What if Trump stands, wins nomination but then loses?

So many things are hanging on whether Donald Trump stands for the presidency again or not. There are a number of big IFs and then an even bigger WHAT. If he decides to stand, will a lot of other Republican presidential hopefuls stand against him for the nomination? If he stands and wins the nomination, will he have a better chance at winning the election than he did in 2020? If he wins the nomination but loses to Biden or whoever is lined up against him in 2024 WHAT then? Will Trump go mad and do what he tried to do in 2020/2021 and refuse to accept the result and get his supporters to launch an insurrection? All in all there must surely be enough huge question marks for the Republican party to contemplate and to begin the process of trying to persuade Trump not to stand. With all the devastating stuff coming out of the January 6 committee hearings about the way the former president behaved prior to and during the assault on the Capitol, even Trump must be having tiny doubts about whether he would be guaranteed to win the White House again. There are also very dramatic signs that cannot be avoided if you are in the Trump camp. Fox News, always a big fan of Trump, has now taken against him. That's huge. Trump it seems has lost his biggest media backer. Fox now seems to be promoting Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida who has yet to declare his interest in seeking the nomination for president in 2024. My assessment is that Trump wants to stand, he feels it is his right to stand, he is convinced he is the best candidate, he can't even consider the possibility that he would lose to Biden or whoever BUT he will be having niggling doubts. He will not be able to cope with the thought of losing and if enough people from the Republican party start whispering in his ear that they love him but please don't stand, he might, just might make the biggest decision of his life and NOT stand again. This possibility I believe is now more likely than ever before. I never thought I would write this.

Joe Manchin saviour after all

I think it's only fair after berating him in recent blogs that a good word now be said for Senator Joe Manchin, the man who appeared to be holding up crucial Biden legislation all on his own. The Democratic senator from West Virginia had solidly and unrelentingly refused to sign up to the massive legislation which covered everything from climate-change measures to health reform and tax policy. He had shown a stubborn face opposed to the legislation on the grounds that it would be too inflationary. Without Manchin's approval the legislation was doomed. Pretty well everyone in Washington had given up on old Joe, putting him down as a maverick who was not interested in saving Biden and the Democratic party because of his obsession with inflation. But lo and behold, while he took the political and personal flak, he and his staff were continuing to negotiate secretly with Senator Chuck Schumer, the Majority Leader of the Senate, and his staff and then suddenly it was announced that there was a deal after all. It will be put to the Senate next week. An extraordinary turn of events and, ever since, the Democrats have been cockahooped. Biden who spoke a lot with Manchin on the phone and in the White House over the weeks, must also have given up hope but can now bask in the triumph. Manchin is a wily old bird. He put up with all criticism, knowing that if he persisted he would get a deal he could be satisfied with. Crucially, the new legislation will reduce US carbon emissions by 40 per cent by 2030. It will also reduce the deficit by $300 billion and $369 billion will be invested in energy and climate-change provisions, including cleaning up fossil-fuel production. So hurray for Joe Manchin. After all that!

Taiwan in bunker mode facing China

Taiwan keeps 160 of its most advanced fighter aircraft behind “a wall of granite” deep inside a mountain, far away from Chinese surveillance. The “super complex” at Chiashan airbase in Hualien on the eastern side of the island is Taiwan’s equivalent of the US Cheyenne Mountain military facility in Colorado built as a Cold War underground bunker to keep watch for a Soviet nuclear missile attack. The layers of protection that conceal the Taiwanese air force’s frontline fighters underline the constant readiness required by the self-declared republic for potential invasion by China, just 100 miles at its closest point across the Taiwan Strait. Breaking from its traditional secrecy rules , Taiwan this week showed off its deep-bunker hangars buried in the sheer mountain at Chiashan during a military exercise. The rare images revealed a sophisticated cave-like environment in which operators were seen arming fighter jets with advanced anti-ship Harpoon missiles. Although the building of the tunnel complex began many years ago, the release of the images appeared aimed at underlining the Taiwanese government’s confidence that whatever China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were to fire at them, whether ballistic or cruise missiles, the bunkered complex at Chiashan would survive. “The fighters are literally hidden behind a wall of granite,” said Ian Easton, senior director of the Project 2049 Institute in Arlington, Virginia. Easton is an acknowledged authority on China’s vision of becoming a military and economic superpower by 2049, which includes the reunification of Taiwan on Beijing’s terms. “But Taiwan has also built huge earthenwork revetments in front of the doors to the underground complex so that there is no clear line of sight for Chinese ballistic or cruise missiles,” he said. Chiashan, one of several bunkered sites, also provides Taiwan with a secure command centre and an alternative headquarters for key government figures in time of war as well as a home for the 160 advanced jet fighters that include the F-16V Viper, a fourth-generation version of the General Dynamics aircraft. The F-16V Viper would have to take on China’s J-20 fifth-generation stealth fighter in the event of hostilities. Adding to Taiwan’s concerns of China’s accelerating readiness for conflict, the PLA is nearing completion of a significant expansion of an airbase at Longtian in eastern China which is located about 100 miles from Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. Satellite images reveal a contingent of Su-27 Flanker fighter aircraft at the extended base and a series of new hardened hangars, according to The War Zone American defence website. The J-20 could potentially be deployed to Longtian if hostilities broke out between China and Taiwan. The warning by China’s President Xi Zinping in his phone call with President Joe Biden on Thursday that “those who play with fire [over Taiwan] will only get burnt” was an unsubtle message to Washington not to intervene militarily in the event of a decision by Beijing to reunify Taiwan to mainland China by force. Underlining Beijing’s determination to deny access to US warships in the region in the event of a war over Taiwan, Chinese surveillance ships monitored the arrival in the South China Sea this week of the US 7th Fleet’s carrier strike force led by the Nimitz-class USS Ronald Reagan. The presence of the aircraft carrier coincided with the continuing tensions between Beijing and Washington over the expected visit to Taiwan next week of Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House. Beijing has issued stern warnings to Washington over the possible visit. China’s president has said he wants a diplomatic solution to reunify Taiwan with the mainland while retaining the option to use force. But his calculations may now have changed, Easton said. “I think there is a risk that the war in Ukraine has validated some of the Chinese communist party’s assumptions about the US in relation to Taiwan,” Easton said. “These are that the US would not commit troops [despite Biden’s personal public pledge to go to Taiwan’s aid] and that America would be vulnerable to nuclear blackmail. This is precisely what Putin achieved in deterring the US from intervening in Ukraine,” he said. Also China would do what Russia failed to do in Ukraine: before an invasion on Taiwan the PLA would “dominate the electromagnetic spectrum” by jamming all communications and the internet to isolate Taiwan from the outside world, “making them blind”. “The Russians never achieved information supremacy in Ukraine and as a result President Zelensky has been able to talk to the outside world and communicate with Nato,” Easton said. Because of what has happened in Ukraine, Easton said, Beijing may now be accelerating its plans for Taiwan and is already engaged in “a stunning military build-up”.

