To flourish Russia needed a Gorbachev dynasty. Instead it got Putin

All the glowing tributes to the life of Mikhail Gorbachev who has died at the age of 91 cannot hide the fact that despite his famous perestroika policy, opening up Russia, giving the Russian people a real taste of democracy and of course helping to end the Cold War, he failed to prevent the rise and rise of Vladimir Putin. After all the good he did for Russia and for all of us, there was apparently no way of stopping someone like Putin with his background in espionage and links to Russia's darkest forces from becoming president and putting the whole country under his thumb. Gorbachev shed light on and in a country which had hated and feared the West for decades and made it possible to have sensible and historic negotiations with President Reagan to remove for ever, we thought and hoped, the danger of nuclear Armaggedon. But here we are in 2022 with Putin in charge for as long as he wants, a war in Ukraine which potentially could develop into a third world war and irresponsible talk in the Kremlin about usable nuclear weapons. Gorbachev's body has yet to be lowered into a grave but he will soon be turning in it.

Putin and Iran getting to be too close for comfort

Ok the US has lined itself up with some pretty dubious leaders in the past because it was politically and/or strategically prudent, or at least practical. Difficult to believe that Washington sided with Saddam Hussein during the long war between Iraq and Iran in the 1980s. The US not only supported Saddam but gave him weapons. But then Tehran was regarded as more evil than Baghdad. So it made sense. In 2003 it was a different matter altogether. Saddam had to be eliminated and regime-changed. Everyone seemed to agree. Today Iraq is still a mess and a potboiler of varying extremes. But the real worry is Iran, and now especially because of evidence of a growing love affair between Putin and the Ayatollahs. Trust Putin to buddy up to the one country that is implacably hostile to the US. Russia is now due to get hundreds of armed drones built by Iran to deploy against Ukrainian targets. No wonder the Pentagon is getting worried. Drones are playing a big role in the war in Ukraine, and Russia is getting short of drones, as well as other vital weapons including precision-guided bombs and short-range ballistic missiles. So Iran's support for Putin is good news for the Russian leader who needs all the help he can get and bad news for both the Kyiv government and for Nato. Putin has also been cosying up to Xi Zinping but the Chinese leader is in so much trouble with rising debt and growing protests against his financial mismanagment of the country's finances that, as yet, he hasn't taken sides with Moscow to the extent of offering military help. Tehran had no compunction. The Ayatollahs need the cash.

Keeeeeeep dancing Sanna Marin, Finland needs you

On a lighter note, all this fuss about the Finnish prime minister, 36-year-old Sanna Marin, caught dancing her socks off at a rave party! First of all, good on you, Sanna Marin, have fun in life. But what an uproar it has caused. The more conservative types have criticised her for looking too unlike a prime minister and hinted that someone of her gender and age dancing wildly while she should be at her desk reading whatever prime ministers are supposed to read was totally wrong and humiliating for the country as a whole. Well it's all stuff and nonsense of course. I am sure she is a devoted prime minister but needs to let off steam sometimes. The Finnish people should be happy and grateful that they have a normal human being in charge. Whoever leaked the video of her dancing needs to get a life. But of course politicians and political leaders in particular have to be careful. Look at our Boris Johnson who has been caught doing silly things so many times that eventually it all became too much and he had to go. So beware, Sanna Marin, enjoy your life but watch out for those horrible people who will betray you for a few sheckles. In the meantime, as the two presenters of the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing say at the end of each show: "Keeeeeeeep dancing."

What if the war in Ukraine is still going on in 2024?

The German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock thinks the war in Ukraine could go on for years. She is probably right but how depressing is that? It could mean that when the US presidential election campaigns get going, the war will be an issue, especially of course if it is still having a disastrous impact on the cost of living for everyone. Perhaps this is Putin's main objective, to steadily undermine and destroy the West's way of life. He won't succeed but if the war does look set to continue for three, four or five more years, the next US president, whether it be a reelected Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, stepping in to replace an exhausted president, or a Republican firebrand - Donald Trump (God help us), Rick DeSantis or whoever - will surely have to consider new action to try and stop the war or intervene to defeat Putin? No one, least of all the poor Ukrainians, will want this war to go on for years. One hope is that Putin by 2024 could be in serious political trouble if he fails to achieve the glory he promised the Russian people. There are already signs of disgruntlement in Moscow among senior military and intelligence officials. By 2024 it could have grown into a nationwide rebellion. It's a long time to wait but if the German foreign minister's dire prediction is right, with any luck it will be Putin who suffers the most.

Trump will need brilliant lawyers to avoid a criminal charge

The more that emerges from the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago the more likely it seems that Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States, will face a charge or charges under the 1917 Espionage Act. Incredible though it is to say so. A president being read his rights? Amazing. First of all the FBI would never have got the warrant they needed to raid Trump's residence unless they had serious evidence from unnamed secret witnesses that the former president had removed from the White House a lot of very very highly classified documents. Now we hear that Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, has called for a review of the potential damage of having these documents locked away in a private safe, albeit a former president's private safe. Most worrying of all it seems is the fear that these top secret dcuments might contain enough intelligence pointers to indicate who were the secret sources for the information. In the intelligence business there is nothing more sensitive than the identities of secret informants who are operating in their own countries and passing secrets to the US. If they are operating in a country where exposure of their betryal would lead to their death, the pledge to keep their identity secret is crucial to their survival. These are very brave people whatever their motivation might be for revealing their country's secrets. So if the documents in Trump's safe contained hints of who the sources were, it's no wonder Avril Haines is investigating. Why on earth was Trump keeping them in his safe? What did he plan to do with them? No one yet has given an answer to this. Trump's claim that he had declassified the documents is clearly ridiculous. If there is anything in the documents that hints at the sources they would never be declassified even if a president could himself declassify them which he can't. Which brings me back to the extraordinary possibility that Trump could be charged and even sent to prison!

