Andy Owen
08 December 2024
The end of a dictatorship
Assad’s survival was Putin’s way of showing he was still a global player. When the collapse came, he was powerless to prevent it
Read the full article10 November 2024
Will Trump surrender to Putin?
And if he does give in to the Russian president, what will the consequences be for Ukraine and for Europe?
Read the full article27 October 2024
You need to read this book on Ukraine
The story of Lieutenant Yulia Mykytenko captures the reason why the country must fight, why it must win and why the west needs to support it all the way
Read the full article09 October 2024
Putin’s Iranian game
The Russian leader remains an agent of chaos, and as Iran may soon find out, he only has one issue in mind – his own self-interest
Read the full article22 September 2024
A new page in warfare
Israel’s string of detonations across Lebanon is a stunning victory for its covert operative – but it may well backfire
Read the full article18 September 2024
Can Gaza ever be rebuilt?
With around 80,000 buildings destroyed and many bodies still under rubble, the reconstruction of the Strip will take decades
Read the full article14 August 2024
How to make a right wing extremist
The race rioters spring from the same root as the jihadists
Read the full article03 August 2024
A dance of death
Retaliation and miscalculation put the Middle East on the precipice of escalation once again
Read the full article22 June 2024
Wagner rebranded
A year after the disastrous anti-Putin putsch that cost its founder his life, the Russian state-funded military group has resumed its mission to cause chaos and destruction – and in its more official guise is no longer trying to deny it
Read the full article24 April 2024
The US hard right are Putin’s useful idiots
The appeal of brutal Moscow governments is nothing new
Read the full article15 April 2024
The world is on the edge of a precipice
The cycle of attack and reprisal is unlikely to be broken in the Middle East
Read the full article27 January 2024
Putin versus the dead
The families of Russian soldiers killed in the Ukraine war pose an increasingly delicate problem for the Kremlin
Read the full article16 January 2024
Putin is creating a living hell
Putin will be pleased by developments in the middle east
Read the full article03 January 2024
2024: The year of living dangerously
It will be a year of political upheaval and war. If leaders can’t navigate a changing world order, the results could be disastrous
Read the full article28 October 2023
Gaza and Israel – what happens if it escalates?
Unless political leaders can break the cycle of pain and rage, then we could all feel the consequences
Read the full article08 October 2023
Bloodshed and retribution will widen ancient divides in the Middle East
As Israel contemplates another intelligence failure, the world looks nervously at what comes next
Read the full article04 October 2023
Yom Kippur: 18 days that shook the world
The 1973 Arab-Israeli war divided Europe and the US, nearly led to a third world war and permanently scarred the Israeli psyche
Read the full article24 September 2023
Czechia and the fight for survival
The Czechs, who have always regarded themselves as part of “the west” know the dangers of appeasement better than any other nation. They will not back down on Putin
Read the full article16 September 2023
The government played right into Vladimir Putin’s hands
What’s bad for the west is good for the Kremlin – and the fringe elements in the current government proved this
Read the full article30 August 2023
Kursk: The battle that changed everything
The 1943 Battle of Kursk was the largest tank battle in history and left a landscape of apocalyptic destruction. It still holds lessons for the war in Ukraine
Read the full article20 August 2023
Why Russia spies on Britain
Recent arrests may show that even as the invasion of Ukraine falters, Russia keeps sending its agents to the UK
Read the full article27 June 2023
The Russian coup attempt shows that China invading Taiwan would be a huge risk
Has Beijing learned the lessons of Putin’s failed invasion of Ukraine, and Prigozhin’s failed revolution?
Read the full article24 June 2023
Is this the beginning of Putin’s end?
A military confrontation between Wagner and the Russian army is a real possibility. We should be careful what we wish for
Read the full article27 May 2023
The world’s two-faced leaders
Authoritarian rulers have often used body doubles – what are they trying to hide?
Read the full article06 May 2023
Russia’s IT squad
Vladimir Putin’s next offensive in Ukraine will have a lethal digital component as cyberwar escalates across the world
Read the full article10 March 2023
The lessons from Iraq
If we do not learn the lessons of the Iraq war, we are doomed to further conflict and chaos
Read the full article23 December 2022
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the hot-dog salesman turned oligarch presumed dead
He used to organise Vladimir Putin’s meals. How did he become such a threat to Russia's dictator?
Read the full article10 November 2022
Remembrance revisited
Britain will stop on Sunday to honour its war dead. But in a new era, what should we remember, and how should we do it?
Read the full article24 August 2022
As Ukraine marks its independence, Russia’s war now haunts the streets of Moscow
Putin blames Zelensky for the fatal car bomb that killed an ally’s daughter. Whatever the truth, the Kremlin’s dictator should be worried
Read the full article11 August 2022
Our forever war on terror
Al-Qaida’s leader is dead but terrorism is very much alive.. and the next wave of it to strike Britain may come from the extreme right
Read the full article14 July 2022
Did Britain break the world?
There is a link between UK foreign policy and recent global traumas. So what is our place in the world, and what kind of country do we want to be?
Read the full article09 June 2022
The bitter taste of British cake mix policymaking
Pioneered by a US baking brand, focus groups are used by the likes of Rishi Sunak to make decisions at the expense of expert-led strategy
Read the full article