So farewell 2022, another bad year

When did we last have a good year to look back on? The last three have been dire, 2022 no less so than 2021 or 2020. The UK has had a ridiculous political pantomime year with three different prime ministers. Out went Boris Johnson in sort of disgrace, out went Liz Truss after a whirlwind of misjudgments and wild economic policies and then in came Rishi Sunak who has been one of the quietest leaders in living memory. We know he is there in 10 Downing Street but what is he actually doing? We have yet to find out. Meanwhile everyone who normally makes our lives easier and safer - nurses, train drivers, ambulance drivers etc - are on strike. So the year ends with a general sense of doom, doom and more doom for this country. Putin's outrageous invasion of Ukraine was the worst event of the year and I will probably say the same thing at the end of 2023 because the war will still be going on in one form or another. Huge decisions on global climate change were supposed to herald a better world for us all and for future generations but nothing is being properly implemented and in many areas there have been setbacks thanks to Putin's war and his attempt to blackmail if not ruin his European neighbours by stopping the flow of natural gas as a punishment for Europe's support for Ukraine. Climate-change disasters have hit so many parts of the world that it has become a regular slot on the evening news to hear about catastrophic floods and tsunamies and wild fires and record hot weather. One of the worst aspects of 2022 has been the realisation that the world does not have the quality of political leaders needed to address all these problems. We all think we could do better than the leaders we have elected. For example, as soon as Beijing announced that it was lifting the ban on its nationals travelling abroad despite a huge upsurge in Covid infections across China, we, the sensible people, all must have had the same thought. Please stop them coming unless they have had Covid tests. But, apart from the US, Italy, Japan and India, it took many more days before other governments, including the one residing in Number 10 Downing Street, began to consider whether it might possibly be sensible to follow suit. The UK government said no, then maybe, then reviewing the possibility, then ok we will. No proper leadership. Zero. Meanwhile the planes have been flying in. No one in leadership positions in this country gives me the remotest confidence that they know what they are doing with the economy to make it go forward instead of backwards. Everyone talks of imminent recession but is anyone doing anything to prevent it happening? No, they and the Bank of England are just resigned to it. God help us. So 2022 was a depressing year. I see little hope for optimism for 2023. Sorry to end the year in a black mood.

Putin and Xi Zinping love-in

If ever there was strategic military cooperation between China and Russia in the war in Ukraine it would add a new dangerous ingredient to a conflict which already has the potential for developing into a wider security crisis. The US has repeatedly warned Beijing against providing weapons to help the Russian invasion force in Ukraine, hinting at the dire consequences for China if President Xi Zinping were to take this path. Until now the Chinese leader has adopted a dual strategy: siding with President Putin in a regional partnership against the United States and Nato’s open-door expansionist policy, yet without backing Russia’s war, either with weapons or with words. Xi is ever the pragmatist. His priority is always: what will benefit China and how would support for Putin’s war negatively impact Chinese relations with Washington and, more importantly, his stated vision of converting his nation into an economic and military superpower to rival and then overtake the US. The latest phone call between the two leaders is part of this pragmatic approach. While Putin may be desperate to have Beijing more openly supportive of his military aggression, even to the point of China providing drones to restock Moscow’s dwindling supplies, Xi will have calculated that supplying weapons to Russia would for ever alter the delicate geopolitical balance with Washington. There is already a long history of military cooperation between China and Russia, dating back to the 1990s, initially linked to border confidence-building measures but later moving into technological transfers for aerospace engine development and regular joint armed forces exercises. Since 2007, more than 70 per cent of Chinese arms imports have been from Russia, and the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) still relies on Russian-made engines for many of its aircraft. However, overt arming of Russia for its war in Ukraine would put the cooperative ties between Beijing and Moscow on a different plateau. That would benefit Putin more than it would Xi who is struggling to cope with an indifferent economy affected by the Covid pandemic and the new surge in infections across the country. The last thing Xi wants is a further tightening of sanctions imposed by Washington. Selling Chinese armed drones for use in Ukraine would instantly lead to a new round of punishing economic penalties. It would also undercut Beijing’s stance of remaining neutral over the war in Ukraine while urging a peaceful regional solution. Xi is a far more meticulous and canny strategist than Putin. The Russian leader has a bull-in-the-china-shop approach, taking action based on his conviction that might will win. The invasion of Ukraine proved that strategy to be hopelessly over-optimistic. Xi on the other hand, with Taiwan in mind, has learned from Putin’s failing venture in Ukraine that military superiority, at least in terms of manpower and warship/tank/ballistic missile/fighter aircraft assets, does not necessarily win wars. The US learned that lesson in Vietnam. So, pledging to join Putin in trying to conquer Ukraine would be an alliance too far for the Chinese leader and would probably prove as disastrous for Beijing as it is for Moscow. Yet at the same time, if or when he does launch military action against Taiwan, Xi will want Putin on side. This is why he is happy to be seen underlining the close friendship with Moscow but without doing anything to anger Washington. ‘

The war in Ukraine is now totally one-sided

All the experts say the war in Ukraine is now stalemated and bogged down. But it simply isn't true. The war in Ukraine is now so one-sided all the Ukrainian military and civilians can do is stay bunkered down and accept the punishment because Putin is taking the easy option and launching long-range ballistic and cruise missiles by air and from the Black Sea and Iran-supplied drones. Putin knows that there is little Ukraine can do by way of retaliation other than try and shoot down the missiles and drones. Ukraine does not possess long-range ballistic and cruise missiles to do the same to Russia. So Putin can sit back in his Kremlin office and watch the videos of his missile operators sending dozens of long-range systems into Ukraine to make life unbearable. It's the coward's option and Putin has taken it with glee. If ever there was a case for giving Ukraine long-range weapons to hit back at Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea this is the time. The world cannot allow Putin to just destroy Ukrainian cities at will because this is what he is doing. His troops are making no progress on the ground and are waiting for the winter months to be over. So provided he doesn't run out of stocks, Putin will continue to hammer Ukraine with his rockets and missiles from a safe distance. Would he reconsider if Ukraine started to launch long-range missiles at Russian cities? I don't think the US would ever allow this for fear of provoking a Third World War but it's possibly the only sort of retaliation which might force the Kremlin chief to call a halt to his destruction of Ukraine. At present all the Kyiv government can do is continue launching secret special forces and drone attacks on Russian military bases a few hundred miles across the border. But Putin so far doesn't seem to worry too much about that. So unless there is a change of mind in Washington over long-range weapons for Ukraine, this poor devastated country will continue to be blasted to bits by Putin from the safety of his swivel chair in the Kremlin. Never mind the statemate, this is slaughter at the push of a button.