The battle for Kherson in full swing

The battle for Kherson, the southern Ukrainian city occupied by Russian troops, will be the defining moment in the war now entering its six month. Kherson, a crucial port on the Black Sea, represents strategic significance for both sides. Key to Ukraine’s success will be its ability to continue targeting Russian arms stores and logistics around the city but without destroying the very bridges the Ukrainian military will need to rely on as their advance pushes ahead. For President Putin, the city was the first to fall to Russian forces after the invasion on February 24 and remains key to his ambitions to control southern Ukraine, particularly the ports along the Black Sea and Sea of Azov linking up with Crimea, annexed and occupied since 2014. For President Zelensky, failure to stop Putin’s army in its tracks as it tries to implement the Russian leader’s orders in the south, could spell disaster for Ukraine’s future economic independence. Recapturing Kherson has become an urgent priority for the Kyiv government. Not only would it be a blow for Putin if the Russian troops are driven out of the city but it could force him, not for the first time, to recalculate his strategic objectives. Zelensky has said he wants to retake Kherson by September. But it’s a challenge that may be beyond the Ukrainian military, even armed as they are with the US Himars multiple-launch rocket system which has given them the ideal weapon to target Russian supply depots. Cutting off the Russian logistic lines to Kherson could change the balance of power in the battle for the city. However, retaking a city requires more than a long-range artillery system. The role of infantry will be crucial, too, and after suffering multiple casualties over the last five months, a full-scale offensive against Russian positions in the city would seem unlikely. Yet progress has been made. Local reports indicate Ukrainian troops have already liberated more than 40 towns and villages approaching Kherson, providing closer firing positions for the Himars and other artillery systems. There is another aspect in Ukraine’s favour. While the Russians remain in control of Kherson, Putin’s army is spread thinly, with the bulk of the forces still engaged in the Donbas region in the east. If the Russians are vulnerable to a Ukrainian counter-attack in the south it is probably now which is why Zelensky has seized his moment, acting before Moscow has the chance substantially to reinforce the Kherson region. The number of Russian troops on the Kherson side of the River Dnipro is estimated to be only in the low thousands and if their logistics chains are persistently targeted, their ability to defend against attacks could weaken. There are two tactical challenges facing Ukraine: *The Himars system has undoubtedly been a battle-transforming weapon but the Ukrainian gunners are firing so many of the rockets each day that supplies could run out. The US is known to be struggling to keep the production lines running fast enough back home to provide the quantity of munitions the Kyiv government is demanding. *To undermine logistic supplies for the Russian occupying forces in the Kherson region, the Ukrainian military needs to target the key bridges in the area. The key Antonivsky bridge in Kherson has already been hit many times by Himars rockets and damaged. However, Ukraine cannot afford to destroy the bridge, even if that were possible because if the counter-offensive against the Russian troops in Kherson succeeds, they will need to operate the bridge for themselves.

Putin's "instant" war is now five months old

I doubt Vladimir Putin ever thought that his "special military operation" in Ukraine would still be raging five months after it was launched. But the truth is Putin has so many military and geopolitical cards to play that the unexpected and unplanned-for extended conflict has still not knocked him off his perch. He is going to carry on regardless knowing that he has far more options available to him than does his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky. He also knows that he has time on his side. The longer the war goes on, the greater the chance, in his view, will be the scenario in which members of the now-tight Nato alliance begin to fumble and faint under the weight of an explosive cost of living rise and power-supply restraints. Despite his failure to grab Kyiv in six days under his Big Plan, Putin is succeeding in milking the damage his Russian trops have caused by spreading the misery as far as he can, across Europe and elsewhere. Countries such as Moldova and Latvia are worried Putin has some grand invasion plan against them too and that suits the Russian leader very well. He wants everyone to be scared of him or at least worried about what he might do next. It really is time for something to go very very badly wrong for Putin and his schemes. Something to make him think twice about pursuing whatever dreams he has. Something that will bring this wretched war to an abrupt end. This "something" may come from the Kyiv government but if it doesn't it's going to have come from Nato. Some bold move to put Putin in his place without causing World War Three.

Putin is all gas gas gas

When you control the main energy supply to Europe you have power at the switch of a button. This is the power in the hands of Vladimir Putin and he is making the most of it. First, there were fears that he would cut off all gas supplies in revenge for the sanctions against Russia and the arming of the Ukrainian government. But then he appeared to relent and the Nord Stream pipeline through to Germany which had been off for maintenance was switched back on. Huge relief all round. But now Gazprom, the Russian gas supplier totally in hock to Putin, has announced that it is only going to release gas at 20 per cent capacity down the Nord Stream. The EU has had to take emergency measures although why this wasn't already in the pipeline (pun intended) it's not very clear. Whether or not the EU can find alternative supplies, Putin will glory in the knowledge that he can literally ruin Europe's day by controlling the amount of natural gas he allows to flow throgh the pipe. It's a mighty weapon and, as we know, Putin loves mighty weapons. He is always boasting about his monster nuclear missiles and hypersonic weapons that can't be detected. But gas is the easy one to deploy. Except of course to an extent he is spiting his own face because the less gas he allows Germany and others to buy the less money he will make. But Putin is already making so much money from the sale of costly Russian oil as well as natural gas that he doesn't have to worry about having insufficient funds for his war in Ukraine. Putin has claimed, through his spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, that he is not interested in cutting off gas supplies. But then he said he wasn't interested in invading Ukraine right up to the moment he invaded Ukraine!

