The Houthis get battered but always fight on

For months now there has been a separate war going on between the Houthi rebel forces in southern Yemen and a coalition of Israel, the US, Britain and other European partners. The Houthis fire a lot of rockets and drones and missiles towards Israel and towards commercial shipping in the Red Sea and within minutes the retaliation comes from the skies. Today, the last day of 2024, it was the turn of the Americans to bomb Houthi targets in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, and elsewhere. A month or so back, the Pentagon sent B-52s - the big beasts of the US Air Force - to batter Houthi targets in Yemen. The Israelis are retaliating on a regular basis. You might ask, what is left of the Houthi military infrastructure? Hasn't it all been destroyed by now? But no, it doesn't seem to take long before the Houthis launch a bunch of new missiles and drones. This war is never ending. As soon as the Houthis started seizing territory from the official government of Yemen, a Saudi-led coalition of Arab nations started bombing like crazy. But they achieved nothing exceot kill thousands of civilians, and in the end, gave up. Now it's left to Israel, the US and dear old Britain etc to take over the bombing role.It's one of those weird wars where no one wins or loses. The Houthis nmust have lost hundreds if not thousands of their fighters and a huge proportion of their rocket bases, air-defence sites and weapons stores. And yet they keep going, armed and rearmed by Iran. As a country, Yemen is a total mess, with hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced, many of them suffering from starvation or malnutrition, while the bombs keep falling. Someone should sort this out and let the people of Yemen lead a life devoid of terror and the threat of death. It's time the Houthis were stoppeed, once and for all.

The wars in Gaza and Ukraine end. Then what?

Is anyone thinking of what happens after the wars in Gaza and Ukraine end? And I should include Lebanon here too. Because in each case, the amount of destruction has been massive. Gaza has been obliterated, cities and towns and infrastructure in Ukraine have been mashed by bombs anbd missiles, and Beirut has destroyed buildings all over the city. Who is going to pay for the wholesale reconstruction? Who is going to look after the millions of people who have been displaced? Who is going to give these war-suffereing people their lives back? Is there a master plan? If there is, I haven't heard about it. Ending wars is one thing but returning a country devastated by conflict to normality is quite another thing. It will take decades of investment. Is the international community readying itself to provide the funds on a huge scale? Right now, I don't think so which is scary and desperate for Gaza, Ukraine and Lebanon. Syria, too, of course, has been massively damaged by more than a decade of war. Where is all the money going to come from to rebuild all these countries? There are so many questions and no answers.

A quarter century of Vladimir Putin

Putin is approaching 25 years in power. Few leaders can claim that. Stalin reigned supreme for 30 years but I suspect Putin will catch up with him. He dominates Russia. Russia is Putin. For a former lieutenant-colonel in the KGB he has hung onto the apparatus of autocratic power with relative ease. No one has succeeded in challenging him. Most opposition figures who got anywhere near embarrassing him have died, and not from old age. His special military operation in Ukraine was supposed to be over after a few months. Yet, after nearly three years of death and destruction, the people of Russia haven't risen up in rebellion. They appear to believe him when he says he is fighting for the integrity and independence of the Russian motherland. Whether they love him or not is impossible to tell but they seem to accept that Putin is going to be their leader for the foreseeable future. He is untouchable, an arch manipulator and one of the most recognisable figures on the world stage, even though there is an international warrant for his arrest on war crimes and he can't fly to most countries in the world. Now he is probably going to face his biggest challenge - Donald Trump in the White House. It's going to be a fascinating confrontation. But don't expect Putin to lose. He has 25 years of experience at the survival game.