Covid China renews mass travelling, God help us

One just hopes that the UK government and every other government - bar China - are currently working out how to stop a flood of Chinese visitors with Covid arriving on their shores. All one can say is "Oh God here we go again". When the Covid virus was first born in Wuhan in China in 2019, Beijing allowed millions of Chinese abroad to come home to celebrate the New Year and then go back from whence they came to spread the disease around the world. It was a decision of gigantic irresponsibility and the rest of the world suffered. Now it's about to happen again. China has been suffering from a massive resurgence of Covid and the dominating President Xi Zinping shut most of the country down. But then he was scared into changing his mind after protests broke out in cities across the country. Despite increasing evidence of Covid rampaging through China, particularly among the elderly who had not been vaccinated (most of them, thanks to negligence by Beijing), Xi panicked and lifted the strict lockdown and then announced that the Chinese people could travel. They all rushed to airports to return for the New Year celebrations where no doubt they will pick up the virus and return to where they are living and working overseas to start another phase of the disease. Gigantic dose of irresponsibility by President Xi for a second time. But surely by now the rest of the world will have learnt its lesson and will impose huge restrictions on returning Chinese. Either a total travel ban for a set period or insistence on all returning Chinese to prove a negative Covid test and then a quarantine time of a week or more. Is this going to happen? The US is looking into it. What about the UK and Europe? I get no sense of urgency here. If we are going to have another pandemic outbreak, the economy and health of this country (UK) is going to go seriously backwards. Again. Please God I an wrong but right now it seems we are walking into another health disaster.

Could there be "peace" in Ukraine next year?

There will never be a status quo ante-bellum. Russia invaded Ukraine ten months ago and began destroying the country. So it would be impossible to reach a peace settlement and everyone just gets on with their lives. Putin has made sure of that. And yet the Ukrainian foreign minister has talked of a possible peace summit in February. With whom and under what preconditions? Well one of the peconditions he sets out is: Moscow must not be allowed to take part in the summit unless there is agreement that Russia faces war crimes. So if there is a summit it won't involve Russia because Putin will never agree to preconditions that satisfy the Ukrainians. The only precondition he would seek would be an agreement that he keeps the whole of the Donbas region of Ukraine which he can then turn into part of the Russian motherland. So I'm not sure what is meant by a peace summit. A war summit, yes, but a peace summit? I see absolutely no hope of a peace settlement next year or any year come to that. Unless Putin is overthrown (never going to happen) or something else dramatic occurs in Russia to force Putin to stop the war (can't think of anything) the Russian autocrat will order his military to carry on fighting and bombing and killing and when troop numbers dwindle through high casualty rates he will just mobilise more cannon-fodder soldiers to take their places. So, war without end in Putin's view unless or until Ukraine says enough is enough or the Western alliance collapses and reneges on the promises to support Ukraine for as long as it takes. So the chances of any peace settlement in 2023 or at least an end to the bombing and fighting seem remote. This is depressing news for Ukraine and for all of us. When the Covid pandemic erupted everyone dreamed of the day when it would all be over. It didn't come in 2020 or 2021 but sort of came in 2022, allthough the resurgence of Covid in China is seriously worrying. In 2022 Putin thought the war in Ukraine would all be over quickly. Now he must be resigned to the war continuing throughout 2023, but he doesn't care. So 12 more months of war and then perhaps another 12 months after that? I fear so. Predictions for next year are therefore bleak. I wish I could be more optimistic.

If the US had said no to Ukraine Nato membership, would this have stopped Moscow?

The US and the rest of Nato stipulated a long time ago that there would always be an open-door policy for membership of the alliance. Anyone could join - Russia, Belarus, Ukraine.....From that moment onwards there was going to be trouble with Moscow. And of course so it has proven. Initially Russia "joked" that it mght join Nato but didn't mean it. Belarus as far as I know has never indicated any desire to join. But Ukraine was mighty keen from the start, in fact pretty much as soon as the nation had removed the Soviet shackles from its sovereignty, Kiev then, Kyiv now,looked westwards and began to dream of joining Nato and the European Union. Leap forwards nearly two decades and we have a full-scale conventional (so far) war in Europe involving the whole of the alliance, Ukraine and Russia. Could that have been avoided if the US and Nato had stated unequivocally that the open-door policy was being dropped and countries bordering Russia would not be allowed to join because of the perceived threat it would pose to the Kremlin. In other words, in the interests of world peace and good relations with Russia, a declining superpower but with a huge stock of nuclear weapons, the Nato alliance could have expanded so far but no further. It probably made sense then even when Moscow was more positively inclined towards the West but certainly makes sense now in this dangerous era we have entered. But no one thought strategically all those years ago. So relieved and excited was the westen alliance that it had effectively defeated Russian communism and the Soviet Union without firing a shot that they felt it to be their duty to convert all former members of the Warsaw Pact into democracy-loving kingdoms and to be brought into the same liberal-minded club. It was a gesture that couldn't be turned down by nations which had struggled under the Kremlin dictatorship. Everyone wanted to join Nato. No one, and I mean no one in leadership positions thought properly about the consequences of this freedom-loving jamboree. So everyone queued up to join and once they were accepted they received massive economic and military aid to become fully paid-up members of the defensive Nato alliance. Moscow watched in bewilderment, anger and trepidation as the Nato boundaries expanded and expanded and came closer and closer to the Russian borders. With maybe 200,000 dead and wounded in the war in Ukraine and billions and billions of dollars in damage and destruction, does any western leader look back to those heady days after the fall of the Soviet Union and regret that decision to declare the open-door policy. Surely they must do. But it's all too late.