Pentagon's new strategy to reduce civilian casualties

All US top military commanders are to be assigned “civilian protection officers” to advise on the dangers of collateral damage before any operational strikes are carried out in the future. The new layer of decision-making announced by Pentagon chiefs followed consistent criticism that the number of civilians killed in wars and counter-terrorism missions has been unacceptably high. The most controversial strike occurred in August last year when ten Afghan civilians, including seven children from one family, were killed in a drone attack in Kabul during the chaotic US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. Those responsible for the tragic error believed they were targeting Islamic State (Isis) suicide-bombers. Compensation has yet to be paid to the surviving members of the family. An airstrike that killed dozens of women and children in Syria three years ago was covered up, according to an investigation by The New York Times. After a review of military procedures aimed at reducing the risk of civilian casualties, Lloyd Austin, US defence secretary, released a “civilian harm, mitigation and response action plan”. It includes forming a centre of excellence to focus on the issue and the appointment of 150 specially-trained officials who will be posted to each of the 11 US combatant commands, such as Central Command in Tampa, Florida, and Africa Command in Stuttgart, Germany. The Pentagon insists that it has always applied tight restrictions on operational strikes that could involve the risk of civilian casualties. US defence sources said there had been numerous occasions when military strikes had been called off in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, often at the last moment, when civilians emerged into the crosshairs. Military lawyers are also available for all combat commanders to advise on the legality of missions. However, Austin issued 11 new objectives to help commanders appreciate the importance of avoiding civilian casualties before authorising any strikes. The aim is not just to reduce the risk of non-combatants being killed or injured. “What we’re trying to do here is when you are conducting operations in hostile areas or areas where we have to do precision-targeting, [you] take into account what are the second or third effects of potential harm to civilians,” Brigadier-General Patrick Ryder, the newly appointed Pentagon press secretary, said. This would include civilian infrastructure, “things like water and power”, he said. As a result of the new edict from Austin, the proposed civilian protection officers will not just be military operators. They will also include urban planners and civil engineers who can advise on the risks of destroying civilian power supplies and properties, Ryder said. “It doesn’t mean civilians won’t be killed in war anymore. They will. But if this plan is properly resourced it will ensure fewer people will die,” Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon official, told The New York Times. Tens of thousands of civilians have been killed since the war on terror was launched by President George W Bush in 2001, although there are no official estimates of the toll of dead and wounded. Unlike Russia which has been accused of killing civilians indiscriminately in Ukraine without any official cknowledgement , the Pentagon has attempted over the last two decades to review and assess all claimed civilian deaths. However, the Pentagon’s figures rarely matched unofficial estimates put out by human rights organisations which have claimed hundreds of thousands of civilians have died. “The US needs to acknowledge and address the many previous cases of civilian harm that have so far been denied or ignored,” Daphne Eviatar of Amnesty International, said. However she welcomed the new moves as a “promising first step” towards preventing future civilian casualties caused by US military operations.

The power game between the US and China in South China Sea

The power game between Beijing and Washington in the South China Sea has now changed so dramatically that even the US, with all of its combat capabilities, is struggling to keep up with the extraordinary pace of China’s military build-up. The visit to Taiwan by Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, did more than just antagonise Beijing and provide justification, in its view, for the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to launch an invasion rehearsal. It also gave the planners back in the Pentagon an eye-opening reminder of the technological advances made by the Chinese military in recent years, notable among them the huge inventory of anti-ship ballistic missiles. An American aircraft carrier strike force operating in the South China Sea always used to be the most potent symbol of US firepower, and the biggest deterrent to Beijing’s ambitions to grab Taiwan and totally dominate the region. However, the presence of a nuclear-powered carrier and escorting guided-missile warships and submarines may no longer be enough to stop Beijing from invading Taiwan whose future fate could provoke a full-scale war between China and the US within the next decade? In the so-called third Taiwan Strait crisis between July 1995 and March 1996 when the PLA launched missiles into the waters surrounding Taiwan, the US dispatched two aircraft carrier groups. The nuclear-powered carrier, USS Nimitz, steamed through the Taiwan Strait as if it owned the waterway, and the PLA could do nothing about it. During the display of massed PLA aggression towards Taiwan as a result of the Pelosi visit, the US had one carrier in the South China Sea, the USS Ronald Reagan. It stayed well clear of the most aggressive display of PLA firepower ever witnessed by Taiwan. Despite rumours to the contrary, there was never any intention on Washington’s part to send the carrier up the Taiwan Strait either before or after the PLA had completed its invasion drills. John Kirby, press secretary to the National Security Council, indicated that US warships would pass through the strait in the weeks ahead to demonstrate America’s right of navigation in international waters. “But there are no plans for the Reagan to go through the Strait, that was a rumour circulating but not accurate,” a US defence source told The Times. The Ronald Reagan is now back in port at its forward base in Japan. For an American carrier to sail through the Taiwan Strait today, not only Admiral John Aquilino, commander of Indo-Pacific Command, has to give his approval, but General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, Lloyd Austin, the defence secretary, and the National Security Council all have to be involved. It’s that sensitive. Since the US started switching military assets to the Indo-Pacific under President Obama in recognition of the growing threat posed by China – including the militarisation of disputed islands in the South China Sea - the Pentagon has been trying to build a force in the region capable not only of deterring Beijing but also of winning any future war. However, the Obama “pivot” of resources lacked real muscle. President Trump continued with the strategy but there was no dramatic shift, and today the US Navy is arguing over how many warships it wants to build over the next few years, let alone deploy to confront China. The current US-China warship balance is: US, 293, China, 350, although America has far greater carrier power with ten against China’s three. However, a new analysis by the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment predicts that the PLA has the resources to field up to five carriers and ten nuclear ballistic-missile submarines by 2030. The think-tank assumes China’s military budget will grow at three per cent above inflation for the next decade. “The PLA has been engaged in a stunning military build-up. The advances they have made are staggering,” said Ian Easton, a China expert and author of The Chinese Invasion Threat: Taiwan’s Defense and American Strategy in Asia. “They have militarised the whole of society,” he said. The US has the largest defence budget in the world, $777 billion. But with all its global commitments, and the billions of dollars currently being spent to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia, would the US be capable of defeating China? The devastating interim conclusion of the war game carried out by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington this month suggested the US would lose hundreds of warships and aircraft in a conflict with China over Taiwan. Losses that would take years to replenish. “The big issue here is the growing disconnect between US words and capabilities,” said Andrew Krepinevich, a China analyst and former Pentagon official. “The [Biden] administration talks as though the military balance has not changed in 20 years, yet it has, and dramatically so in China’s favour,” he said. By coincidence or by design, at the time of the Pelosi visit to Taiwan, the communist party of China (CCP) released its first White Paper on Taiwan in 22 years. One heading put it simply: “External forces obstructing China’s complete reunification [with Taiwan] will surely be defeated”. “The wheel of history rolls on towards national reunification and it will not be stopped by any individual or any force. We will always be ready to respond with the use of force or other necessary means to interference by external forces,” the white paper said. This sort of belligerent language, while not surprising or even new, still serves as a warning for the future. The growing imbalance in the power game in the Indo-Pacific region will deteriorate further unless the US invests in additional warfighting capabilities to take on the Chinese. “We should not give the CCP the impression that their recent activity [over the Pelosi trip] has changed our position on Taiwan [going to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a PLA invasion, as pledged by President Biden],” Krepinevich said.

