March 3 was World Book Day this year and many schools encourage students to dress up as a favourite character from a book. I was delighted that one young reader dressed as Amanda in Spain! Her aunt sent me a picture. How special is that? I love seeing who children choose to dress up as. […]

World Book Day 2022

• Germany Can Only Field Five Battalions
  Germany has, on paper, an army of three divisions. In practice, according to a research fellow at the Council on Geostrategy, even with three months’ warning Germany would struggle to field beyond five battalions outside its own borders. Five battalions. Against an adversary that has been on a war footing for four years, that deploys 8,000 kamikaze drones per day in Ukraine, and that has …
• Only 16% of European Citizens Still Consider the United States An Ally
  In November 2025, the European Council on Foreign Relations surveyed Europeans about their view of the United States. Only 16 percent still considered the United States an ally. That’s down from 22 percent eight months earlier. Twenty percent now consider the United States a rival or adversary. In Germany, France, and Spain, that number approaches 30 percent. NATO was built on the premise that Europe …
• Nuclear Bomb Domino
  Iran’s nuclear facilities were bombed. The IAEA says the sites weren’t destroyed. Iran still holds 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. The Cambridge Centre for the Study of Existential Risk says Iran’s capacity was “marginally degraded” but the incentives to go nuclear have “gone through the roof.” Iran goes nuclear. Saudi Arabia, which signed a mutual defence agreement with nuclear-armed Pakistan in September 2025 and …
• The Nuclear Treaty Expired Quietly
  New START was the last nuclear arms control treaty between the United States and Russia. It limited both countries to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads each. It required inspections. It required verification. Basically, it was the single remaining guardrail on a combined arsenal capable of ending human civilization several times over. It expired on February 4, 2026. There was no replacement or any negotiations. There was …