Happy Christmas

A very Happy Christmas to all my loyal readers. I always appreciate it whenever anyone reads what I write. Have a great 2023.

King Charles III and his disunited royal family

Once King Charles is formally crowned in May next year he is going to have to sort out his family, who does what and who doesn't do anything. Particularly Harry and Meghan and Prince Andrew. The extraordinary battles going on between Harry, his father and brother have either got to stop or Harry has to be banished for ever. And Prince Andrew must either be forgiven for his transgressions and put to work or dropped for good. The biggest challenge is Harry and Meghan. Their Netflix documentary shows they are still bitter and angry and Harry's upcoming memoir of life in the royal family is going to make it worse. I think Harry and Meghan's chances of being welcomed back into the family are pretty remote but Charles should be magnanimous and have a go at reconciliation. It's all too painful at the moment and there is far too much anger and even hatred being aimed at Harry and Meghan by a lot of people in this country. It's Christmas, so let's all be forgiving and less vitriolic about this couple. But Harry and Meghan will have to play their part and stop behaving like very spoilt children.

Will the charges against Trump stick?

After a long inquiry, the January 6 committee of the House of Representatives has recommended to the Justice Department that Donald Trump should be charged with criminal offences, including fomenting an insurrection and conspiring to subvert the result of the 2020 presidential election. The committee which is bipartisan believes there is sufficient evidence for the former president of the United States to be charged. It would be the first time in the history of the US. I haven't read every word of the massive report by the committee but I really don't think the lawyers in the Justice Department will decide there is a prima facie case against Trump. Not because he is totally innocent, not because of what he said or didn't say prior to the assault on the Capitol on January 6, but because of the sheer magnitude of the thought of going to Trump's home and arresting him and formally charging him with rebelling against the constitution of the United States. It would be such a huge moment in the country's history that any Justice Department in whatever administration is going to hesitate before taking such a step. The "evidence" produced by the January 6 committee would have to be so strong and so unequivocal that there would be an absolute guarantee of a successful conviction. But there can never be a guarantee of conviction, and it would surely be almost as damaging for the country for Trump to be charged and acquitted than for Trump to be charged and sent to jail. So the lawyers of the Justice Department have a terrible decision to make. If they agree to the proposed charges, where will this leave the country, and if they say there is insufficient evidence to charge Trump, will that give a new lease of life for a man who wants to be president again in 2024? This is never going to be a strictly legal decision. It's going to be heavily mixed with all the political consequences. It's far more likely, in my view, that Trump wll be charged with other offences altogether, such as unlawfully removing classified documents to his home in Florida. That one might well stick, but if found guilty, he will not go to jail. So less of a big deal, just embarrassing for Trump and it might put paid to his presidential ambitions.

How will Putin view Zelensky's visit to Washington?

After a day of Winston Churchill speeches and adulation of the Man of the Year, President Volodymyr Zelensky, during his heavily pre-leaked trip to Washington, one has to ask the question: what will President Putin be thinking about the visit? Well, he will see it as further evidence of the US taking on Russia and it will probably embolden him to pursue his war in neighbouring Ukraine with even greater intensity just so that he can make life uncomfortable not just for the Ukrainian people but for President Biden. The House of Representatives changes hands next month, with the Republicans taking over majority control, and already the party's most senior Congressional figures have warned about the need to examine carefully the money and arms going to the Kyiv government. Putin will want to play on that, and the Zelensky visit to Washington will reawaken Putin's determination to see his war through to victory, whatever that might mean, however long it takes. Biden repeated to Zelensky that the US and Nato allies would support Ukraine, also for as long as it takes. But there will come a breaking point and I fear that it might be the western alliance and not Putin who blinks first. Putin doesn't care about the costs to Russia's economy and the cost in terms of casualties to Russian forces. All he cares about is achieving his objectives. He has a valiant and courageous opponent in Zelensky but without 100 per cent backing from the West, the Ukrainian leader will be fighting in the dark. He is already fighting in the dark. Zelensky said he was not appealing for charity, he was appealing for help to save global security. He is right. But whoever thought when the Russians invaded on February 24 that the safety of the world would be resting in the hands of a former comedian/turned brilliant war leader? The visit to Washington cemented that reality, and Putin will be under no illusions that he is stepping closer and closer to a much wider conventional war. Unless there is a peace settlement within the next six to nine months I can envisage direct conflict between Russia and Nato.

Taliban gift to women - no university education

The Taliban and everything they stand for are still smell of the Middle Ages. They have learned nothing about the 21st century, or the 20th or 19th come to that. They are a brazen bunch of mysogenistic non-human beings. Their latest gift to women is to announce a ban on university education. They have already banned girls having secondary education, so this is the latest slap in the face. What future do girls and women now have in Afghanistan? They can't get educated and so they won't be able to get decent jobs and will end up as servants to men. I really do believe the Taliban are among the worst people on earth, to go alongside Isis, al-Qaeda and other terrorists. But the Taliban, unlike the other lot, actually have the temerity to run a whole country and therefore believe they have the right to do what they want and claim it's all for religious reasons. And to think that commentators at the time of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August last year actually believed that this time round they would be different. That girls would be allowed to carry on going to school and university and then play a proper role in society. Now we know there was never going to be any chance of that happening and today women know for sure that they have no future in a country that was abandoned by the American-led coalition.

Where is Santa please Mr Pentagon?