Amidst the chaos in the world there are some positive signs for 2025

The single biggest political change for the US in 2025 will be the arrival for the second time of Donald Trump as president. However, the whole world is approaching major changes, with the increasingly threatening global climate, challenges to the world economy and expanding conflicts. President-elect Trump has indicated he remains sceptical about the dangers of climate-change, and he is likely to be unenthusiastic about switching all energy sources from fossil fuels to renewable sources, such as wind and solar. This might suggest that he will stick to his campaign pledge to “drill, drill, drill”, allowing oil and gas companies to expand their fossil fuel investments. If he does, then this will have a dramatic effect on the next international climate conference which is due to take place in Brazil in November. However, a change in political leadership in the White House is not going to reverse decisions which have already been made by multiple businesses and industry. For example, the car industry is investing in electric vehicles, and solar and wind power companies are setting up across the country. This is long-term investment which will keep going even if the 47th president backs coal, oil and gas. There are many signs around the world of major developments underway to meet the growing threat from climate change. The future, in terms of the changing world climate, is not all bleak. There are positive signs that the world, or at least some parts of the world, are getting to grips with the potential dangers of global warmth. But it’s slow progress which is why individual government leaders have to play an important role in bringing in new legislation to mee the climate risks. Trump might even be persuaded of the arguments that fossil fuels cannot be the answer for the world’s energy needs in the future. The two other major issues for 2025, the economy and conflicts, could also be less challenging than many are predicting. In the US, the economy is showing very positive growth signs and next year there is every likelihood that it will continue to improve, bringing more people into jobs which could help cut down the cost of living. Unlike Europe where economies are stagnating, the US which has the largest economy in the world, looks set to have a prosperous 2025. Whether the arrival of the new president next month will mean a world with fewer conflicts remains to be seen. However there has to be hope that the war in Ukraine can be brought to an end with some form of settlement that won’t only benefit Russia. Trump has asked his special envoy for the war in Ukraine, Lieutenant-General Keith Kellogg, to devise a formula which will end the war and bring stability to Ukraine after nearly three years of conflict. Although there is no reduction in Russian missile attacks against Ukraine, it may well be Trump’s personal relationship with President Putin which will be the decisive factor in persuading the Russian leader to stop the war and reach an agreement with President Zelensky of Ukraine. As for the Middle East, it’s in Trump’s interest to play a role in bringing the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza to a close. When Trump was president, he signed the Abraham Accords in 2020 which normalised relations between Israel and several Arab nations: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. It was a significant diplomatic achievement. But there is an even bigger potential prize, the normalisation of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. But this will never happen while the war in Gaza continues. If Trump could help towards bringing a settlement in Gaza, then a wider agreement could then be reached which could have positive repercussions throughout the Middle East. That would be a coup for the new president. So 2025 could be a good year for tackling climate change, for improving the economy and for ending the terrible wars which raised threat levels for the whole planet in 2024.

Every bombing of Ukraine by Russia is inhumane!

War is never nice. It's never friendly and it's certainly never humane. So it's always a little puzzling when a particular attack by one side or the other is noted particularly for its brutality and inhumanity. Putin's forces launched a blistering attack on Kyiv on Christmas Day which knocked out power for the families trying to enjoy a brief Christmas respite. Zelensky condemned the attack as inhumane, and soon after, Sir Keir Starmer, always ready to slip in a word to include his role as prime minister into the international arena, also condemned the Christmas Day attack as inhumane. Of course it was inhumane, every attack by Russia on Ukraine since February 24 2022 has been a sign of Moscow's inhumanity to the Ukrainian people. OK, people with knowledge of history, will know that on Christmas Day in 1914, during the First World War, the guns stopped firing, and British and German troops climbed out of their trenches to play football with a helmet. But that was never going to happen in Ukraine. Christmas Day for Putin was just another day of war. So, inhumanity? Yes, of course. But that's what war when a dictator is involved is about. It didn't really need either Zelensky or Starmer to tell us.

Cutting taxes, increasing taxes, nothing works in UK

We here in the UK have had two people with bright ideas for the country's economy and both have failed. First we had Liz Truss who as the briefest of prime ministers, instructed her chancellor to announce a staggering tax-cutting Budget which sent the stock market into a whirl going downwards to rock bottom; and now we have Rachel Reeves, new Labour chancellor who announced the opposite, raising taxes, especially for employers and the same thing has happened, a threatened recess and a bewildered stock market. Both ladies wanted growth in the economy and both got it wrong. The forecast for the Rachel Reeves economny is so bad that we are promised zero growth. ZERO GROWTH! This is either economic incompetence or just pure naivety. How is it possible that the head of the Treasury can believe that raising the tax burden on businesses - by increasing the national insurance contribution for employees - will persuade companies to go on a big recruiting drive and expand investment? Of course, higher taxes has meant that businesses have retracted, have stopped recruiting and stopped investment. Which means, among things, that tens of thousands of highly talented and qualified young people, bursting with expectation after graduating from university, cannot find jobs. Disaster all round. And there is no sign of any improvement in the wind. In fact, there is already talk of more taxes to come. Can we please have someone in charge who actually knows what he or she is doing?