Americans want to take up arms against the government

Some opnion polls produce whacky results. It's inevitable if you ask the right or wrong questions. A new US poll has asked Americans whether they think it's time to take up arms against the government and about a third said YES. This is both whacky and seriously alarming at the same time. So many people in the US believe that the Washington establishment in general and the White House in particular are plotting against them to ruin their lives in some way or other. So, yes, they replied, it may be necessary to get out the guns from the cabinets and take over. If it wasn't for the January 6 attempted insurrection last year in the capital against the Capitol, you could dismiss this sort of nonsense as just another silly poll asking a silly question. But it was carried out by the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics, so a proper sensible source. Even with Joe Biden in the White House who I would have thought was pretty likeable to most people and certainly doesn't wave his arms around angrily like someone else we all know, there are obviously millions of Americans who remain convinced that THEY are against US and the only way to get rid of them is to seize the home-based weapons and drive the lot of them out of Washington. I assume the respondents to the poll are not all certified crazies, so the one-third who said yes to armed insurrection clearly have a different view of the importance of democracy than the average sensible citizen. God bless the United States of America.

To stop Putin a massive counter-attack is now needed

The ony way Putin is going to back down is if the Ukrainian military launch a massive counter-attack to recover towns and cities currently under Russian control before Moscow imposes an irreversible annexation. It seems to have begun with a huge effort by Ukraine to get Kherson back in the south, a city that fell to the Russians early in the war. Seizing back Kherson would be a tactical and strategic blow to Putin, and therefore must succeed. Before Kherson was taken and occupied the Ukrainian authorities in the city seemed oddly reluctant to destroy bridges on the approach to the city which would have hindered the Russian advance. Now we know that this was deliberate because the security chiefs responsible for that lack of action have been fired by President Zelensky. It seems they were pro-Russia. Poor Zelensky! Now it's different, the Ukrainian military are setting about destroying bridges that link Russians in the city to their logistics links. That's the only and best way of trapping the Russian troops in the city. If Kherson is liberated, Putin will be furious and could mount some revenge attack. But with Ukraine now getting more of the deadly US HIMARS multiple-launch rockets systems - announced on Friday - it will start to give Putin a real headache. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said the Kremlin wanted to take more territory. So it would be a great moment for the Kyiv government and for the people of Ukraine if Moscow achieved exactly the opposite.

Putin just can't resist smashing a deal he has agreed to

Is anyone actually surprised that the day after Putin's lot agreed a grain deal with Ukraine to allow the Kyiv government to start shipping out millions of tons from the silos in Odesa down in the south, Russia fired missiles at the port?From the Kremlin's viewpoint I guess it made a sort of horrific sense. Ok, Putin would have said, let the Nazis sell their grain but bomb the hell out of them before they start to remind them that we are the boss and we can bomb them any time we want. Now every time a cargo vessel leaves Odesa with grain on board, no one will know for sure whether it will get beyond the Russian naval blockade. So much for the deal and the beam of hope. But no one should be surprised because Putin's word can never be trusted. He does what he wants and it clearly suited him to launch a couple of missiles at Odesa to remind the Ukrainians, as if they didn't know already, that he hates them and thinks they are all Nazis. It's time I think for the US to send dozens more HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems to Kyiv so that they can blast every Russian ammunition dump and logistics depot inside Ukraine to little bits. Without ammunition and missiles and fuel the Russians will grind to a halt. That must now be Kyiv's aim with US and Nato backing. And if Russia bombs the grain cargo ships as they leave Odesa Kyiv will need to carry out more and more Moskva-style attacks until the Black Sea is filled with destroyed Russian warships.

The Russia-Ukraine grain deal is the first and hopefully not the last bit of good news

One has to look for silver linings in all the black clouds of war and misery and violence and global warming and rocketing cost of living and the prospect of Liz Truss becoming the next prime minister in the UK. The grain deal between Russia and Ukraine, brokered by Turkey and the UN, is definitely a silver lining. And who knows, maybe it's the first and not necessarily the last bit of good news to come the world's way over the next few weeks. More than 20 million tons of grain sitting in silos in Odesa can now be offloaded into tankers and shipped off to the needy world, boosting Ukraine's economy and saving millions in Africa, South America and elsewhere from starvation. Actually the first bit of good news, to be accurate, was the decision by Putin to switch back on the gas flow from the Nord Stream pipeline into Europe, after a maintenance shutdown period. Europe, especially Germany, was hugely relieved and, secretly thankful to Putin. The Russian leader is nothing if not clever. He is playing a massively complex, tricky and astute game here. First he gets his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to hint that he wants a lot more Ukrainian territory than just the east and blames the US because of its delivery of heavweight artillery to Ukraine, then he switches the Nord Stream back on and approves the grain deal to prove to the world that he cares about the starving Africans. Now no one knows, probably not even the very clever Bill Burns, CIA director, what Putin might do next. Will it be another positive move or will he launch an even more intensive attack in Ukraine once his troops have had time to regroup and resupply? For the moment Putin will feel he is basking in the unspoken approval of the West over the grain deal. Putin doesn't care about the West's approval as such but what he does want to do is sow uncertainty and misgivings and disunity in the Nato alliance so that at some point one of the alliance members, probably Turkey, will say to Washington: "Hey stop sending these Himars rockets to Ukraine, it's not helping to bring the war to an end." Yes, Putin knows what he is doing. Step by step he is playing and winning the chess game. But he also knows he is not winning the war, or at least not achieving what he had originally set out to do. So expect more carrot and stick diplomacy from the Kremlin.