America’s most advanced satellites which track anything airborne or in space posing a potential threat to the US homeland have a special challenge ahead. However, for the only time in the year the mission is purely benign and is carried out for the benefit of children who want to know when Santa Claus is due to arrive over their rooftops. Tracking Santa and his escorting reindeer has been one of the least onerous duties taken on each year by NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defence Command, housed in a deep bunker buried under the granite Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. A dedicated team of more than 1,500 military and civilian staff members of NORAD as well as local volunteers is already standing by to man the phones as children ring to ask where Santa is. They know from NORAD’s tracking-Santa website that on Christmas Eve the satellite operators will be following Santa’s progress across the skies once he has left his home base in the North Pole and heads off to deliver Christmas gifts to 7.5 billion people living on the planet.For millions of children around the world, it’s a serious business. A spokesman for NORAD said that as soon as Santa Claus had left the North Pole, children started phoning and emailing demanding to know which direction he was taking and at what time he might arrive at their address. All the tracking details are fed into NORAD’s website which is accessible to the outside world. “Last year we had 53,000 phone calls from children, two million more contacted us through social media and we had 14 million visits to our website,” the NORAD spokesman said. With the world facing so many crises, the spokesman said, it was a change to deal with something that was positive, giving hope and excitement to children. The “NORAD tracks Santa” operation began in 1955 after a bizarre breach of security which under other circumstances might have led to an emergency internal inquiry. However, the breach was caused unwittingly by a young child. Attempting to reach Santa, the child dialled a phone number which appeared in a department store advert in a local newspaper. The phone number was supposed to provide a direct line to Santa. But there was a misprint and, instead, the call went through to the Continental Air Defence Command (CONAD) operations centre in Colorado Springs, then responsible for providing early warning of a Soviet bomber air raid. Instead of putting the phone down, Colonel Harry Shoup, US Air Force duty commander at CONAD, assured the child that he was Santa. More calls followed that night, and the obliging colonel appointed a member of his staff to play the role. The tracking-Santa tradition was thus born, and NORAD took over the responsibility when it was formed in 1958.

Bad news: coal consumption UP!

This year has all been about bad news: a terrible war in Ukraine, huge energy-supply shortages as a result of Russian revenge on Europe for backing Ukraine, natural disasters everywhere, collapse of Great Britain as a serious country, North Korea going mad with ballistic-missile test launches, Iran repression of its youth, China's Xi Zinping wanting to be master of the universe, and now the latest figures show that coal consumption is up, coal-fired power stations are busy, coal imports are up. More than eight billion metric tons of coal have been used up already this year, and the use of coal for generating electricity has risen by two per cent, according to the International Energy Agency. While the reasons are understandable because of Putin's shutting off of natural gas pipeline supplies to Europe, the consequences are dire for the planet. Coal consumption has to go down to zero to reduce carbon emissions and save the world, but reliance on this fossil fuel remains high. There is still a lot of it about and it's filling the gap left by the drastic shortages of natural gas and the slow progress towards changing to alternative energy. In a year, but probably two or three, things will get better but will it be too late? Two more years of high consumption of coal could be dangerously risky for the climate. Are any governments taking all this into account or are they so overwhelmed by their economic challenges that they are failing to think sufficiently about the future of this planet? I fear so. The UK government is even considering developing a new coal mine. The future is not coal but it seems we just can't let go of the fuel which has and is ruining our lives and the future of our children.

Lee Harvey Oswald was lone assassin - official?

Another 13,000 John F Kennedy assassination plot papers are released and still there is no juicy morsel for the conspiracy theorists that it was all a giant conspiracy involving the KGB/Mafia/trade union honchos/rednecks. No one, according to the latest released files, was pulling the strings for Lee Harvey Oswald. He was a nutter pure and simple and didn't have some KGB baddie guidng him or some Mafia boss supplying the weapon. There is nothing in the files to suggest that other people were or even must have been involved. We know pretty much everything about the assassination of John Kennedy in 1963 but of course not all the files have been released. Three per cent of the five million or so logs relating to that devastating moment in US history remain classified. So I guess there could be something in the three per cent which might change the whole perspective of the assassination and point to others who conspired with Oswald but it seems unlikely. If there was definite, totally credible evidence that Moscow in some form was behind the assassination, then surely in the near-60 years since those shots were fired, it would have trickled out by now. But but but it did somehow always seem extraordinary that one miserable little man took it upon himself to shoot dead a president who had given new hope to the US and to most of the western world of a new era of great American leadership. A conspiracy seems so much more realisic. But I'm not and never have been a conspiracy theorists. I DO believe that American astronauts landed on the moon, and that the Pentagon was hit by one of the highjacked airliners in 2001. But until 100 per cent of the five million files on JFK's assassination are released I will hold a tiny bit of doubt about Oswald being a lone, unsupported, gunman.

Putin could be planning a push to seize Kyiv in the New Year

All the intelligence talk in the US and Ukraine is that Putin is planning a big offensive in January or February, using 200,000 mobilised reservists to try and seize Kyiv. Well, they failed dismally the first time they tried and were beaten back mercilessly by the Ukrainian forces equipped with anti-tank missiles and Turkish-made-and-supplied Bayrakter TB2 armed drones. So could they succeed this time? The Ukrainians will be well armed to deal with a second push to seize the capital but there is a big difference now. The Ukrainian people and their courageous forces have been battered non-stop by Putin's ballistic-missile and cruise-missile attacks aimed at destroying the country's power supplies. They are tired and cold. Will they have the mental and physical drive to take on a big Russian offensive to take the capital? This is what Putin wll be counting on, sending in fresh troops against an exhausted Ukrainian defensive force. This is where the US-led Nato alliance must play a big role, supplying, urgently, a new wave of accurate and longer-range weapons that will force the Russians to retreat. If this happens then I think there is a good chance the Ukrainians will be able to beat back the Russians for a second time. Then, and perhaps only then, Putin will realise he will never be able to conquer Kyiv and seek a settlement.

Does Putin believe he's winning?