Pentagon in turmoil

The Pentagon, one of the big spenders in the US government, is shell-shocked. It’s facing the most comprehensive overhaul in its history and under the leadership of a Fox News TV presenter. President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of Pete Hegseth, a 44-year-old military veteran who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, has given notice to the two and a half million military and civilian staff that radical changes are coming. Pentagon staff have been warned that their jobs are vulnerable., and insider sources reveal there is a growing atmosphere of fear and intimidation. Certain branches of the huge defence department complex are being targeted for cuts, and lists are being drawn up by the Trump transition team for the purging of three-star and four-star military officers who are considered inadequate for the command posts. Civilian staff are also being targeted. “A lot of career civil servants are getting telephone calls from the Trump team telling them their time in the job is going to be limited. But these are the people who keep everything going while the political appointees settle in,” an insider source said. “People are being identified for cuts and the whole atmosphere is intimidating. It’s causing a real morale slump, everyone is worrying about their jobs, their mortgages and their livelihoods,” the source said. “These are devoted civil servants who want to serve their nation but their jobs now seem to depend on their demonstrating loyalty to the incoming president and not to the constitution as it should be,” the insider said. Branches of the Pentagon being earmarked for cuts or closure, according to the source, include the section supporting the Ukraine contact group, the coalition of US-led nations which has been masterminding the flow of weapons to the Kyiv government. The announcement by Trump that he had chosen Hegseth as his defence secretary was greeted with astonishment. “Choosing someone who has never managed an organisation more complex than an infantry platoon[as a captain in the National Guard] is certainly a novel choice. But hey, he’s double Ivy Leagued [Princeton University and Harvard] and certainly meets Trump’s demand for men in his orbit to be from central casting,” one Pentagon source said. “But does any of that qualify him to manage the world’s largest, most complex bureaucracy? Absolutely not,” the source said. With a budget of $842 billion there will be rich pickings for Trump and his defence secretary. If Hegseth’s appointment is confirmed by the Senate, he is also expected to axe perceived “woke” policies. Included in the potential list of “woke” policies are: women in combat roles, travel payments for female military staff seeking reproductive treatment (abortions, terminations) who need to go across state lines to find clinics prepared to carry them out; and the presence of transgenders in the forces. One question being asked inside the Pentagon is whether Trump will try to remove General Charles Q Brown, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff who is an African-American, and Admiral Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations, the first woman to hold this position. “General Brown raised concerns [when he was Pacific Air Forces commander]. about the killing by a white police officer of George Floyd (an African American] in 2020.Will this be considered woke and be held against him?” a defence source asked. `Key to the Trump doctrine will be loyalty to him as commander-in-chief. In his first term as president, he once reportedly questioned why he couldn’t have generals like Adolf Hitler, claiming they were obedient, according to Bob Woodward in his latest book, War. This followed his challenging experience dealing with General Jim Mattis, his first defence secretary, and General John Kelly, his chief of staff. Will Trump expect obedience from the military chiefs if he orders active troops to take part in deporting illegal immigrants? “I expect civil-military relations to be a major source of tension as the Trump administration comes into office,” Eric Edelman, a former top defence policy official at the Pentagon, said. “It may be as early as the first week when he tries to tap DoD [department of defence] assets to help with mass deportations which will bring into its wake a number of legal issues,” he said. “Moreover, there is a move afoot to pluck out general officers [as reported in the Wall Street Journal] which will raise enormous concerns about the politicisation of the military. All in all, a very alarming prospect,” Edelman said. As a signal of the likely conflict of interest between loyalty to the president and loyalty to the constitution, Lloyd Austin, the outgoing defence secretary, reminded everyone in the military in a letter of their obligation to defend the constitution. “As it always has, the US military will stand ready to carry out the policy choices of its next commander-in-chief and to obey all lawful orders from its civilian chain of command,” Austin wrote. Underlining his message, Austin’s press secretary, Major-General Pat Ryder said:”The department will continue to stand apart from the political arena.” “A service member’s oath of allegiance is to the constitution and the constitution alone,” said Andrew Krepinevich, a former US Army officer and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. “An officer who believes he or she cannot execute a legal policy order to the best of their ability should resign,” he said. ends