So Putin isn't ill after all

You are not supposed to wish illness on any human being but there were probably millions of people living in the West who quietly felt relief, if not hope, when all the rumours began circulating that Putin was ill/terminally ill/suffering from blood cancer/Parkinson's etc etc. It was wishful thinking. Putin is very well and very healthy. So says Bill Burns, CIA director, although he admits he has no insider intelligence on the matter one way or the other which was a little surprising for the boss of the most powerful intelligence service in the western universe. Surely the CIA has a Putin doctor/nurse/chambermaid on the payroll? It seems not. But Burns, an immensely knowledgeable Putinologist after his years as US ambassador in Moscow as well as his focus on Russia over decades, reckons all the health rumours are just that. Rumours. He went to see Putin in Moscow prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 and didn't come away with any sense that he was suffering ill health. Putin was just angry. Burns had experienced this before when he was ambassador. Putin has for years been a man obsessed. But not because his doctors had told him he was facing a premature end. So all the newspaper and TV focus on his apparently wobbly walking and shaking hand and need for assistance when he gets up and swelling face was fun while it lasted. But it was probably all deliberately exaggerated by Putin to confuse the West and give everyone hope, only for it to be dashed. Not by Putin or by the Kremlin but by the leader of America's Central Intelligence Agency. Putin must be guffawing.

CIA horror over the discovery of a hangman's noose

The head of the CIA has issued an unprecedented warning to his staff after the discovery of a noose , a symbol of racist hatred in the US, outside a secret agency facility. William Burns, CIA director, told the agency’s workforce that racism and racist symbols would not be tolerated. There remained some doubt over whether it was intended to be a racist protest or whether the person who planted it knew that the facility contained CIA staff. However, US intelligence sources said the bottom line was that it looked like a noose and that was “horrific” because of the involvement of this symbol in America’s history of racial violence by whites against African Americans, mostly in the south. The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured people (NAACP) has estimated that more than 4,700 people were lynched in the US between 1882 and 1968, of whom about 73 per cent were black. Many died with a noose around their neck hanging from a tree. The discovery of the noose outside a small facility used by the CIA in Virginia had real “impact” on the member of staff who found it, a source said. An investigation has been launched into the discovery, first reported by The New York Times. The facility has remained unidentified but sources said it was not within the perimeter of the CIA’s headquarters which is in Langley, Virginia. “CIA has zero tolerance for actions or symbols of hatred and treats any such incidents with the utmost seriousness,” Susan Miller, CIA press secretary, said in a statement. “Our values and our vital national security mission demand that we uphold nothing less than the highest standards of inclusiveness and safety,” she said. In recent years, both under the current director and his predecessor, Gina Haspell, efforts have been made to create a more diverse agency by expanding recruiting among black, Asian and other ethnic minority groups. A report last year by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence revealed that minorities represented 27 per cent of the intelligence community’s civilian workforce in 2020, of whom 12.3 per cent were identified as black or African American. There has never been a black CIA director. Before the appointment of Burns, a former diplomat, as President Biden’s choice for the job , the shortlist of candidates was believed to have included Darrell Blocker, a high-ranking African American intelligence officer who served in the CIA’s clandestine service. He retired in 2018 and now heads a multinational security firm. Blocker who worked for the CIA for nearly 30 years, praised the agency officer who reported seeing the noose, telling The New York Times it was vital for all employees to report possible racial incidents so they could be investigated. “The CIA is a microcosm of the populace from which it draws its workforce, so it should not surprise anyone who understands the deep-seated racism that has permeated all institutions throughout our history,” he said.

China has tested its new multiple-launch rocket system

The Chinese military has tested its most advanced multiple-launch rocket system at high altitude to underscore its ability to operate in the disputed mountainous border between China and India, according to the state broadcaster CCTV. With a maximum range of up to 310 miles, the PCL-191 truck-launched rockets could threaten all Indian army bases along the so-called Line of Actual Control, the 2,100-mile notional demarcation frontier between Chinese and Indian -controlled territory in the Himalayas. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) tested the rocket system at thousands of feet above sea level in the Himalayas, aiming at a target in a desert shooting range in western China. The test was announced to coincide with the start of new talks between the Chinese and Indian military aimed at trying to resolve a long-running border dispute in the Ladakh region of India-administered Kashmir. The 16th round of talks took place on Sunday. In 2020 fighting erupted in the region in the Galwan Valley, leading to the deaths of 20 Indian and four Chinese troops. It was the first deadly clash between the two countries in the Himalayan border area for 45 years. It involved ferocious hand-to-hand combat. The significance of the high-altitude test-firing of the PCL-191 which was first displayed by the PLA in China’s national day parade in October, 2019, is that it gives the weapon system an extended range. The PCL-191 can fire eight rockets with a range of 220 miles or two Fire Dragon tactical ballistic missiles that can reach up to 310 miles. “The PCL-191 is more capable when it’s deployed at high altitude, with its maximum range having been extended several times,” Zhou Chenming, a researcher with the Yuan Wang military science and technology think tank in Beijing told the South China Morning Post. A PCL-191 brigade was sent last year to China’s western theatre command in Xinjiang military district, near the border with India and is located 17,000ft above sea level. “They have shown that the PCL-191 brigade could be deployed anywhere in the country, from the coast to the Himalayas and take on challenges like the border dispute with India or even a Taiwan contingency,” Song Zhongping, a former PLA instructor and military commentator, told the paper. The reference to Taiwan follows reports in the PLA Daily that the PCL-191 rocket system has also been used in Xiamen in Fujian in the eastern theatre command, the closest point on the Chinese mainland to Taiwan. The distance from Xiamen to Taiwan is about 186 miles. High-altitude warfare in the modern era has been going on for decades. China invaded Tibet in 1953, and India and Pakistan have fought over Kashmir’s Siachen Glacier since 1984 after Indian troops captured it. Both countries maintain a strong military presence in the area in hostile mountainous conditions. In other examples, the Russians fought the Mujahideen in the Hindu Kush mountains in eastern Afghanistan in the 1980s, and against Chechen separatists in the Caucasus mountains in the early 2000s. During the 20-year war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, American troops with Afghan partners also fought in the Hindu Kush.