Is it possible that Vladimir Putin, ex-KGB lieutenant-colonel and thus steeped in the lying business, actually believes his own propaganda and thinks he is winning in Ukraine? Or is he perhaps being fed wildly over-optimistic intelligence reports from the front about how Russian troops are holding the line and continuing to threaten and intimidate Ukrainians to such an extent that it's as good as saying Putin has won a famous victory. I can't believe Putin is that gullible. I'm sure he dismisses whatever he reads in foreign newspapers - if he gets the Washington, London and Paris newspaper cuttings - and whatever he picks up from the BBC or CNN or Fox News. I am sure he rejects any western journalism as fake news. But can he really think his strategy in Ukraine is win win win? Surely not. He must spend much of his time in the Kremlin or his dacha outside Moscow in a state of smouldering anger, blaming everyone else for all the failings. And yet, as I have written before, he does look pleased with himself, so some of the propaganda he and his cohorts shovel out every day has stuck with him and overall the failings have been balanced by the reports he is getting which show much of Ukraine is being obliterated. That he really does enjoy. But there is a difference between enjoying other people's misfortunes and achieving victory. By now, nearly ten months after his forces invaded Ukraine, Putin must surely be getting impatient - just a little bit. If true, the question is what will he try next to bring about some sort of conclusion? He won't go nuclear, that I feel sure about. But could he do something outrageous to spur things on? If he has something up his sleeve I can't imagine it will make much difference because Ukraine is never going to give up whatever Putin tries. Does he know that or does he believe Kyiv will one day soon plead for mercy?

Patriots in the way of Putin missiles

The arrival of US Patriot missiles in Ukraine would be the most significant development in the high-stakes psychological battle between Washington and Moscow since the war began on February 24. The Patriot system which can shoot down ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, advanced fighter aircraft and drones are combat-proven and sufficiently accurate to provide crucial defence against the Russian bombardment of Ukraine's critical infrastructure. However more than that, a decision by President Biden to deploy these air-defence weapons in Ukraine would send the most potent signal to President Biden that the US and its NATO allies were no longer prepared to allow the Kremlin to persist with its brutal attacks. The US has already sent huge supplies of air-defence weapons, including Stinger man-portable systems. But a battery of Patriot missiles would be in a different league. No system is perfect. In its early combat days, the Patriot was used extensively during the 1991 Gulf War, protecting both Saudi Arabia and Israel from Scud ballistic missiles fired somewhat randomly by Iraq. About 70 per cent of the Scuds launched against Saudi Arabia and 40 per cent targeting Israel were shot down. Ironically, the best operational air-defence system in the world is probably the Russian SS-400. Israel's Iron Dome system has also demonstrated its combat effectiveness. The Patriot, however, has gone through three improvement programmes and is now significantly more accurate and capable than the Gulf War versions. Concerned that Russian missiles might be aimed at Nato's eastern flank, the US deployed Patriots to Poland since the war began in Ukraine. Sending them into Ukraine would tell Putin that Biden and his defence secretary Lloyd Austin, believe the time is right to provide an extra layer of protection to confront Russia. There is a drawback. These are serious weapons that cannot be deployed and launched in anger in days or even weeks. Dozens of Ukrainian missile operators will have to be trained, probably at a US base in Germany. It could take months and meanwhile the Russian missile attacks will continue. However, if Biden approves Patriot for the Kyiv government, the next step could be longer-range rockets to hit targets inside Russia and fighter jets, although a US defence source said the latter was probably a long way down the road.

It's time to up the stakes against Putin

The terrible thing about war is that after a time a sort of malaise digs in. Not among the Ukrainian people and their soldiers of course. For them the war is totally terrifying and constant. But for us looking in, the statistics are so grim every day that they are no longer shocking or surprising. For example, the Kyiv government now says that Putin's missiles have destroyed 50 per cent of the country's electricity supply. How can Putin just be allowed to carry on with this obliteration of Ukraine's energy infrastructure without being punished by the international community? Why is the world not rising up in anger? The Ukrainian forces are fighting back and trying to shoot down the missiles as they hurtle over the Russian border but many are still getting through. It is time for the Nato alliance to stop this daily destruction and for the world, including China, to condemn Putin. Something has to be done to prevent Putin from wrecking the whole of Ukraine's critical infrastructure. He is getting away with it, even boasting about it. He should be warned that if he continues with these daily missile strikes, the US-led Nato alliance will provide every long-range weapon system Kyiv needs to launch counter-strikes against multiple targets inside Russia and Russian-occupied Crimea. Then perhaps Putin will be forced to calculate whether it is still worth his while to try and destroy Ukraine. There is a danger he might further escalate the war to hit back against Nato allies in eastern Europe but I seriously doubt he would take this risk. Multiple hits inside Russia might just persuade him to call a halt to the missile strikes and start thinking of a way to end the war. It's only a small chance but it's time to up the stakes against Putin.

Ukraine war: nine months and $19 billion

Wars are rarely short-lived. The Gulf War of 1991 when a US-led coalition liberated Kuwait from Iraqi occupying forces, lasted 100 hours. That was short. It could have gone on longer but President George HW Bush decided enough was enough. He didn't want a long turkey shoot, killing all the Iraqi troops in retreat and then driving on to ovethrow Saddam Hussein in Baghdad. That was to come later, in 2003 when his son launched the invasion of Iraq. Ukraine, in the mind of President Putin, was going to be a short war. Seven days, or 168 hours. But he got his tactics and dreams all muddled up and here we are more than nine months later with the slaughter and destruction still going on at a terrifying level and no sign of it abating, although perhaps slowing down during the freezng winter months. Nine months of war for Ukraine and Russia, and $19 billion for the US. With the latest arms package announced, the total spend for supporting Ukraine has moved beyond $19 billion. That is a truly remarkable figure. The Pentagon's huge stocks of ammunition, artillery shells, missiles and rockets have been dwindling at a furious rate, and defence companies are upping production levels to try and keep pace. The staggering sum of money has allowed the Ukrainian forces to confront an enemy far superior in troop numbers and equipment. How many more months will this war continue and how many more dollars will the US taxpayer be prepared to spend? I fear the answer to these two questions lies in the hands of Vladimir Putin.