Drones, drones and more drones

Something bizarre has been going on across the country and the Biden administration has no answer for it. It’s all about drones. They are everywhere, but more recently, some of them have been involved in what appears to be spying activities over some sensitive military sites, especially in New Jersey. Cold it be a hostile state engaged in espionage? Could it be the Russians or Chinese or some terrorist organisation? Washington – and that means all the administration agencies from the FBI and Homeland Security to the various intelligence services – conclude that the drone sightings have not been threatening and in many cases are not drones at all, but aircraft. And yet, drones or what appear to be drones, have been spotted in groupings, moving very fast, and hovering over sites where they should be forbidden from flying. The Pentagon was receiving so many reports that finally it decided to make a full statement to try and reassure people that the country was not being invaded by either hostile or alien unmanned aerial vehicles. After decades of attempting to convince conspiracy enthusiasts that alien UFOs (unidentified flying objects) were not speeding across our skies, the Pentagon has had quite a challenge in persuading everyone that the drones in our midst are not being operated by some foreign state. The drone sightings started more than a month ago in New Jersey over a number of sensitive locations. The reports emerged of more drones in Pennsylvania, New York State, Connecticut and Maryland. The suspicious drone sightings coincided with similar reports of sophisticated drones appearing over four US Air Forces bases in the United Kingdom. Those sightings caused such concern the UK government sent specialist troops to investigate. No firm evidence was found to accuse the Russians of being behind the drone flights. But the involvement of Russia was not ruled out. In the US, however, no one in the administration suggested that a Russian intelligence agency was operating the drones. In fact, John, Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, told a media conference that most of the reported drones were manned aircraft operating lawfully. One statistic produced by the Pentagon underlined the challenge facing the authorities in trying to keep control of the huge rise in drone activity. It turns out there are more than one million drones legally registered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). So, at any one point in the day all over the country, there will be drones flying above people’s heads. The FBI and other agencies concluded after reviewing all the technical data linked to drone sightings in the last few weeks that many of them involved lawful commercial or law enforcement drones as well as manned aircraft ,helicopters “and stars mistakenly reported as drones”. So much for the theories that spy drones operated by hostile states were among the 5,000 or so sightings received by the FBI. But who knows?

Damascus is going to be the key to 2025 diplomacy

The most extraordinary thing is going on in Damascus. American diplomats chatting away with poeple considered feared terrorists not that long ago. And the most amazing thing is it's going to work. The new Syrian rulers seriously want help and it looks like they are going to get it from the US. Quite extraordinary and strangely uplifting. First of all, the big dollar bounty on the head of Muhammad al-Jolani whose real name is Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, is going to be lifted. Next will come a lifting of sanctions and finally, the US will agree to recognise the new government as legitimate. It might take a few months but it's going to happen. If it does happen, then Syria, for the first time in more than two decades, will get a chance to revive itself and be an accepted and welcomed member of the international community. The aid money will flow in. This is awesome news for the Syrian people.

So Donald Trump isn't invincible

Donald Trump has always given the impression that he thinks he is invincible. What he wants he gets and what he orders he is obeyed. But now with less than a month left before he takes over in the White House there is chaos in Congress. He and his acolyte Elon Musk ordered all Republicans to scupper the government spending plan at the last minute but more than 30 Republicans rebelled. Unheard of! Could this become a regular habit? If so, Trump's entry into the White House might not be as easygoing as he imagined. Then, what if Putin tells him he is not interested in ending the war in Ukraine. And Europe rebels over his demands for them to spend mnore money on defence? I'm not predicting any of this, but even for MAGA Trump, governing is not going to be a simple business. Things go wrong. Events happen. But at least Trump must have thought he had all Republicans in his pocket. But it seems not.

Will Guantanamo detention centre ever close?