Six months of war and Boris is back in Kyiv

Boris Johnson, prime minister of Great Brtain and Northern Ireland for another 12 days, turns up in Kyiv for a glowing welcome from the tough guy in the khaki vest. Volodymyr Zelensky loves Boris because he went to Kyiv for a walkabout before most leaders had booked their flights. But Boris will soon be gone and I can't see Zelensky having the same buddy buddy relationship with Liz Truss. Different peas in a different pod. But while Boris heads off back to Fleet Street from whence he came, Zelensky will stay in his kkaki outfits trying to outsmart the Russians and save his country from annihilation. The prospects and omens are not good. I can see Zelesnky still in his khaki vest calling for more western weapons in a year's time, perhaps two years. That dreadful military word, stalemate, has now embedded itself in the rival military camps. Not much progress from either side. Zelensky will rue the day Boris got ousted from the premiership because one thing the British prime minister is good at is rousing the West to keep supporting Kyiv and its struggle with Putin. When winter sets in, the war will grind to a halt. So it will be more difficult for Zelensky to keep the interest going. But the 31st anniversary today of Ukraine's independence from Russia has served as a strong reminder to the West that Ukraine's sovereignty is worth fighting for, or at least, worth arming Kyiv for. The latest huge military package announced by President Biden for Ukraine today will guarantee that Russia will have no choice but to fight on. Did Putin ever consider this possible scenario when he ordered Russian troops to cross the border on February 24th? No, absolutely not.

Darya Dugina's murder was all about the war in Ukraine

The murder of the daughter of right-wing Russian ideologue and Putin loyalist Alexander Dugin is yet another deadly example of the plotting that goes on at the centre of the murky world surrounding the Kremlin and its boss Vladimir Putin. The speculation is that whoever killed Darya Dugina had intended to assassinate her father. I don't believe it for a moment. The assassin or assassins knew precisely what they were doing. Their target was Dugina, the nationalist commentator. The fact that the FSB, the Russian internal security service, provided an almost instant step-by-step explanation of how a mother and daughter Ukrainian sabotage team driving around Moscow in a Mini Cooper carried out the killing tells you everything you need to know. The FSB script I am sure was carefully drawn up well before the assassination took place. This is how this dark underworld works. The idea was presumably to create a furore in Moscow to convince Russians living in the capital that their great country was under attack by the Nazi Ukrainians, giving Putin justification for his war in Ukraine. This is guesswork of course, but the idea of a mother and daughter whizzing around Moscow in a Mini Cooper plotting to blow up Darya Dugina's car is surely Kremlin-class fiction. This latest murder in Moscow has nothing to do with the Ukrainians but everything to with the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine cannot defeat Russia. Let's be realistic

There is still a lot of talk about how or if Ukraine can defeat Russia. Even within Nato there seems to be this fingers-crossed strategy that perhaps the awesomely inspirational Volodymyr Zelensky, backed by all the fancy weaponry being supplied to him, could actually win the war and drive the Russians back over the border. Zelensky obviously believes it because that's the sort of guy he is. But let's be realistic, there is no chance Ukraine can militarily defeat Russia, if, by defeat, you mean crush them into oblivion and send what remains packing back to where they came from. After all, the Russians and their loyal militia force have been at war with Ukraine in the eastern sector since 2014 and they were not defeated during that period. Neither side won but the fighting just ground on. That's what's happening now throughout Ukraine. No one is winning or losing. Large chunks of Ukrainian urban territory are being destroyed and the Kyiv forces are getting their revenge by striking pretty dramatically at Russian supplies and extending the war to Crimea. But Vladimir Putin didn't get where he is today by contemplating defeat at the hands of the Ukrainians or anyone else. He will be angry about the strikes on Crimea but, secretly, he will be telling himself that is exactly what he would he have done had he been Zelensky. So he will punish Zelensky somehow for daring to attack Crimea but he won't throw up his hands and tell his troops to come home. Putin is there for the long haul because he cannot under any circumstances lose face with that former comedian-turned-political leader in Kyiv. He has already sacked the commander of the Black Sea Fleet for failing to protect Crimea from attack and, in particular, for those eight naval fighter aircraft that were destroyed by the Ukrainians. But more fighter aircraft will no doubt be sent to Crimea in due course. The one thing that Putin will care about is any Ukrainian action in Moscow. The car-bomb murder of the daughter of one of his most trusted ideological advisers will have sent shivers down his spine. But I suspect that was an internal assassination plot, not another example of Ukrainian special forces. Whoever was behind it, Putin will be seriously worried about the bombing because it will make ordinary Russians think that they are not safe in the capital any longer. But Putin is not going to do anyone any favours by changing his stance on Ukraine. He wants Ukraine crushed and will keep going until he gets what he wants. Defeat of Russia in Ukraine I'm afraid is a nice dream, for Zelensky and for Nato. But it's a pipedream.

The 25th anniversary of Princess Diana's death

It's a cliche to write it but there are certain moments in your lifetime where you will always remember what you were doing and where you were when something of historical importance or a catastrophe which affected everyone occurred. I can vividly recall as a child the incomprehensible (to me) but genuinely frightening day when I thought a nuclear bomb was going to land outside my school classroom window (the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis). I remember exactly where I was when the news broke on the TV that President John F Kennedy had been assassinated. I rushed home to tell my parents only to find them esconsed with an encyclopedia salesmen attempting to persuade them to buy half a dozen volumes. They hadn't heard and I couldn't tell them the breaking news because it would have been rude to interrupt the man's pitch. I was walking back from a cafe after lunch when someone from The Times said to get to the office quickly because something of huge moment was happening in New York. I arrived to find a cluster of reporters around a TV set about 12 minutes before the second hijacked airliner crashed into the Twin Towers. Princess Diana's death on August 31 25 years ago was another of those never-to-be forgotten moments. I was in bed but awake when the news broke from Paris. Today, a quarter of a century later, Diana remains one of the most famous and loved women on the planet. Everyone in the universe knows about Diana. Her extraordinary uniqueness and yet simple, naive, innocent persona affected pro- and anti-monarchists. She will always be an iconic figure and her life and death were in so many ways desperately tragic.