Which Tory candidate for Downing Street will worry Putin?

The Tory party leadership battle in the UK following the resignation of Boris Johnson is down to five. Are they the Magnificent Five? Will one or any of them instil fear in Vladimir Putin, enough to make him think twice about trying to rule the world? Will any of them cause President Xi Zinping in Beijing even to stop for a moment as he bites into his breakfast toast? Will Biden be thinking, oh my goodness, now I really do have to talk glowingly about the Special Relationship? No, no, no and no. The only thing I think I can reasonably safely predict is that Her Majesty the Queen will probably be whispering to herself: "Do I really have to put up with one of this lot for the next two years?" It was bad enough with Boris but at least he had charisma, super confidence in himself, and a name that everyone around the world knew and registered. Boris was Boris. It didn't work out of course because in the end you really couldn't trust what he said he was doing or trying to do. Partygate and all that and the multiple other misdemeanours in his three years in Number 10 did it for him. But now we have to contemplate his replacement and judging by the candidates' presentations on ITV last night and their constant squabbling, there is absolutely no chance that the new prime minister is going to be heralded as the saviour of the nation. We can't even run trains on a very hot day for fear the lines will melt. For those living in other parts of the world who honour me by reading this blog, let me remind you of the remaining candidates for the leadership of this blessed nation: Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer before he suddenly resigned to bring down Boris, Liz Truss, foreign secretary, Penny Mordaunt, trade minister and very briefly defence secretary, Kemi Badenoch, former equalities minister, and Tom Tugendhat, ex-soldier and chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee. Sunak is the most experienced and accomplished performer and will probably win but will he campaign for Ukraine and be a stalwart champion for democracy? Liz Truss just keeps on saying that if she wins she will do the job on the run from the first day. So I should hope. Sergey Lavrov, Russian foriegn minister, will be chuckling. He saw her off when they last met. Penny Mordaunt sounds like she has got it but I don't think does. Her lack of grasp of detail is seriously worrying. Kemi Badenoch comes across as a really good, proper-thinking politician with heart and soul but it's all a bit early for her I fear, and Tom, dear Tom Tugendhat, is solid and very well-meaning and pretty damned good at what he does but has no hope of being selected. The best performance on the ITV show last night and the one I have chosen to be the next prime minister of Great Britain is Julie Etchingham, the presenter! She looked and sounded serious but with a touch of light humour and fabulously big intellectual spectacles perched on the end of her nose. Perfect for the job. Her Majesty would love her.

Joe Manchin the ultimate spoiler

Let us all remmember the name Joe Manchin, Democratic senator from West Virginia. Not for the first time he has intervened to destroy President Biden's chances of getting planet-saving legislation through Congress. He has refused to support Biden's slimmed-down climate-change legislation which means it won't go through because the Republicans will vote against and Biden needed every Democratic senator to support him. Manchin is obsessed with the notion that Biden's attempts to get the US to help bring down global warming will be inflationary and so he won't budge. Never mind the vital importance of the US showing the way to the rest of the world to bring down carbon emissions. Never mind that the results of climate change are even now being felt everywhere, with hugely hot temperatures throughout Europe as just one example. But Manchin is focused on his personal campaign to stop anything that smells inflationary. And no one it seems can persuade him to change his mind. He must be the most obstinate Democratic senator in recent times. What is truly scary is that if the US fails to take measures to cut carbon emissions and other nations follow suit, this planet is doomed and the next generations are going to suffer climate disasters. So, remember the name Joe Manchin.

Fist-bump diplomacy

In global-ranking diplomacy handshakes have always been highly symbolic, either for positive or negative reasons. Since Covid, fist-bumps and elbow-bumps have carried the same significance. I always thought Boris Johnson overdid the elbow-bumping routine whenever he met with fellow leaders, doing a sort of dance while he did it. But now we have Joe Biden fist-bumping Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The impact has been like a megaton nuclear warhead detonating around the world. I don't know whether a handshake would have been worse. At least he didn't give him a hug. Basically as soon as Biden announced he was travelling to Saudi Arabia and would be meeting the crown prince, there was speculation overwhether he would shake the sheikh's hand but in the end they fist-bumped. Was this I wonder pre-arranged, a bit of fist-bump diplomacy. Anyway the mere fact that the president of the United States made physical contact with the man who, according to US intelligence, probably ordered the brutal killing in 2018 of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi whose body was then dismembered and taken away in a black bin bag, was enough to cause outrage. Ok, very tricky for Biden. He described Saudi Arabia as a pariah nation after the murder which should have meant he would never go to the country as president. But Saudi Arabia is a country that can't be avoided or evaded because of its hold on oil prices and so Biden had to go at some point. But a fist-bump meant, to the rest of the world, that Biden was prepared to return to normal relations. He said he raised Khashoggi and bin Salman denied being personally involved. As he has done ever since the killing. But the fact is a Saudi state hit squad was sent to Istanbul to get Khashoggi when he visited the Saudi consulate. The hit squad included a surgeon with bone-cutting instruments. I need say no more. And Biden has now fist-bumped the de facto Saudi leader who knows everything that goes on in his country.