There are now just 27 detainees left at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the strip of land on the island leased to the US Navy. That's down from around 780 at the peak period of sending suspected terrorists to the most notorious prison on the planet. No president has managed to shut it down simply because there is no obvious, let alone easy, way to transfer all the detainees to other places of detention without someone in the intelligence business in the US kicking up a fuss or Congress going mad at the thought of any of them being shifted to a prison in the US. But it's down to 27. There are some who will never be released, let alone transferred to another country. These are the five so-called alleged 9/11 conspirators accused of planning, financing and orchestrating the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. Of the 27 remaining Gitmo detainees, 15 are "eligible" for transfer if some other country or countries will agree to take them, three are waiting for a periodic review board to assess their case for transfer or release, seven are involved in the US Military Commissions (like war tribunals) process, including the 9/11 chargees (one of whom has been designated as unfit mentally to stand trial) and just two have been convicted and sentenced. So, potentially, 18 of the detainees could, eventually, be transferred to jails in other countries. That would leave nine in this huge detention camp with hundreds of US troops guarding them at phenominal cost. Will Donald Trump get it sorted and close Gitmo down after 22 years? It seems highly unlikely. I don't think he is interested in or cares about Gitmo. Obama failed to shut it down despite promising to do so. Biden failed as well although the number of detainees continued to come down. So I predict Guantanamo will stay open for business for at least another four yers and probably a whole lot longer.

Thirty-three days to Donald Trump 47th president

Expectation, fear, anxiety, alarm, curiosity, depression, resignation, hope. All the emotions present among Americans and the rest of us as the inauguration of Donald Trump as the next president of the US approaches fast. It's, I think, an unprecedented moment in history. The first timne Trump won the presidenial election in 2016, no one quite bvelieved it had happened, so the same emotions didn't apply. This is different, the US and the world has had two years to consider and plan for the possibility of a second Trump term and it became inevitable that he would win, even when Joe Biden stepped down and the new nominee, Kamala Harris, burst onto the scene with her engaging smile and laugh. But she never really looked like she was going to beat Trump. And sure enough, she was pushed to one side by the big man. But that's why, now, there is so much anticipation and worry about what Trump is going to do. He has told us a million times what he plans to do, to be fair, but will he do it all and will any of it be successful? The first thing he has to do is sort out the growing threat from Vladimir Putin. People here in the UK are talking openly about the urgent need to prepare for war with Russia in the next few years. If Trump thinks he can end the war in Ukraine as soon as he takes office, then he must go one step further and stop Putin from contemplating a war with Europe. Kamala Harris woulnd't have been strong enbough to stop Putin in his tracks, but it's just possible Trump could and will. Let us all hope his bold words are followed up by real action.

Assad claims he was ordered to leave Damascus for Moscow

No one believes Bashar al-Assad when he says he had no choice but to leave Syria and seek safety in Moscow. He says he was told to leave by his Russian protectors. It makes it sound like he was extremely reluctant to leave and preferred to stay behind to "save" his country from the approaching Islamic militia. The mere fact that he was, at the time of the overrrun of Damascus by the HTS rebel forces, sitting safely at the Russian base at Khmeimim in Latakia province in the south, with his family and bags packed (and millions of dollars switched to his account in Moscow) tells you that he went there, presumably by helicopter, to be ready to depart at a moment's notice. He was never going to do his duty,as he called it, and stay to fight another day. His troops had faded away, unwilling to defend Damascus from Mohammed al-Jolani's assault on the capital. So as soon as Assad got word that his previously trusted security forces had had enough of saving his skin, he hopped on a plane and left for exile in Russia where, presumably, he will live for the rest of his days. No heroic last stand for him. He already has property in Moscow and his friend, Putin, will I am sure protect him with armed bodygvuards while he settles into luxurious living in Moscow. He will never, one hopes, return to Syria.

Who will Syrian rebel leader Jolani turn to for help?