Crimea is no longer a safe haven for Russians

The Crimean peninsula for eight years has been a safe haven for Russians, thanks to Vladimir Putin's military annexation in 2014. One of the most bizarre videos I watched recently was of Russians sunning themselves on the beaches in Crimea. Not that far from the war in Ukraine northwards but, for them, plenty of scope for swimming and having picnics on the beach. But no longer. After a series of huge explosions on Russian bases in Crimea, the peninsula is suddenly a danger zone. Ukrainian special forces and/or ground-attack aircraft/and rockets have been targeting the Russian military and arms depots with extraordinary accuracy and have put the fear of God into the Russian civilians who thought they had a nice life far away from the war. Now the war has come to them, along with a warning from President Zelensky that he wants Crimea back and intends to get on with it. Russians are fleeing Crimea by the thousands. Will this alarm Putin and make him see sense and stop the war? Well, no of course not. He doesn't care about Russian civilians enjoying life in Crimea but he does care about hanging onto Crimea. So the war will go on. But for the third time since the invasion began on February 24 Putin has been dealt a major blow to his plans: the failure to seize Kyiv in seven days, the loss of the Black Sea fleet flagship cruiser, Moskva, and now the attacks on Crimea. What the hell IS going to stop Putin in his tracks?

No one has a good word to say about the Afghanistan campaign

President Biden will insist until his voice gets hoarse that he did the right thing to get all US troops out of Afghanistan in August last year. But now a year later - I won't call it an anniversary - I haven't heard a single military commander who was involved in the 20-year war say anything remotely positive about the way the campaign was handled or the way it was abruptly ended. Normally top commanders hate to admit that the men they commanded may have fought and sacrificed their lives for nothing. But this is the message coming out loud and clear. And of course they are technically right because Afghanistan has reverted to the Middle Ages. However, having gone to Afghanistan for a month at a time on about eight occasions over the years during the war, I think I have a duty to point out that despite the disastrous conclusion, a huge amount of good was done for the Afghan people in those 20 years. There were literally tens of thousands of international troops who during their tours dedicated themselves to helping the Afghans, whether it was training the Afghan military and police, setting up health clinics, rebuilding schools so that children, girls and boys, could be educated, and protecting communities from the Taliban. Huge mistakes were made at the very top of the military who espoused ambitions that were never realistic and resorted to counter-insurgency tactics that never worked against a ruthless insurgency. So those who served in Afghanistan either as military or as civilian professionals, deserve our thanks. It wasn't all for nothing because for 20 years the multinational force kept the Taliban at bay. And thousands lost their lives or were severely injured in the process. That should never be forgotten.

Liz Cheney's loss is good news for Trump and bad news for the United States of America

Liz Cheney, one of the few senior Republicans to stand up to Donald Trump, has been cast aside by her party's voters in the primary election in Wyoming and some unknown who is loyal to the former president won by a huge majority. Trump will see this as vindication of his hatred for Cheney, daughter of the former vice president, Dick Cheney, and total vindication for his any-week-now decision to stand again for the presidency in 2024. He will see the defeat for Cheney in the Wyoming primary as proof that people still love him, well Republican voters in Wyoming anyway. It's all a man like him needs. Adoration and loyalty and he got both in Wyoming. It's very sad news for Cheney who has spent so long in Congress and deserved to continue with her political career. Now she says she is pondering the possibility of standing for president in 2024. But, seriously, she won't have a chance. Not against Trump. Taking a hostile position vis a vis Trump is like walking across a motorway without looking both ways. Good luck to her but I fear her dreams of high office are very very unrealistic. The worst thing is it means the US has just taken one big step backwards towards another Trump era.

The Taliban walked it in August 2021. How could this have happened?

It will remain one of the most humiliating defeats for the US and other coalition military in the history of warfare. After spending $1 trillion to turn Afghanistan into a reasonably functioning democracy and to keep the Taliban away from regaining power in Kabul, and building an army and police force of 330,000 personnel to keep the elected government and the people of Afghanistan safe, everything was just thrown away. No one, and I mean no one, in the Washington establishment, including the most senior military at the Pentagon and in Afghanistan itself imagined that the Taliban would seize back control in such a fantastically quick time. The worst scenario was perhaps a year. But it was just weeks. Why? Because as soon as the Doha agreement had been signed, the Taliban knew that the US had lost interest and they probably gauged that the 330,000 armed Afghans trained by the US and Britain and all the other members of the coalition, would just turn tail and wouldn't put up a fight. How right they were. All that money wasted on an army that wouldn't be prepared to fight for their country when the chips were down. And of course the Kabul government was corrupt and useless and thought only of themselves. The president, Ashraf Ghani, got out of the country as quickly as he could. It was in every way a massive and disgraceful shambles followed by the even more disastrous withdrawal by all the US-led troops. The Pentagon chiefs wanted 4,500 US troops left behind and then agreed to limit it to 2,500 but no lower. But Joe Biden said no. So that was it. Not a single US boot left on the ground and the Taliban back in charge to do their worst. Yes, definitely, even more than Vietnam, the worst defeat in history.

Biden wasn't prewarned about the FBI raid on Trump! Really?

This I do find extraordinary: the president of the United States of America was NOT told that the FBI was planning to raid the residence of the former president of the United States of America. Joe Biden knew nothing about it, according to the White House press secretary. So we are to believe that the first Biden heard of the raid on the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida was when he read it online in The Wall Street Journal or perhaps on Fox News or CNN? OK, the president doesn't have to be told of every raid the FBI plans or carries out, but one that involves Donald Trump when such a raid will have huuuuuuge political repercussions? Surely someone must have whispered into Biden's ear what was going on. I know the decision to raid was the Attorney General's and Biden had no constitutional role to play in the decision-making. But no one told Biden beforehand?!! I just can't believe it. I doubt any Republican will believe it either. It's not a huge issue but it will just build up the conspiracy mayhem that is already underway that the Biden administration authorised the Trump raid in order to make sure the 45th president could not under any circumstances become the 47th president. I happen to support the view that Trump should never be allowed back into the White House. But let's hope the Mar-a-Lago raid was purely a justice matter and had nothing to do with politics. But then even if the raid WAS pure and white as snow, the Republicans will never believe it. Nor will Trump's supporters.

Could Trump end up in the dock?