It's impossible to predict how the Ukraine war will end

Predicting how the war in Ukraine is going to be resolved has become the biggest challenge for the US and Nato allies, and especially for the American intelligence community. However, after nearly five months of Russian military setbacks, grinding attritional warfare and extraordinarily high casualties - human and metal - President Putin, too, is having constantly to revise his calculations and objectives. US intelligence sources say that, looking at the war from the Kremlin’s viewpoint, there might come a time when diminishing returns could force Putin to make a significant change in his calculus. This could come about, they say, if Ukraine succeeds in carrying out some form of “spectacular” against the Russian invasion force, similar to the devastating strike on the Black Sea Fleet flagship cruiser, Moskva, in April. Or it could come when the international sanctions really begin to bite, impacting on the Russian people to a much greater extent than at present. For the moment, the US intelligence agencies see no evidence of a strategic shift on Putin’s part. They believe Putin is still resolved to carry on the war, for years if necessary, in the expectation that the commitment of the West to support Kyiv with billions of dollars of weaponry and to endure rising food and energy costs will begin to waver. Right now the resolve to back Ukraine for as long as it takes is not in doubt. But is the flow of weaponry doing anything more than just delaying the inevitable: a ceasefire under Putin’s terms when the Russian leader decides he cannot or need not pursue more ambitious aims? “I’m a realist, I know the Russians aren’t going to turn around tomorrow and drive back across the Russian border,” a senior US military official said. All the official could say with confidence was that the Ukrainians were continuing “to make the Russians pay for whatever it is they’re trying to achieve”. Is this the main strategic objective? If so, is there not a risk that Ukraine and its western allies are fighting a war that cannot be won ? To put it from Moscow’s point of view, of course, it’s a war Putin cannot afford to lose. There is no question that the latest rockets and artillery delivered by the West, especially the Long-range HIMARS system, are having a big impact on the battlefield. Based on their own and US intelligence, Ukraine is using HIMARS to hit Russian ammunition dumps – a far better tactic than spraying Russian positions with 3,000 artillery shells a day. “From a military standpoint, the costs to Russia have been far higher than would be the case without such assistance from the West,” a former Pentagon official said. “It’s possible to speculate on what might push the war in various directions,” the former official said. “But so far the ‘speculators’ have been generally wrong. No Russian Blitzkrieg. No Russian collapse. No striking results from unprecedented sanctions,” he said. “It’s best to admit that there are a range of possibilities and try to think through how we would deal with each, as opposed to attempting to predict what happens next,” he said.

US goes hypersonic at last

The US has carried out two successful hypersonic missile tests to boost a Pentagon research programme which has been plagued by technical failures. As both China and Russia have demonstrated advanced hypersonic weapons capable of reaching a minimum of Mach 5, five times the speed of sound, the US has been trying to accelerate the research effort to match its great-power rivals. The tests took place as it emerged Russia is developing a medium-range ballistic anti-ship missile which has a hypersonic glide vehicle system attached, giving it greater manoeuvrability as it approaches a target at maximum speed. One of the successful American tests, completed at the US Army’s White Sands missile range in New Mexico, involved a medium-range missile launched from a 10-wheeled truck. Under a programme called Operational Fires, this was the first time the truck-launched missile had been successfully demonstrated. The aim of the project, run by the Pentagon’s research agency, Darpa, is to have a truck-launched hypersonic missile system capable of being fired in a highly mobile and rapidly deployable way. Both the US Army and US Marine Corps have existing vehicles for the weapon system. Michael White, in charge of hypersonics at the Pentagon’s research and engineering department, described the new weapon as one of the “transformational warfighting capabilities” under development. The second successful test was completed by the US Air Force when a rocket booster for the service’s air-launched rapid-response weapon (ARRW) was fired from a B-52H Stratofortress bomber off the coast of southern California, and reached the required speed of more than Mach 5. In a similar test in July last year the rocket booster failed to ignite and fell into the Pacific Ocean. Two other tests also failed. The ARRW will be the US Air Force’s first hypersonic missile. The booster test series has now been completed, allowing the whole weapon system to be fully tested later this year. Reports from Russia of a new medium-range anti-ship or “carrier killer” ballistic missile capable of hypersonic speeds named the weapon as Zmeyevik (meaning serpentinite, a type of rock). It has been under development for some time, according to Tass state news agency, and is intended for service with the Russian Navy’s coastal defence units. Medium-range ballistic missiles generally have a reach of between 620 and 1,860 miles. China has test-fired an anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile called YJ-21. It was launched from a Type 055 destroyer in April.

Does Putin have sleepless nights?

It would be nice, if not encouraging, to imagine Vladimir Putin having really bad nights, unable to sleep because of the rising challenges to his dream of being the new Czar of Russia over a mighty empire. Did Stalin have sleepless nights? Did Hitler? Putin always gives the impression he is satisfied with himself. But there must be times when he worries whether he is going to be able to maintain control over his huge country. Of course he has the whole security apparatus to call on but eventually when the international sanctions start to affect every single family, even the rich, there will surely be a growing resentment about the war in Ukraine and Putin's role in it. This is Putin's war. No one else's. No one else can be blamed. And when that moment is reached, perhaps that self-satisfied smile on his face will be wiped off. I'm not saying it's going to happen soon but the Russian people will get wise to what is going on and will start to point the finger of anger at their leader. Too many sleepless nights worrying about his own future, that would be good for everyone, especially the poor Ukrainian people.

How the wind lifted up a jet fighter from a carrier and threw it into the Mediterranean?

Plane overboard! A 12-ton Super Hornet fighter aircraft has been blown off the deck of an American aircraft carrier in heavy seas and unprecedented winds in the Mediterranean. The US Navy F/A-18 had no pilot in the cockpit when it lifted up into the air and careered overboard into the sea. One sailor on the carrier, the USS Harry S Truman, was injured during the incident. “One sailor received minor injuries while conducting operations during the unexpected heavy weather,” a spokesman for the US Navy 6th Fleet, based in Naples, said. “The sailor is in stable condition and expected to make a full recovery,” the spokesman said. USS Harry S Truman has been on an extended deployment in the Mediterranean following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The 6th Fleet spokesman said flight missions were continuing. The loss of the Super Hornet occurred while the nuclear-powered Nimitz-class carrier was engaged in a food and supplies replenishment operation. An investigation is underway. But all fighter aircraft on board carriers are normally chained to the deck to avoid the risk of being blown overboard in severe weather conditions or affected by the blast of another jet while being catapulted into the air. The carrier which has about 90 fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters on board and a crew of 5,000 has been operating in the Mediterranean for the last four months and is expected to remain in the 6th Fleet region until August. It is due to be replaced by the USS George HW Bush carrier strike group. Although no decision has yet been made it is likely an attempt will be made to recover the Super Hornet. Last year an F-35B “jumpjet” joint strike fighter was recovered from the seabed in the Mediterranean after it crashed during take-off from the Royal Navy carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth. US and Italian salvage operators helped to bring up the shattered parts of the jet from a depth of more than a mile. The F-35B had never got airborne and toppled off the end of the flight deck. The pilot ejected safely.