If Mohammed al-Jolani, the Syrian rebel leader, really wants to bring peace and stability for the Syrian people (and he seems to), then who is he going to turn to for help, strategic, military, economic and everything else? He and the transitional government can't do it alone, not after decades of repression and civil war and infrastructure destruction and interference from every quarter. Will he turn to Arab nations, or Russia, or Iran or the US or the United Nations or the European Union, or Turkey? Putin is desperate to hang on to the two bases granted to him on a leasehold arrangement by Bashar al-Assad. So, Moscow is no doubt offering Jolani and co all the help it needs. The US is offering help, tentatively because Washington wants more reassurance that Jolani's soothing words will be followed by action. The UK has already offered £50 million for humanitarian aid. But it will be Turkey that wins out more than any other country. Turkey's leader, President Erdogan, backed the HTS rebel force to seize Damascus and will reap the rewards. While, on the surface, this is good news, Turkey is after all a member of Nato and a serious player, Erdogan has his own ambitions, notably to drive all Kurds away from the Turkish border and to suppress what he regards as a terrorist force trying to set up an independent state inside Turkey. So there will be some quid pro quos. Erdogan will help Jolani but in return he will want carte blanche to sort out the Kurdish issue in Turkey's favour. Erdogan will do it anyway, but getting full support from the new government in Damascus will make it look more legitimate. The Syrian people want peace more than anything but for the moment Jolani and co are at the mercy of far bigger powers rushing to take advantage of the fall of Assad.

Is Israel right to destroy Syria's military capabilities?

The fall of Bashar al-Assad and the arrival in Damascus of an Islamic militia force to take control provided one country with a unique opportunity to intervene on a huge scale. I'm not talking about Turkey which was fully behind the ousting of Assad or the US which sent B-52 bombers to hit Isis targets in the biggest air raid since the Isis caliphate was running the show in northern and northeastern Syria. I'm referring to Israel. As soon as news broke that Assad and his henchmen had all fled and the Syrian military had flung off their combat clothes and vanished into the crowds pf celebrating citizens, Israel struck mightily, hammering more than 300 targets and then kept going again today, seeking out Syrian air defence sites, munitions factories and storage sites and weapons that could threaten Israel. Israel effectively went to war with Syria to eliminate the military infrastructure built up by the Assad regime with the help of Russia over decades. How many people died in the process is not known. But the destruction was massive. In ordering such a huge series of airstrikes on Syrian military sites, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, must have assumed that the opportunity to carry out such devastation was a one-off special moment. And despite condemnation from Arab countries, he will get away with it. Whether it was morally the right thing to do, when the hated Assad regime had been kicked out and the new rulers had begun trying to bring a more hopeful future for the Syrian people after decades of repression and civil war, is another matter. But, seeing it from Israel's point of view it was just too tempting. While there was a political vacuum in Damascus, Israel had the chance to destroy the military capability which could threaten Israel in the future. Nevertheless, what Israel has done will make it less likely that the new Syrian leaders will have anything to do with Netanyahu's government. While no one expects the new Syrian government to forge warm relations with Israel, the wholesale bombings by their neighbour could make regional peace even more unreachable.

Blinken says the US wants Syria to succeed

Six days since the collapse of the Bashar al-Assad government and already things are moving fast. Anbtony Blinken, the US secretary of state for just one more month, has been busy meeting everyone of influence in the Middle East ans has come up with some golden principles in return for Washington giving hlep to the rebel force that took over Damascus on December 8. Remember, the rebels belong to an organisation that used to be aligned with al-Qaeda, so it's a big step for the US to even think of being nice to the new rulers. But this is Realpolitik. You deal with whoever is in charge in the hope of having some positive influence. Blinken revealed in a press conference that the US had now had direct talks with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. That can only mean one thing. A CIA envoy will have been sent to Damascus to meet Jolani and the transitional prime minister he has appointed. It might even be Bill Burns, the CIA director, because he has huge experience of the Middle East and is widely respected in the region. What a great photo that would be, the 42-year-old rebel leader next to the top CIA spy. Whether it was Burns or some other CIA figure, this is all highly encouraging. It means Jolani is prepared to do business with or at least to listen to Washington. He will now know Blinken's principles which include respecting all minorities and faiths and preventing Syria from becoming a platform for terrorists. There is every reason to hope that Syria will not disintegrate into another civil war, but it's early days. Blinken says the US wants Syria to succeed for the sake of the people. That's a good start.

Could the US have overthrown Bashar al-Assad in 2013?