Donald Trump has 58 bedrooms and 33 bathrooms at his Mar-a-Lago resort residence in Florida. These interesting statistics for Trump's faourite home appear in the search warrant for the FBI raid. Fortunately for the FBI they didn't have to search every bedroom and bathroom but were ordered to focus their efforts on storage sites, notably the room wonderfully called the 45th Room. Do all past presidents have rooms with the number of their presidency stamped on them? The big question is, what on earth was Trump doing with all these "classified" documents in his safe and elsewhere? What was he intending to do with them. I see Russian TV is having a laugh saying the classified docments allegedly detailing new US nuclear weapon designs had been very useful. But seriously, why did Trump take them home with him? He knew for absolutely sure that it was wrong to do so. He claims he had declassified them but not even a president can do that off his own bat. There has to be a carefully-followed procedure before any top secret document can be declassified. If the case is proven against him, could the 45th US president really be charged with a criminal offence? Trump in the dock?! Oh my goodness. I seriously doubt it will happen but in the United States of America you can never be sure of anything anymore.

The Taliban destroy Afghanistan a year after US coalition withdrawal

The Taliban have proven, not to anyone's surprise, that they can never be trusted to fulfil any promise they have made. A year since they seized back control of Afghanistan, the country is back in the Dark Ages, the economy has collapsed, women have been reduced to slaves, human rights abuses are spreading and every promise by the Taliban negotiators in talks with the US in Doha, Qatar, has been broken. The eight hard-faced Taliban negotiators promised in writing that they would not allow al-Qaeda to return in force to Afghanistan and be given safe refuge. They lied. What more evidence do you need of that broken promise than the arrival in Kabul itself of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda leader, and his family. It proved fatal for him because the CIA was tipped off and he was duly targeted by two Hellfire missiles and killed while he was standing on the balcony of his safe house. But the Taliban had actually invited al-Zawahiri to Kabul and he was being protected by Taliban bodyguards. As a result of this blatant breach of the Doha agreement, the US is now even more unlikely to unfreeze all the assets which Afghanistan so desperately needs to survive. Afghanistan is doomed, and, far more importantly, the poor Afghan people are facing the bleakest future imaginable. How on earth are they going to survive when they have no money to buy food and no support from the Taliban government? The US and coalition wholesale and rushed withdrawal from Afghanistan will be seen by historians as one of the worst and most devastating political decisions ever made.

Destruction of eight Russian planes in Crimea is stunning coup for Kyiv

However they did it, the destruction of eight Russian fighter aircraft at a base in Crimea is a staggering achievement. Almost as big a blow to Vladimir Putin as the sinking of the Black Sea flagship cruiser, Moskva. Either it was Ukrainian special forces or Ukrainian air force jet fighters. Either way, the Russians were caught napping. If it involved special forces literally entering Crimea stealthily and planting explosives on all the planes and then leaving without being caught, it reminds me of the SAS mission that was intended to blow up Argentine aircraft in the Falklands war in 1982. That was not sucessful because of a crashed helicopter. The seven SAS commandos had to leave fast and sought sanctuary in Chile from where they were extracted. But if the Ukrainian special forces who have a good reputation, carried out the demolition mission at Saky in western Crimea, it was successful not just in achieving the objective but also putting the fear of God into the Russian forces in the 2014-annexed territory. If it was ground-attack aircraft then what the hell happened to the Russian air defences? What a shambles. I can't believe the aircraft were smashed up by the launching of Himars rockets unless the US has secretly supplied Ukraine with longer-range rockets. However the attack was carried out, the Saky base looks a mess. Putin will be steaming mad. It has also put Putin on notice that President Zelensky intends to carry through with his threat to take back Crimea from the Russians. Good luck, Zelensky.

How devastating a war between China and the US would be

A full-scale conflict between China and the United States over Taiwan would lead to devastating losses of American warships and aircraft, a war-game analysis by a Washington think-tank has concluded. However, in an unprecedented naval battle, the US and Japanese navies and air forces could launch a counter-attack that would sink as many as 150 Chinese amphibious and other surface ships. The sheer scale of the destruction on both sides in the event of China launching an invasion of Taiwan is laid out in the analysis carried out by former Pentagon and US Navy officials and other experts at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Details of the war game emerged as the eastern theatre command of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) announced it had successfully completed joint combat exercises around Taiwan, described by the Taipei government as a simulated invasion. After the display of aggression against Taiwan over the last six days, involving the launch of 11 short-range ballistic missiles and hostile crossings of the median line in the Taiwan Strait by Chinese warships and aircraft, the CSIS scenario painted of a war in 2026 over the breakaway republic suggests there would be no clear winners. However, despite the projected involvement of a massive offensive force embracing every component of the PLA, Taiwan itself would succeed in repelling the invasion , according to the initial conclusions.The results of the war game by the think tank will not be published until December but in 18 of the 22 rounds completed so far, PLA anti-ship ballistic missiles sunk a large proportion of the US and Japanese fleets and destroyed hundreds of aircraft on the ground. In one version of the war game, 900 US fighter and attack aircraft were lost in just four weeks. That’s around half the US navy and air force inventory. That is described as “the worst scenario”. “However, allied air and naval counterattacks hammer the exposed Chinese amphibious and surface fleet, eventually sinking about 150 ships,” Marc Cancian, one of the participants, said. “The reason for the high US losses is that the United States cannot conduct a systematic campaign to take down Chinese defences before moving in close, “ said Mancian who served three decades in the US Marine Corps before working as a senior official in the Pentagon and later the White House. The Pentagon has carried out its own assessment of how a war with China over Taiwan would end. But the findings remain classified. Six years ago, the Rand Corporation also analysed the possible outcome of a war between China and the US and envisaged that in early exchanges there would be “steep military losses on both sides”. But the PLA would suffer far greater losses, the 2016 report concluded. However, in the period since, the PLA has achieved significant technological advances and has built a vast arsenal of ballistic missiles, part of China’s policy of deterring US carrier strike groups from entering the region in time of war – Beijing’s anti-access, area-denial (A2D2) strategy. During the latest PLA military aggression against Taiwan, the US Navy’s 7th Fleet headed by the carrier, USS Ronald Reagan, remained on operational duty in the Indo-Pacific region but stayed away from the Taiwan Strait. That was a clear message to Beijing that while the US denounced China’s reaction to the visit to Taiwan by Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House, the American military was not going to get involved in confronting the PLA. In the CSIS war game it is assumed that the US would intervene in the event of a PLA invasion of Taiwan to fulfill Beijing’s longstanding plan to reunify the island to mainland control. Cancian told The Times in an interview that the just-completed exercises by the PLA reflected the capabilities taken into account in the war game. “In nearly all the scenarios, the US/Japan/Taiwan are able to prevent Chinese forces from occupying the entire island, However, the cost is extremely high,” he said. “It would take years for the US to rebuild its forces because of low production rates. Other nations such as Russia and Iran might take advantage of US weakness, “Cancian said. “The US will need to strengthen its position enough to deter China or to win the war without experiencing high attrition,” he said. No assessment has been made about the casualty toll or the economic damage to Taiwan and to China. But the last four rounds of the war game will examine what might happen if the US were to delay intervention and Japan stayed out of the conflict. The scenario will include an assumption that China would strike at US warships in the region as well as launch attacks on US forces in Guam and possibly Okinawa and Kadena in Japan as part of the invasion plan for Taiwan. “So we are assuming the US will intervene but it’s not a certainty,” Cancian said. In the statement on the conclusion of the military exercises around Taiwan, Shi Yi, spokesman for the PLA’s eastern theatre command, said: “The command will closely monitor the changes in the Taiwan Strait situation, continue to train and prepare for combat, routinely patrol in the direction of the Taiwan Strait and resolutely defend national sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