Winners and losers from Boris resignation

The biggest loser from the last week of crazy politics in Westminster is obviously Boris. He is out, finshed, kaputski. He can't even have his planned, postponed party bash to celebrate his wedding at Chequers, the official prime minister's country residence. All Boris can now do is sit around in Number 10 until his replacement is selected, and hold cabinet meetings that will hold no meaning. But there are other losers from the madness: Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, failed to restrain Boris and his wildness and never stepped in when he should have done to stop partying during the pandemic lockdown periods; the whole of 10 Downing Street for failing to govern properly; every minister in the cabinet who put their job and ambitions before their duty to the country, except when it suited them - ie when they resigned to push Boris out and attempt to grab the premiership for themselves- and the reputation of the United Kingdom which has been seriously battered around the world. None of the candidates coming forward to replace Boris inspire any confidence that they will be capable of righting all the wrongs or give reassurance to the nation that they will be the standard bearer of moral, honest and fair government. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour opposition leader, should have been one of the winners of this political farce but he failed, too. On the day when he confronted Boris at Question Time in the House of Commons he could have used his moment to make an inspirational speech about the country needing integrity. But all he did was insult Boris and his cabinet with stupid phrases he or his speech writer thought would make good headlines. Pathetic! The only real winner was Lord Simon McDonald, former head of the Diplomatic Service and the Foreign Office who dared to speak out, or tweet out, to say Boris had not been telling the truth when he claimed he didn't know Chris Pincher, deputy chief whip responsible for discipline among Tory MPs, who had been accused of sexual misconduct with men in a Conservative private members' club. It was the Pincher affair which led to Boris's downfall. But it was the tweet from the former top diplomat which engineered that fall from grace.

Sergey Lavrov accuses the West of Russophobia. Well duh!!

What does the Russian foreign minister expect? To be welcomed with open arms when he arrives at an international summit? Sergey Lavrov was spurned when he was at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia. NO one wanted to talk to him, let alone shake his hand. He said it was "blatant Russophobia". Well of course it was. Russia has done absolutely nothing since February 24 to deserve any sort of warmth or courtesy. The fact that Lavrov is Russia's alleged top diplomat means that when he appears overseas he gets the full brunt of the West's hostility towards the country he represents. Apart from Putin himself no other Russian deserves this treatment more than Lavrov who seems to be totally dismissive of the fact that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to the destruction of dozens of towns and cities and the deaths of at least 10,000 civilians. Does he not care about that? Does he think that is justified? While the war continues and for a long time after it is over, Russia will be spurned by all law-abiding people. But the truth is, it's not Russophobia against the Russian people, many of whom must hate the war as much as everyone else - in fact more so because thousands of families have lost loved ones fighting in Ukraine. It's Russophobia against Putin and his henchmen. And that includes Sergey Lavrov.

So farewell Boris Johnson, you had your chance

In the end even Boris had to admit there was no way forward, no cunning constitutional plan that would allow him to stay as Britain's prime mimister until the next election in 2024 and beyond. He just had to go, although he seems to imagine he can stay in Number 10 until October by which time the next leader of the Conservative Party and replacement prime minister will have been found and anointed. Whether he is able to stay that long seems highy unlikely which probably means we will have to put up with someone like Dominic Raab, Justice Secretary and formerly Foreign Secretary and theoretically deputy prime minister, for the next three months. Boris's departure was yet another example of the brutal way the Conservative Party deals with its leaders when they fall by the wayside. Margaret Thatcher was driven from Downing Street by a kabal of plotting ministers, and in the same way the men in suits, well mostly men, turned up at Number 10 to tell Boris that it was time for him to go. He appeared to have few friends left in the Cabinet. Michael Gove yet again played his hands badly when it came to handling Boris. He told him to go and was promptly sacked for disloyalty. I doubt Boris's replacement will want Gove in his or her Cabinet. Boris sacked him not just because he could never forget how his supposed friend had failed way back to support his leadership campaign and ran against him but because it would prevent Gove from delivering a withering resignation speech to Parliament. Tradition dictates a minister who resigns can if he or she wants to, make a farewell speech to the Commons. Sir Geoffrey Howe, Foreign Secretary in Thatcher's Cabinet, resigned and told the Commons he could no longer bat for her team. It finished Maggie off and soon she was leaving Downing Street in her official Jaguar with a tear in her eye. I doubt Boris will shed tears. He won't give his opponents the satisfaction. But his time is over after only three years in office and whether he stays as a lame duck prime minister until October or not, his yearning ambition to be seen as one of Britain's great prime ministers has ultimately been crushed by his wayward treatment of what is right and what is wrong for which his colleagues could no longer forgive him.

Boris will only go in a strait jacket

Boris Johnson didn't get where he is today by resigning when the vast majority of his Cabinet order him to go. He will stay in the job until he is literally dragged out of Number 10. I predict that as his Cabinet colleagues queue up to try and persuade him to give up he will sack the lot and start again. That's the way he is. He believes that he still has the sizeable mandate from the people he won in the last election and has a duty to stay in office to finish the job. It's as simple as that. So he won't care that colleagues such as Priti Patel (Home Secretary)and Michael Gove (Secretary of Levelling up for heaven's sake) and Grant Shapps (Secretary of cars, boats trains and planes) are telling him to go, he can and probably is waving them out of the room with warnings that their careers are over. This is Boris's Trump moment. This is the way things are now in the UK and to a certain extent everywhere else in the world. Trump refused to go. Putin wangled Russian law to allow him to stay president for as long as he wants, Xi Zinping won't let anyone replace him. I'm just amazed Silvio Berlusconi isn't back as Italian prime minister. So, Boris will fight fight fight to stay at Number 10. There is a long way to go before this drama comes to an end, with or without Boris still in charge.