Bad news: Putin is looking happy and confident

After all those pictures of Vladimir Putin looking sick, unsteady on his feet, angry, morose and generally not in a good mood, suddenly all has changed. He now looks smiley, confident, even swaggering. No sign of ill health. Once more a leader apparently in charge. One of the reasons is that he appears to be relishing pounding Ukraine's critical infrastructure to bits. It's a win win for him, never mind the criticism from around the world. And then there's his success in persuading Joe Biden to swap super-nasty arms dealer Viktor Bout, convicted of conspiracy to kill Americans, for a basketball player who was caught with a bit of marijuana at Moscow airport. Bout by some accounts has strong ties with Russian intelligence, thus is a buddy of Putin's and the Russian leader has been trying to get his release from US jail for years. Another win win for Putin. There was a picture of him consorting with young military officers at some function and he looked excessively pleased with himself, even though he was a good deal shorter than any of them. So Putin has shaken off all the bad news that has enveloped him since his disastrous invasion of Ukraine and has taken on a new lease of life. This is bad news for everyone, especially Ukranians, the Kyiv government, Biden and Nato.

Why the Pentagon tacitly endorses Ukraine's attacks inside Russia

The Pentagon is giving tacit backing for Ukraine’s long-range attacks on targets inside Russia because they are seen to be fully justified following President Putin’s multiple missile strikes against the country’s critical infrastructure. Since the daily assaults on civilians began in October, the Pentagon has revised its threat assessment of the war in Ukraine. Crucially this has included fresh judgments about whether arms shipments to Kyiv might lead to a military confrontation between Russia and Nato. “We’re still using the same escalatory calculations. But the fear of escalation has changed since the beginning. It’s different now. This is because the calculus of war has changed as a result of the suffering and brutality the Ukrainians are being subjected to by the Russians,” a US defence source said. There is now less concern that the strikes inside Russia could lead to a dramatic escalation. Moscow’s revenge attacks have all involved conventional missile strikes against civilian targets. In the past, the Pentagon was more wary of Ukraine attacking Russia because of the fear that Moscow would retaliate either with tactical nuclear weapons or by targeting neighbouring Nato nations. However, Washington doesn’t want to be seen publicly giving the green light to Kyiv attacking Russia. The official US position on Ukraine’s attacks inside Russia was laid out by Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, this week when he said:”We have neither encouraged nor enabled the Ukrainians to strike inside of Russia.” However, a US defence source put it another way. “We’re not saying to Kyiv, don’t strike the Russians [in Russia or Crimea]. We can’t tell them what to do, it’s up to them how they use their weapons.” “But when they use the weapons we have supplied, the only thing we insist on is that the Ukrainian military conform to the international laws of war and to the Geneva conventions. They are the only limitations, but that includes no targeting of Russian families and no assassinations,” the source said. The tacit Pentagon backing for strikes in Russia was implied when the source added; “As far as we’re concerned Ukraine has been in compliance.” Within these limited constraints laid down by the Pentagon, the Kyiv government has now adopted a more aggressive and more persistent offensive against targets inside Russia. But Ukrainian forces have been careful to use their own Soviet-era drones, not US-supplied weapons, to carry out the strikes. The drones, based on Soviet Tupolev TU-141 Strizh surveillance systems developed in the 1970s, have been reprogrammed to give them longer range and a sizeable munition for launching at low altitude. The modified TU-141s were used this week in three raids against military bases 300 miles inside the Russian border, and on fuel tanks about 80 miles across the Ukrainian border, in each case evading air defences. The drones can fly at 600mph at low altitude, like cruise missiles. Ukraine and the US are playing a careful game over these strikes which have added a new, much bolder ingredient to drone warfare in the nine months since the invasion. The Pentagon refuses to make any public statements about the attacks, and the Kyiv government has declined to acknowledge responsibility. However, if the US decides to supply Ukraine with longer-range weapons, capable of launching attacks in Russia, the issue would become more controversial. The fear of potential escalation could increase dramatically. Pentagon officials, however, have made it clear that requests from Kyiv for longer-range American weapons, including rockets and fighter bombers which could be used for even more effective strikes inside Russia or Russian-occupied Crimea, are being seriously considered and have not been ruled out. “Nothing is off the table,” a senior US defence official has stated. The weapons high on Kyiv’s list include the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) which has a range of about 190 miles and would be devastatingly effective and accurate if used in deep-penetration raids into Russia. Until now the Pentagon, in discussions with Nato allies, has deferred the decision on whether to go down this route; and US defence sources would not be drawn on a report in The Wall Street Journal which claimed that the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) that has been operating in Ukraine for several months had been modified to prevent it firing the ATACMS. The drone Ukraine wants more than any other is the American MQ-1C Gray Eagle which has a range of 250 miles, is armed with four Hellfire missiles or eight Stinger missiles, can remain airborne for more than 24 hours and is equipped with sophisticated reconnaissance systems. Again, the decision on this piece of kit is still in abeyance. Eric Edelman, a former distinguished US official who served both in the Pentagon as the top policy specialist and at the state department as ambassador to Finland, then Turkey, believes the delay in supplying these weapon systems is no longer sustainable. “The [Biden] administration is excessively self-deterred by the prospect of an alleged escalatory spiral which is largely illusory,” he said. “The best thing for all concerned is for the Ukrainians to be able to win as quickly as possible and hence it makes sense to give them ATACMS and Gray Eagles and help them to put together a package of main battle tanks as well,” he said. When the Russian invasion began on February 24, the US policy on arming Ukraine was based on two fundamental principles: that the American weapons supplied would not be used to attack Russia itself and that the choice of warfare equipment would be conditional on the need to avoid the risk of a war between Nato and Russia. The objective was to arm Ukraine to defend itself against an illegal assault on its sovereignty, not for Nato to confront Russia. But the initial acute sensitivities surrounding Nato’s arming of Ukraine have all but vanished. “Unlike at the beginning we are now prepared to give a lot more detail about the shipments,” one US defence source said. For example, the first shipment included man-portable air defence systems (manpads). It was only later that the state department confirmed they were Stingers. “We were initially worried about spelling out that we were supplying Stingers because of the scar tissue left from our supply of these weapons to the Mujahideen against the Russians in Afghanistan,” the defence source said. *Read my spy thriller, Shadow Lives, available on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble and Rowanvale Books.