China goes hybrid with drone that can swim and fly

China has developed a new hybrid weapon system that operates submerged as a submarine-shaped drone and then launches from the sea to fly in the air with large pop-up wings. A prototype of the flying submarine drone which can operate under the ocean and in the air has now been tested, according to the South China Morning Post. If a twin-role drone has been successfully developed it would be the first time that one of the three rival big powers - China, the US and Russia - has mastered the technology to produce a weapons platform that can withstand deep ocean pressures and flying at speed in the air. Water is 800 times more dense than air but the Chinese have designed special propeller blades than can generate a powerful thrust without the danger of the blades snapping. The key is to design a drone system that remains stable when it changes from underwater to airborne travel. The US Navy has tried for years to develop a manned vehicle capable of both submerged travel and airborne flight as a stealthy form of transport for special forces. It's called a "transmedium" system. In another US study a flying sea glider was designed that could be dropped from 30,000ft and dive beneath the surface of the water. The Chinese version of the flying submarine research programme which many countries have attempted over the past few decades, is reported to be capable of flying at 75mph after emerging from the water. Underwater it looks like a submarine drone with fins but as soon as it bursts from the water two large wings extend from the fins. The hybrid drone operates with four propellers. A weapon of this type with a dual underwater and airborne capability would have been designed to pose an additional threat to US aircraft carriers operating in the Indo-Pacific. A drone armed with electronic-jamming equipment suddenly emerging from beneath the water would be a challenge for warship radar systems. The prototype submarine drone has been developed and tested by a research laboratory at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Aeronautics in eastern China, the South China Morning Post said. Chinese scientists have also been working on underwater drones that can track and attack submarines. A test was reported to have been carried out in 2010 in the Taiwan Strait although this has never been confirmed.

Who will dare take on Trump from the Republican party?

Some time between now and November, Donald Trump will declare he intends to stand for reelection as president of the United States. I don't think there is any doubt he will stand, especially if Joe Biden confirms he wants a second term. Trump believes he beat Biden in 2020 and sure as hell believes he can beat him in 2024. So unless, and this is a huge unless, the Justice Department decides on all the evidence that has emerged over the last few months that Trump should be charged with a criminal offence arising from the January 6 attack on the Capitol - it seems unlikely - the former president will announce before adoring crowds that he is the man to push Biden out of the White House. In that case who among the many would-be presidents in the Republican party is going to dare to stand against him? Ron DeSantis, standing at the moment for reelection as governor of Florida, Mike Pence, former vice president, Nikki Haley, ex-ambassador to the United Nations and all the other hopefuls such as Mike Pompeo, former CIA director and secretary of state, and Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas? Will they have the temerity to fight a campaign against their former leader? There surely has to be a good chance that after Trump declares he wants the job again, the others will fall by the way side, with the possible exception of Mike Pence who is no longer a member of the Donald Trump fan club. But he won't beat Trump that's for sure. DeSantis is unquestionably the strongest of the "other" candidates but he could well stick with being governor of Florida and go for the Big Job in 2028. None of this gives any absolute certainty for Trump that he will win the nomination or that he will beat Biden. And it's this uncertainty which just might make Trump have second thoughts. But I doubt it. The only thing that is going to stop Trump now is if the Justice Department decides to prosecute him. Then the fireworks would really fly.

US on a hiding to nothing

When the Taiwan crisis slows down as it inevitably will, I don't think Washington will be able to look back on the whole drama with any degree of satisfaction. Beijing won on points. Taiwan and Nancy Pelosi scored an own goal. One of the problems is that after China's staggeringly aggressive response to Pelosi's visit, any thought of future VIP trips to Taiwan from the US looks likely to be abandoned. So yet another victory for Beijing. The Pentagon advised against the Pelosi troop because of fears of what China might do, so if anyone else from Congress, let alone the US administration, wants to hop off to Taiwan, the Pentagon will surely demand, not just advise, against it. Beijing can't lose this one I'm afraid.

Pelosi visit gave China a golden opportunity to practice invasion

I doubt anyone in Nancy Pelosi's staff or indeed anyone in the Pentagon or State Department imagined that her trip to Taiwan would be a Godsend to Beijing. The Chinese communist party leadership must have been dying to rehearse a full-scale invasion of the breakaway republic but Xi Zinping, wily bird that he is, knew that the US would kick up a huge fuss and might even seek a UN Permanent Security Council emergency meeting to condemn China. So all previous military exercises aimed at Taiwan have been hostile and aggressive but relatively small-scale. But the arrival of Pelosi in Taipei gave Beijing a wonderful opportunity to dust off the simulated invasion exercise and launch it with all missiles firing and effectively get away with it because China had warned the US and the region that if Pelosi dared to go to Taiwan Beijing would react with appropriate military measures. In hindsight, Pelosi's trip was a gift to Beijing. It gave them due cause and justification, in their eyes, to try out the invasion plan which has been sitting on the shelf in some bunkered PLA HQ, ready to go. And they HAVE got away with it. The US cried foul, sure, but that was it. The White House even cancelled a planned test of an ICBM, not wishing to exacerbate an already tense time with China, and the Ronald Reagan carrier strike force which has been operating in the Indo-Pacific, was ordered to stay away from waters anywhere near Taiwan. On top of all that, when Lloyd Austin, US defence secretary, and General Mark Milley, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, tried to contact their counterparts in Beijing they got the brush-off. I am afraid to say that Pelosi's bravado visit to Taiwan showed up America's inherent weakness in the face of China's belligerence. President Xi will have been delighted. He won, the US lost. Very bad news.