What on earth is going on in the United States of America?

It's not just the availability of guns for anyone over the age of 18. There's a mindset among a tiny percentage of young Americans who have become so angry that it seems to have become a natural recourse to pick up a semi-automatic rifle and go shooting. If they were terrorists with a link to an anti-American jihadist group, you can make an argument. Their mindset is still hatred but it's a mindset which scholars and intelligence experts and authorities on terrorism can debate and argue about. But when a young American just wakes up and decides to go out and kill, it's difficult if not impossible to fathom the reasoning behind it. The latest shooting, in Chicago, is yet another example of what seems to be a mindless urge to kill people. And you only need a few people like this to give an impression, even in a country as big as America, that every community is hiding a would-be shooter. Every week, it seems, there is some fatal shooting incident. The fact that a young person can buy an assault weapon so easily is, of course, a crucial part of the crisis hitting the US because it provides an incentive, indeed a motivation, for someone with delusions or anger or hatred in his head to pull the trigger and see people fall to the ground. It's tragic, it's very very scary and it seems unstoppable.

All the talk is about the cost of reconstruction in Ukraine but shouldn't Putin pay?

The war in Ukraine is still a long way off from ending and Russian destruction of property and critical infrastructure continues apace. But political leaders and international organisations are meeting in Switzerland to discuss how to rebuild Ukraine and at what cost. It seems almost bizarre that experts are already putting a figure on the likely cost of such a massive programme - $750 billion. Presumably no reconstruction work will begin until the war has stopped but even then, will Putin be happy to see western money pouring in to rebuild what his troops have destroyed? It is estimated that Russian forces and missiles have so far caused about $100 billion of damage to infrastructure. Well, I doubt Putin will mind other people paying to clear up the mess he has created but if, as seems likely, Russia will be in control of the wole Donbas region, Putin will be able to dictate what he sees as appropriate financial help from outsiders and might ban it all together. He doesn't want Ukraine to be a thriving country, living the dream as a member of the European Union. He wants it to be subservient and Moscow-obedient. So I'm not sure those people meeting in Switzerland have necessarily thought through the politics of what are obviously good intentions to help Ukraine come out of the ashes created by the Russian invasion. First, surely, Putin has to pay dearly for trying to destroy Ukraine but if, as I wrote yesterday, Russia continues to have a winning hand in the war, reconstruction and reparation are not going to happen, not in the neat sort of way being discussed in Switzerland.

Russia is gaining more and more of Ukraine

President Zelensky has said that he wants the war in his country to be brought to a halt by the end of the year. That's just six months away. The problem is the decision about ending the war lies totally with Putin because it is now a fact that the Russian invasion force, backed by long-range bombers, cruise-missile arned submarines and ground-launched ballistc missiles - all striking from beyond Ukraine's borders - is making progress and seizing Ukranian towns, cities and territory. The advances are relentless. Apart from the occasional triumph for Ukraine, like the withdrawal of Russian troops from Snake Island down south, there is no sign that the inflow of longer-range heavy weapons by the West is making such a difference that Moscow is being forced to back off. So if the war does come to an end by December, it will be because Putin will have achieved what he wanted and the terms of any negotiated deal will be solely in his hands. It's tragic and sad and devastating for the Ukrainian people and for the future of Ukraine, but Russia is winning.

Insulting Putin won't help anyone

On reflection the personal insults thrown at Putin by Boris Johnson and Ben Wallace, UK defence secretary, were unwise, a bit childish and inappropriate. Wallace went on about Putin suffering from small man syndrome and Boris accused him of toxic masculinity. War is too serious for people to make jokes and it was embarrassing when Boris and Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, laughed during the G7 summit about taking off their shirts to match Putin's liking for bare-chested photos of himself. It was all rather silly and gave Putin the opportunity to answer back with some cutting comments about Boris stripping down. The trouble is the off-the-cuff comments undermined the seriousness of what is going on in Ukraine. Hundreds of people are dying every week, possibly every day. So to see leaders of the western world laughing about Putin was a mistake.

Xi Zinping praises Hong Kong's one country two systems policy! Ho ho.

President Xi Zinping, China's leader for life, is in Hong Kong to celebrate the former British colony's 25 years of Beijing rule since the sovereignty handover in 1997. He actually praised the so-called one country two systems policy under which Hong Kong is supposed to have the right to enjoy free speech and maintain a high degree of autonomy, neither of which are evident in mainland China. It's ho ho time. As we all know, ever since Beijing took back the colony from the British, China has imposed huge security restrictions, clamped down on free speech and generally tried to turn Hong Kong into a Beijing-obedient satellite. The mass protests in Hong Kong in 2019 and 2020 over Beijing's plans to extradite "criminals" to the mainland were suppressed with such brutality that no one living in the colony was in any doubt that the one country two systems policy had gone for ever. Thousands of Hong Kong people with British residency rights have applied to live in the UK. But Xi calmly told the former British colony that all was well with the system which was at the core of the handover agrement signed by China and Britain in 1997. I was diplomatic correspondent on the Daily Express in the years leading up to the 1997 handover and went to Beijing with Sir Geoffrey Howe, then Maggie Thatcher's foreign secretary, to report on the negotiations which were challenging to say the least. I never thought then that China would be happy to let Hong Kong just carry on as if it was still a British coloney enjoying all the rights of western countries. Whatever dear Geoffrey Howe said after the negotiations, indicating that he had been successful in safeguarding Hong Kong's rights in the future after handover, it just didn't seem likely that Beijing would let Hong Kong do what it wished. The suppression of the protests in 2019 and 2020 was proof enough. So Xi's comments during his visit to Hong Kong - his first trip out of China for two years - were full of ho ho smugness and satisfaction, surrounded as he was by 100 per cent loyal pro-Beijing Hong Kong political leaders.