Politics brings out strong emotions in everyone. Even the British, despite their reputation for pursuing their interests in a cool and calm fashion, apparently are not immune. Perhaps that reputation is merely a holdover from the long-gone British Empire.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has never been regarded as an especially inspiring orator.

Decades after the end of the Korean War and the partition of Korea, the conflict on the Korean Peninsula remains one of the most dangerous and intractable problems of our time.And today it is more dangerous — and seemingly intractable — than ever.The North Korean regime is a remn

Little more than a month after US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, it has become clear that nothing good will come of his presidency.Unfortunately, the pessimists turned out to be realists: things really are as bad as they said they would be.Worst-case scenarios are now bas

Donald Trump is now the 45th president of the United States, and in his inaugural address he made it clear to the assembled US establishment that his administration does not intend to pursue business as usual.His motto, “America first”, signals the renunciation, and possible dest

After the shock of the United Kingdom’s Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States in 2016, this will be a decisive year for Europe.Upcoming parliamentary elections in France, Germany, the Netherlands and possibly Italy will decide whether the

Now that Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States, the end of what was heretofore termed the “West” has become all but certain.That term described a transatlantic world that emerged from the 20th century’s two world wars, redefined the international order duri

In his final address to the European Parliament in 1995, then-French president François Mitterrand, whose failing health was evident to all, found the following indelible words to characterise Europe’s great scourge: “Le nationalisme, c’est la guerre!”Nationalism and war were the

This year and next, voters in leading Western democracies will make decisions that could fundamentally change the West — and the world — as we have known it for decades.In fact, some of these decisions have already been made, the main example being the United Kingdom’s vote in Ju