Why China should think twice about invading Taiwan

A Chinese invasion of Taiwan would present Beijing with a multitude of challenges despite the awesome superiority in ground, air, naval and missile forces enjoyed by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Taiwan’s topography is the greatest challenge for an invading amphibious force, with sheer mountains rising from the beaches and a series of heavily fortified mini-island outposts that would pose a serious threat to PLA warships. The Taiwan Strait close to the island is also mined. In terms of firepower and combat capability, the PLA has everything at its disposal to overwhelm the Taiwanese forces, including thousands of short-range and medium-range ballistic missiles and a massed array of fighter aircraft and bombers. China’s fifth-generation Chengdu J-20 stealth fighter, also known as the Mighty Dragon, is an aircraft with capabilities that cannot be matched by Taiwan’s advanced F-16V Viper supplied by the US. Crucially, for Taiwan’s ability to survive a first onslaught of Chinese mainland forces, the PLA’s military doctrine calls for an initial overpowering cyber attack to decapitate Taiwan’s command and control systems and critical national security infrastructure. Such an attack could potentially wipe out communications between the Taiwanese military and the country’s political leadership. However, Taiwan has been planning for an invasion ever since it was clear that Beijing intended to reunify the breakaway island to China’s mainland governance whether by diplomacy or by military force. As a result, huge bunkered alternative government and military facilities have been constructed in the island’s granite mountains to safeguard communications from a PLA electromagnetic strike. The PLA would be expected to follow up a cyber attack with a combination of ballistic missile strikes, parachute drops of airborne and special forces and an amphibious landing. But an American analyst specialising in Taiwan told The Times in an interview last year: “Taiwan is God’s gift when it comes to defending. There are 14 beaches, all bordered by bluffs, most between 1,000ft and 2,000ft and some much higher, “ said Ian Easton, senior director at the Project 2049 institute in Arlington, Virginia and former China expert at a Pentagon-funded centre for naval analysis. “These topographical features favour the defenders and there are tunnels dug everywhere to provide cover for attacks on invading forces,” he said. However, even if Taiwan managed to survive the first and maybe even the second wave of air and ground force attacks by the PLA, it’s unlikely the Taiwanese armed forces could continue to defend the island without outside help. In effect, without American naval and air support. China has weapons and manpower superiority, not just overall in the military balance between Beijing and Taipei but also in the eastern and southern regions which the Pentagon refers to as the Taiwan Strait forces. For example, the PLA has six amphibious brigades, five Marine brigades, seven airborne brigades and and five artillery brigades based in the Taiwan Strait area. The amphibious brigade has 49 tank-landing and assault ships; and the PLA has a total of 35 diesel and nuclear attacksubmarines in the region, compared with Taiwan’s two diesel attack boats. China also has four strategic ballistic-missile submarines in the area. In the event of a war with Taiwan, the PLA’s eastern and southern theatre navies would be involved in direct action against the Taiwan navy. PLA air force support would be supplemented by civilian aircraft sequestered for troop-carrying, according to an analysis by the Pentagon. Key to any future conflict would be Taiwan’s ability to defend against ballistic-missile attack. Taiwan has the Patriot anti-missile weapon provided by the US and an arsenal of thousands of its own short-range and medium-range missiles coming from a domestic production line that has accelerated to 500 a year. However, Taiwan would face a potential barrage of China’s most deadly Dongfeng ballistic missiles with ranges far exceeding the Taiwanese own arsenal of missiles. They include the 240-kilometre range Wan Chien, the 150-kilometre Hsiung Feng III and the 120-kilometre Tien Chi. A 2,000-kilometre range Yun Feng missile is under development. To underline Taiwan’s determination to withstand a PLA invasion, the defence ministry in Taipei presented a budget of $17 billion for 2022 to purchase advanced air-defence systems for the navy’s frigates, more armed drones and multiple missiles for the F-16V fighter aircraft. The F-16V Vipers are kept safe from Chinese attack by being housed in the same granite-mountain bunkers where the Taipei government will relocate in time of conflict.

Raining Dongfeng missiles

Crises once they start just get bigger and bigger. After more than five months of war in Ukraine the world has sort of got used to it and hopes it will end soon. Then Nancy Pelosi flies into Taiwan and all hell is et loose. Whether it was a mistake or a much-needed poke in the eye of the Chinese we will have to wait and see. But the elegant Speaker of the House in her pink trouser suit was hailed as a heroine when she landed and Beijing went ballistic. In the true sense of the word. The PLA fired 11 Dongfeng ballistic missiles towards Taiwan in the angriest and most blatantly aggressive military action against the breakaway island and held military exercises that effectively involved a blockade. I'm sure Putin was pleased, it would have given him a lot of satisfaction that his friend Xi Zinping had seized the headlines from him. But it is seriously worrying. Both China and Russia at loggerheads with the US and determined to spell out in no uncertain terms what their military can do. Pelosi went to Taiwan without the blessing of either President Biden or the Pentagon so she is not the favourite person right now in Washington, having stirred up a hornet's nest of Chinese bad temper. But I have a feeling her action might secretly please Biden's national security team. China had to be told that Taiwan was off limits to the PLA, and Pelosi's brief trip sent a message to Beijing that the Washington administration was not going to be pushed around. Nevertheless the outburst of military aggression was alarming, especially for the Taiwanese although they have become used to PLA brinkmanhsip for decades.