The iconic Black Hawk helicopter to be replaced by a new-look aircraft.

The legendary American Black Hawk helicopter which featured in one of the US Army’s most disastrous counter-insurgency operations in Somalia nearly 30 years ago is finally to end its days and is to be replaced in a new multi-billion dollar programme awarded this week. Black Hawk Down, the title of a book and a Hollywood film, were the three words that summed up the incident on October 3-4, 1993. Nineteen members of US special forces units, Rangers and Delta Force, were killed when two of the helicopters were shot down over Mogadishu. Codenamed Super 61 and Super 64, they were both hit by rocket-propelled grenades fired by militia forces under the command of the Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The brutal images of the dead soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu became for ever linked to that disastrous moment in US military history. The twin-engined UH-60 Black Hawk, built by Sikorsky, has been one of the US Army’s primary combat troop-carrying helicopters since the 1970s and served extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, during the 1993 incident the helicopters became vulnerable to withering ground fire as Aidid’s militia targeted the Black Hawks which were packed with special forces soldiers. Operation Gothic Serpent, aimed at snatching two of Aidid’s most senior lieutenants from a three-storey stronghold in Mogadishu, was a high-risk mission involving around 160 troops. The plan ws to fast-rope down from the Black Hawks to enter the building and seize the two militia commanders. Hundreds of Somalis as well as the 19 American soldiers were killed in a battle which lasted two days. In another famous incident, a special forces-adapted Black Hawk , an MH-60, crashed when trying to land in the compound where Osama bin Laden was living. Black Hawks and Chinooks were used to ferry the US Navy’s Seal Team Six commandos to the compound n Abbottabad in Pakistan on May 3, 2011. No one was killed when one of the Black Hawks crashed. Now the veteran Black Hawk is to be replaced by a futuristic-looking V-280 helicopter built by the Bell company, beating a joint rival bid by Sikorsky and Boeing. Bell has been awarded an initial contract worth $232 million to develop the V-280 which will be a tilt-rotor helicopter, similar to the V-22 Osprey already in service. The tilt-rotor system allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically as normal but can fly at speeds equivalent to a fixed-wing aircraft. A prototype for the new helicopter is expected to be completed by 2025. The US army calls the new helicopter programme the “future long-range assault aircraft”. The project could be worth mor than $70 billion for Bell which is owned by Textron, based in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Meghan and Harry Netflix documentary will be the final straw

It's sad sad sad but Prince Harry and the Duchess of Sussex - Harry and Meghan - sound like they have produced a documentary which will alienate them for ever from both the royal family and the people of Britain. From the trailers it is clear both of them are consumed with a tremendous sense of bitterness, jealousy and, almost, hatred for everyone, accusing the royal family and the media of being racist and anti-Meghan. The documentary, so soon after the death of the Queen, seems monstrously untimely and disrespectful and aimed at damaging the family of whom Harry was once a beloved member. It is difficult to imagine there will be any way back for them. They could have been a wonderful part of the monarchy, playing their part and enjoying the same affection felt for many of the other members of the royal family. But they chose to leave it all behind and seek a fortune and a Hollywood style of living across the Atlantic. Now they want revenge and by all accounts it is going to be a horror show. I guess it's too late to stop the documentary and too late to stop Harry's book coming out next year. So that's it. Harry and Meghan will have sealed their fate, a future living abroad and increasingly irrelevant to the late Queen's and now King's subjects.

What does Putin want from the winter fighting?

Vladimir Putin must surely have given up any thought of winning the war in Ukraine. So what does he want from the winter months ahead? I suspect he will put much more effort into pursuing his political war with the US and Europe than with trying to make military advances against the Ukrainian army. There will be lots of talk of possible peace deals and Putin will try to give the impression that he is genuinely interested in settling the whole matter for the good of everyone. But as the Kremlin has already made clear there will be no peace deal unless Putin is given assurance that he can and will keep all the territory his troops have won in the Donbas region. And of course that is out of the question, not just in Ukraine's eyes but in the eyes of the whole of Nato. Putin cannot be rewarded for invading Ukraine. But I anticipate that Putin will find a form of words that some in the alliance might find more acceptable, especially those who are even now beginning to think that this war cannot go on for much longer because of the consequences for their economies. Macron and Scholz are already half way down this path. So watch out for some charm offensive from Putin.

Xi Zinping's refusal to accept the West's Covid vaccines is ideological madness

It's obviously a matter of national pride, or communist party pride I should say, that President Xi Zinping has refused so far to accept any of the western-developed Covid vaccines. The Chinese leader has done a Trump and has said that he only wants China-developed vaccines. But it's patently obvious that the Chinese vaccines are not as good as the western ones which have been fantastically successful in curbing the pandemic. BUt to admit that would be to lose face, so Xi has stuck to his China-only policy and as a result the pandemic is still raging throughout China and the for-ever president is in trouble with the mounting demonstrations across the country against his harsh lockdown strategy. The restrictions have been lifted a little but I wonder whether this will be enough to stem the tide of anger against his regime. Avril Haines, the US director of national intelligence, spoke out yesterday about the political risk Xi is facing over his Covid policy. She doesn't think this is going to lead to regime-change but there is no question that Xi's tough policy is beng viewed across China as unacceptable and unnecessary. The West is recovering well from the pandemic. Why not China? And why are the Chinese people being refused access to the West's superior vaccines? I can't see Xi buckling over this, he will stick with the Chinese vaccines. But what an important step it would be for West-China relations, let alone for the Chinese people, if Xi were to swallow his national pride and open his arms to western help.

