instability at the apex of the Islamic Republic. Yet even this unprecedented development does not make a war with Tehran comparable to Iraq in 2003 or Afghanistan in 2001, both of which share borders with Iran.  Ge

New Yorkers have now experienced about two months under the new Mamdani administration. Last November, more than a million New Yorkers, including myself, headed to the polls and cast our ballots for Zohran Mamdani. The New York City mayoral election drew significant media attention from within the five boroughs and beyond. Mamdani stood out as markedly younger than his opponents, born in Uganda, and as New York City’s first Muslim mayor. Yet the aspect that drew the greatest

While the United States and much of the world was focused on the fallout from the Epstein files, the second phase of the Gaza peace plan began . If the current Trump administration manages to deliver a breakthrough in the Middle East, it would be by far the president’s most significant achievement on the world stage so far. Talk of a Nobel Peace Prize for Trump may have died down, but his own desire for it remains obvious, as shown by his angry messages to the Norwegian prime

“The title ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ captures the movie's central paradox: seeing without understanding. Kubrick suggests that power structures are not hidden, but ignored, existing in plain sight within accepted rituals and social norms. The greatest illusion is not secrecy itself, but the belief that we would recognise the truth if it stood directly in front of us .” The other day, I got into a rather heated political discussion with a couple of old friends. We were discussing decli

In the late hours of the 6 th  of February, Donald Trump posted a bizarre, AI generated video  that depicted his political opponents as animals on Truth Social.  The now-deleted clip had the faces of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez superimposed onto jungle animals, whilst The Lion Sleeps Tonight blared in the background. Amongst them, former President Joe Biden took the form of a mon

Politics in recent years has frequently been referred to as post-truth. In the age of misinformation, and indeed disinformation, what importance does truth have when a salacious not-quite-truth can dominate public chatter for weeks on end?  Journalism used to be regarded as a core pillar of free societies, a respected profession bestowed with the responsibility of educating and informing the masses. Shifts toward digital journalism bridged the gap even further, with news beco

With Peter Mandelson once again slinking away  from British government with his (apparently forked) tail between his legs, it gives pause for reflection on the dangers inherent in the fact that, at some level, politics comes down to the personal. Just like all news is local news somewhere  in the world, the people at the heart of power behind the headlines, campaigns, and scandals of national or global significance, are people, driven by personal agency and motivations. For d

Just over a month ago, two events occurred that until recently seemed improbable: the direct intervention of the United States in Venezuelan territory and the overthrow, and apparent end, of Nicolás Maduro's dictatorship . The following reflects on the nuances surrounding this episode , understanding that it does not follow on from mere wars of words, but rather a conflict with a deep geopolitical heritage, both internal and external. The United States has a long history of i

The United States of America was founded on 4 th  July 1776 on the values of liberty, equality and individual rights, a place of self-determination and agency, where citizens can attain their highest potential. Now, 250 years later, the very pillars that formed the United States are being called into question through the over-centralisation of power by the Trump administration’s deployment of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents in American cities. To date, at lea

Where Donald Trump’s first tenure as President of the United States was concerned with making America great again, it is quickly becoming apparent he has broadened his horizons with his second innings. Growing weary of his global reputation as an obtrusive, childish bully, he’s spent the last year showing the world all he wants to do is bring about peace – granted, of course, he gets the credit. A big gold medal would be nice, too. This is, of course, referring to Trump’s ind

The ‘ un-Blairing ’, or the death of (domestic) liberalism and (international) liberal interventionism, cemented the failure of the presupposed ‘ End of History ’. Not only did the Iraq war tear down broad, contemporary ideological unity, but it also tainted the reputation of the leaders who espoused it. George W. Bush Jr. doesn’t deserve much of a defence: he was a woeful President, perhaps saved from the dungeon of history only by today’s sheer absurdity , though that remai

“When you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you” is a line from Nietzsche , who warned that “whoever fights with monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster.” I recall this Nietzschean fragment as apposite to today’s Venezuela, and how tempting it is for those who struggle against domination to justify using the dominator’s tools. Venezuela is not only a tragedy for Venezuelans; it is a test of whether democracies can resist becoming what they

Relations between the USA and Venezuela experienced one of the most shocking fractures in modern diplomatic history this January when President Maduro was captured by US special forces and taken to New York. His midnight Caracas kidnapping has transformed tensions between the two countries from a classic diplomatic crisis into a global sovereignty and legal crisis, rendering it a pivotal test of the nascent multipolar world order, rather than a mere feud between strongmen. An

Only a select few would claim agricultural surpluses are a sexy topic. But in this arena the seeds have been sown for a potential backlash against the current US administration, as recently decimated international food aid policies were once a pressure release valve for tensions with the agriculture lobby over slumping crop prices – a problem faced by the US government again today.  Trump’s vision is of America as a producer, an export powerhouse, maker and grower of things t

Churchill may or may not have said – it’s an aphorism with cloudy provenance – that “Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing, once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” NATO’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte may or may not believe it. After all, as American threats to obtain Greenland, a member of NATO via the Danish commonwealth, grow increasingly bellicose, the “Trump-whisperer” is all but silent.  Adopting a ‘nothing to see here’ attitude with almost mon

Donald Trump’s unprecedented attack on the chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, has been met with an equally unprecedented defence composed of Ex-Fed chairs, central bank governors, and titans  of global finance. Central to this alliance’s criticism of Trump is an ominous warning of disaster to come should the Fed’s independence be violated. For example, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde emphasised the role central bank independence played as a “corner

The New York Times published  one of the finest long-form features in recent memory last week. The piece was a thorough chronicling of the US-Ukraine relationship and its evolution over the past 12 action-filled months. Despite the US’s off-the-cuff approach to foreign policy, the brazen contempt it shows Ukraine and the rest of Europe is consistently striking. Pressure is barely exerted on Putin, with any attempt to end his barbarous actions feeling futile. Everything is stu

When asked about his thoughts  on JFK’s assassination, Malcolm X responded with the phrase “the chickens come home to roost.” Malcolm, writing during America’s imperialist scramble over the newly decolonized nations, criticized the belief that America could impart political violence abroad without expecting any consequences closer to home. American naivete, if not outright arrogance, has led to the perpetuation of Western imperialism to our day. Consistently, America undermin

This Trump administration’s recent Latin American chevauchées are old school. But the world has moved on since Monroe, and regional actors may well respond in more modern manners to the egregious treatment of Venezuela. ‘Gunboat diplomacy’ was the name awarded, perhaps most famously, to the actions of US Commodore Perry in the 1850s. The USA gained access to the closed-off Japanese economy by pounding Japanese infrastructure from the sea until it got its way. Though this infa