How Ayman al-Zawahiri was found after 21 years

The secret operation to target Ayman al-Zawahiri took 21 years after 9/11 before credible intelligence revealed a startling piece of information: the 71-year-old deputy and then successor to Osama bin Laden was standing on a balcony of a house in the heart of Afghanistan’s capital city. Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri were key architects of the worst terrorist attack in the US, responsible for killing nearly 3,000 people. After the body of bin Laden, shrouded in a white sheet and placed in a weighted bag, was slipped into the waters of the Arabian Sea from the aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson, in May, 2011, the CIA team dedicated to hunting down terrorists had focused much of their attention on finding al-Zawahiri. It took another 11 years and was one of the longest manhunts in the history of America’s prime intelligence agency. The breakthrough came in early February. The CIA terrorist hunters received a tip-off that members of al-Zawahiri’s family had arrived in Kabul and were staying in a house in the exclusive Sherpur district of the capital where western diplomatic embassies were once located. The wife, daughter and grandchildren had clearly been schooled in the art of counter-intelligence tradecraft because they used evasive methods to try and avoid being followed. Proof that al-Zawahiri himself had finally joined his family came several weeks later when the familiar figure with his thick gray beard and scowling face appeared on the balcony of the house. But no move was made to target him on his first or subsequent appearances on the balcony. When it was first suspected that bin Laden was hiding in a compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan, the CIA, backed by the signals intelligence capabilities of the National Security Agency, spent months attempting to shorten the odds that the tall man walking each day within the compound walls was the founder of al-Qaeda. He never looked upwards to give US satellites the convincing dentification the CIA was seeking. In the end, President Obama gave the go ahead to launch a Navy Seal commando operation against the Abbottabad compound in May, 2011, even though the identification process had only reached a 60 per cent certainty. The intelligence about al-Zawahiri was more firmly based. After minute examination of surveillance images of the man who regularly stood on the balcony of the house in Kabul, the CIA trackers knew for certain the bearded individual was bin Laden’s 71-year-old successor with a $25 million bounty on his head. The decision by President Biden to target al-Zawahiri was made easier by the CIA’s positive identification. The operational method to carry out the kill was left to the CIA. The US Air Force Reaper drone sent to kill al-Zawahiri took off from a Gulf state, probably Qatar. It was armed with two R9X Hellfire missiles fitted with long slicing blades to kill the al-Qaeda leader without requiring explosives which would have destroyed the house. Both Hellfire missiles with the ninja-style whirring cutting blades were fired from the Reaper drone at 6.18am on Sunday, Kabul time – 9.48pm on Saturday in Washington. Until the intelligence breakthrough, the CIA hunters had focused their efforts in the remote border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan where al-Zawahiri was thought to be living among fiercely loyal tribal families. His bodyguards even married into local tribes to help cement the protection around him. At least four attempts were made to target him but he proved elusive. Some officials believed al-Zawahiri might even have lived at one point in Karachi, one of Pakistan’s most populated cities. Whenever al-Zawahiri sent out video messages to al-Qaeda members he used so-called “chroma keying”, a visual effects process which involved digitally placing a green backdrop to obscure the location. The CIA was given no clues as to his whereabouts. The arrival in Kabul of al-Zawahiri’s wife, daughter and grandchildren more than yfive months ago convinced the CIA hunters that he would eventually join them. Bin Laden had his family with him in the Abbottabad compound. The CIA had built up a network of agents during the 20 years of America’s military involvement in Afghanistan, but the agency had limited assets in the Afghan capital. It was not long, however, before reliable sources tipped off the CIA that al-Zawahiri was also present in the house. It was early April. Once there he never left the building but, fatally for him, he liked to sit or stand on the balcony during the day. Al-Zawahiri’s pattern of daily life was monitored for weeks via satellite images watched by the CIA back in Langley, Virginia. It gave the CIA time to construct a mock-up of the house which was subsequently shown to Biden to help make his decision whether it was safe to target al-Zawahiri on the balcony without killing any members of his family. The same process was used in the planned targeting of bin Laden in 2011. A mock-up of the compound in Abbottabad was built and US Navy Seal Team Six commandos rehearsed the assault over a period of months. The decision to go ahead with the assassination took weeks of secret briefings at the White House. Initially the intelligence of al-Zawahiri’s whereabouts was kept to a restricted number of officials. Biden was briefed on the proposed drone strike in the White House situation room on July 1. Three key officials present were William Burns, CIA director, Avril Haines, director of national intelligence, and Jake Sullivan, national security adviser. Biden gave authorisation for the kill on July 25.

America's ninja bomb extinguishes al-Qeda leader

Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed by two ninja-style Hellfire missiles fitted with long blades that would have sliced through his body as he sat on the balcony of his “safe” house in Kabul. The RX9 Hellfire missile, favoured by the terrorist hunters of the CIA and America’s special forces, was selected for the targeting mission because of the low risk of collateral damage. The RX9 carries no explosives but is fitted with reinforced metal in its tip with six extendable blades. The ninja missiles were believed to have been fired from a Reaper drone that could have taken off from a Gulf state, such as Qatar or United Arab Emirates, or even from the US. The strike on the al-Qaeda leader was at least the 12th time the US has used the ninja missile to target terrorists. It has also been called the “flying Ginsu”. Abu al-Khayr al-Masiri, an al-Qaeda deputy leader, was killed with the same weapon in a drone strike in Idlib province, Syria in February, 2017. He was travelling in a vehiclewhen the roof was sliced open by an RX9. It was believed to have been the first time this type of weapon was used in a precision attack on an individual. Two years later the RX9 version of the Hellfire missile was used to kill Jamel Ahmed Mohammed Ali al-Badawi, an FBI most-wanted terrorist who was accused of orchestrating the suicide bombing of the US Navy destroyer, USS Cole, in October, 200, when it was moored in Aden. Seventeen sailors were killed. The targeted terrorist was travelling in a vehicle alone in Yemen when the ninja bomb shredded the vehicle and killed him. The six pop-up blades are deployed seconds before impact. US officials have said the design of the weapon was aimed at minimising civilian casualties. The full name of the deadly weapon is AGM-114R9X. Although few details of the weapon have been publicly revealed, it is known that both the CIA and the military’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) have used the RX9 to target terrorists in recent years. It is believed to have been fired in Libya and Somalia, as well as Yemen and Afghanistan.

How much more dangerous is the world?

There is too much talk of nuclear weapons and miscalculations. Antonio Guterres, UN secretary-general, has warned that the world is just one misunderstanding or miscalculation from nuclear annihilation, and Iran's atomic chief has claimed his country is now able to make nuclear weapons. As for Putin, he has already threatened the West with a nuclear strike if they were to dare to intervene in Ukraine. When the word nuclear becomes such an easy one to say that's what worries me and should worry everyone. I don't think Putin has made any decision about going nuclear but nor do I think he has totally rejected the possibility. As each day goes by Putin seems to get more and more aggressive and predatory, despite suffering military blows in Ukraine, and in that sort of mood, there have to be concerns that he will think about nuclear weapons as usable rather than as a never-to-be-used deterrent. As for Iran, the chief atomic scientist insists that his country doesn't want to make a nuclear bomb. But we have heard this argument many times before over the last 15 years. I believe like most people who have followed this story for so long, Iran has every intention of developing a nuclear bomb because they know it will give them power. And power in this dangerous world is key to everything. Putin knows that, Xi Zinping knows that and the Supreme Ayatollah in Iran knows that. Guterres, I fear, is right.