EDITORIALS
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Beijing Gets What It Wants:Britain’s China Miscalculation
There is something peculiarly British about managing to lose an argument twice. The row over China’s proposed “super-embassy” in London manages exactly that trick: a present government that waves it through with a shrug, and a previous one that quietly…
Europe’s defence spending soars as Readiness 2030 takes shape
European defence budgets have risen sharply since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The latest consolidated EU figures show total defence expenditure by the 27 member states reached €343 billion in 2024, equivalent to 1.9 per cent of…
Trump’s Arctic Ambitions Reveal a Dangerous Contempt for International Law
The parallels between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are no longer confined to temperament or rhetoric; they lie in a shared contempt for the constraints of international law when it proves inconvenient. Both men have treated sovereignty not as a…
Agents for a day: the financing networks driving Russia-linked sabotage across Europe
A fire in a warehouse, a scorched courier depot, a camera fixed to a lamppost on a supply route: many of the incidents now being investigated as Russian-linked sabotage in Europe are small in scale and, taken in isolation, look…
Russia has fired 13,300 missiles and 142,300 drones at Ukraine, Kyiv says
Russia has launched more than 13,300 missiles and more than 142,300 strike drones at Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion, according to Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief. The figures were released on Tuesday, 13 January 2026, after Syrskyi…
Europe’s gunpowder bottleneck: how cotton supply chains became a defence issue
Europe’s drive to expand artillery production has exposed a constraint that sits well upstream of the factory floor: access to nitrocellulose, the key chemical used in modern propellants. Nitrocellulose is produced by nitrating cellulose, and in the defence sector it…
Atlantic Tensions and Presidential Audacity: Trump’s Greenland Gambit
In the pantheon of modern Western leaders, few have been as polarising — or as theatrically audacious — as President Donald J. Trump. His latest salvo, the suggestion that the United States might assert control over Greenland, has sent ripples…
Europe’s Defence Illusion: “Readiness 2030” Will Not Deter Anyone
On paper, Readiness 2030 is the European Union’s bold answer to a deteriorating global security landscape. The initiative, quietly rebranded from its bluntly honest predecessor, ReArm Europe, promises to channel as much as €800 billion into defence spending through loans,…
After the raid: Washington has seized Maduro, but not Venezuela
The United States has removed Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro in a single night of air strikes and a Special Forces raid. The harder question is what, precisely, Washington thinks it has taken control of. Mr Maduro and his wife, Cilia…
Europe’s Streets Are No Longer Safe – Internal Security Must Come First Again
Across the Continent, Europe’s once-placid boulevards, civic squares and national capitals are no longer the preserve of political deliberation alone. They have become theatres of escalating civil unrest — and the scale and frequency of these confrontations should trouble every…