The stealthiest new bomber is unveiled in the dark

As seemed fitting for the stealthiest bomber ever designed, America’s B-21 Raider was rolled out for the first time from its 200ft-wide hangar at Palmdale, California about 20 minutes after dusk had fallen. The Raider was making its debut on the public stage but it was sufficiently dark for hostile prying eyes in space to have to peer through the gloom to get first sighting of the exotically-shaped bomber. Lloyd Austin, US defence secretary, and assorted Pentagon heavyweights had gathered for the long-awaited moment at 5pm on Friday (1am UK time). Photographers and camera crews were corralled into an area from where only authorised glimpses of the “flying-wing” bomber could be snatched. The $550 million aircraft was created in secrecy in Northrop Grumman’s “skunkworks” at Palmdale, designed with stealth in mind, and has yet to fly. When it does take off for the first time, perhaps early next year, it will head to Edwards air force base in California, and every plane spotter, friendly and unfriendly, will try to pinpoint its flight. The first US stealth bomber programme in three decades began in 2015 when the contract was awarded to Northrop Grumman. The US has led the way in stealth technology for military aircraft, but China and Russia are catching up. China’s H-20 stealth bomber and Russia’s Tupolev PAK DA, codenamed Poslannik, both look like they come from the same family as the American B-2 Spirit bomber, in service since 1997, with the familiar flying-wing shape. “The B-21 is bound to be significantly more stealthy than the B-2 but also, crucially, it will be easier to maintain,” Douglas Barrie, aerospace expert at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said. “As part of the development process the aim was to make maintenance less onerous,” he said. Barrie believes a number of classified projects have found their way into the B-21 programme, including developing an “uninhabited” version. Northop Grumman was contracted to design a pilot-flown and unmanned version of the Raider. “For all fighter aircraft and bombers the future is about getting the balance right between stealth and speed,” Barrie said. “The B-21 is subsonic although it will be at the high end of subsonic [close to Mach 1 or 761 mph] and the reason for this is that you have to make a trade-off, stealth for speed,” he said. “If an aircraft flies at supersonic speeds, twice the speed of sound, then other factors come into play, such as the surface heat of the aircraft frame and the cost of fuel. If it glows in the dark it can more easily be spotted. For the B-21 the key was to have a very low radar sgnature,” Barrie said. The first American military aircraft built with stealth technology – shape, size , contours and materials all developed to evade enemy radar – was the F-117 Nighthawk which first flew in 1981 and was retired in 2008. The new bomber was rolled out on Friday in front of the VIPs next to an array of other aircraft including an F-35 joint strike fighter, an F/A-18, a B-2 bomber and a B-25 Mitchell. The B-21 Raider was named after the Doolittle Raiders, a squadron of B-25 Mitchells which flew the first raid on Tokyo after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941. The raid was led by Lieutenant-Colonel James “Jimmy” Doolittle.

Putin falls down the stairs. Really?

Ever since the war in Ukraine began, the stories of Vladimir Putin being ill with cancer or Parkinon's disease or both have proliferated in the West. Every time he coughs or his hand shakes or he appears to stumble, media reports suggest he is on his way out and that he is prosecuting the war in Ukraine as his final fling of hatred towards his neighbour in particular and towards the West in general. It may all be true. Some pictures of him in recent months have certainly shown him looking very puffy and shakey. But no one truly knows. Now there are new reports that he has fallen down the stairs at his residence and had to be picked up by his ever-watchful bodyguards. Again I have no idea whether this is true or someone having a laugh. But the one thing that may give it authenticity is that the report appeared on the Telegram social media platform and was allegedly sourced to one of Putin's bodyguards. If a bodyguard is rushing to Telegram every time Putin blows his nose then this shows one thing - that his bodyguards are not all 100 per cent loyal to him. This must be worrying for Putin who has enough troubles to face right now. The falling-down-the-stairs report has added to the general image of Putin as a leader in a state of desperation. If this is the case then there are two possible outcomes in the next few months: Putin facing total humiliation sues for peace, or he struggles on and continues to batter Ukraine to extinction. Knowing Putin's background and his paranoia I fear the second option is the most likely, especially if he makes a habit of falling down the stairs.

Sergei Lavrov justifies the attack on Ukraine's infrastructure

See this link for my new spy thriller, Shadow Lives, out yesterday: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63238389-shadow-lives ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, had already sunk low in the world's estimation following his oft-repeated backing for Putin's war in Ukraine. Not so much the diplomat, more the Kremlin propagandist. Now he has sunk even lower if that is possible by claiming that the missile and artillery strikes against Ukraine's infrastructure which have destroyed the country's heating and water supplies are legitimate acts in a legitimate war. He clearly has no understanding of the international rules of armed conflict which ban the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure. But Lavrov dismisses that and says the attacks are justified because Ukraine has been aided with arms by the West and that Russians are being killed as a result. In war of course, rules generally get forgotten, so it's hardly the first time that civilians have faced power blackouts and water shortages when rockets and artillery shells are being launched every day. But the Russians are doing this as a deliberate war campaign. Putin believes/hopes that the Ukrainian people will demand their government ends the conflict. But this is never going to happen. So Putin will just go on destroying Ukraine's power stations and other facilities upon which the Ukrainian people depend for their existence until it has all gone. President Macron of France told Biden today at the White House that he planned to phone Putin in the coming days. But to what end? Putin will hear what the French leader has to say but he won't listen. Putin stopped listening to appeals a long time ago. What he wants is what he is doing right now, making the lives of Ukrainians as miserable and as desperate as possible. And he has Sergei Lavrov behind him all the way.