In hindsight, did the US, UK and France fail to seize the chance to topple President Bashar al-Assad in 2013? This is the question that convinced Wes Streeting, health secretary, to attack his colleague, Ed Miliband, energy secretary and former Labour leader, for orchestrating the vote that threw out the proposal by the then government of David Cameron to join the US and France in airstrikes against Damascus in retaliation for chemical atrocities on the Syrian people. Streeting concluded that if Labour in opposition had supported the vote for airstrikes, Assad’s regime would have fallen, thus bringing relief and liberation for the Syrian population. Speaking on BBC’s Question Time on Thursday, Streeting said:”With insight, I think we can say, looking back on the events of 2013, that the hesitation of this country and the United States created a vacuum that Russia moved into and kept Assad in power for much longer.” The conclusion might have some merit were it not for the fact that Russia, with military and political muscle, had created such a long-lasting footprint in Damascus that even a series of US-led airstrikes to destroy the regime’s chemical weapons sites would not have persuaded, let alone forced, Assad to seek refuge in Moscow, as he has now done 11 years later. Moreover, when President Obama drew up his “red line”, declaring that proof of chemical attacks by Assad would lead to comprehensive airstrikes on Syrian weapons facilities, he did not have regime--change in mind. Airstrikes have played a crucial role in many wars in the last two decades. But no one, apart from a few dreaming air chiefs, believe that dictators can be toppled by bombing raids, without troops on the ground to follow through. Miliband, conscious of these arguments at the time, has rejected his cabinet colleague’s suggestion that a golden opportunity was lost to get rid of Assad. Sadly, Miliband is right. It’s too simplistic to believe that Assad would have run at the first fall of bombs. Nevertheless, history shows that it was Russia, not the United States, which seized the golden opportunity in 2013. Sergey Lavrov, the wiliest of Russian foreign ministers, stepped in and declared in an almost off-the-cuff manner, that Moscow would ensure that Syria gave up all of its chemical weapons. So, no need for bombing. It was a masterly stroke. Obama had made a firm commitment to launch airstrikes after clear evidence of Syrian regime sarin nerve agent strikes on rebels and civilians in Ghouta, a suburb to the east of Damascus in August, 2013, killing 1,400 people. The US military objective was not to strike at the regime as such but to destroy as much of the chemical stocks as possible and to deter Damascus from turning to these weapons in the future. The failure of the Cameron government to persuade the Miliband-led Opposition and 30 Tory MPs to back Britain’s involvement in the planned air raids was a big setback for Obama. But it wasn’t terminal. His red line still stood and the US could have gone ahead with France. However, the Lavrov intervention which took place while he was standing next to John Kerry, US secretary of state, at a press conference in London, miraculously removed the Obama red line at a stroke. Kerry grabbed the Russian offer and within a remarkably short time (less than 12 months), 97 per cent of Assad’s 1,300 tonnes of chemicals and poisons had been destroyed. Assad survived and Moscow congratulated itself on a diplomatic coup. The US played a vital role in the destruction programme, but Obama had blinked and looked weak. The outcome was, on the surface, a triumph. But it wasn’t to last long. Assad had kept back enough hidden chemical stocks and started using feared helicopter-launched barrel bombs filled with chemicals as the civil war spread. In April, 2018, with Donald Trump in the White House, the US, UK and France carried out airstrikes on suspected Syrian chemical facilities. Again, Assad survived. The lesson learned is not, as Streeting is suggesting, that an opportunity was missed to overthrow Assad in 2013, but that any sign of weakness when dealing with regimes such as Assad’s will be ruthlessly exploited. Moscow seized its chance when it detected a wavering Obama and as a result outplayed Washington. Moscow was helped by the decision of the UK parliament to opt out of joining the US in airstrikes. For that decision, Miliband has to accept some responsibility.

The New Year must be better for the people of Gaza, Ukraine and Syria

This has been a terrible year for war. 2024 will go down in history as the year of death and desctruction and inhumamity and rage. But there is now more hope that 2025 could be a year of wars coming to an end, at least in Gaza, Syria and Ukraine. Syria remains a big question mark for now because there are so many different factions with different ambitions in the country. Whoever is in control in Damascus is not in control of the whole country, and that may not change in 2025. But at least, with any luck, there will be a less autocratic, more people-conscious and even election-interested government which will make the lives of the Syrian people easier, more hopeful and less fearful. Much will depend on what other extremist militia groups do to try and take advantage of the transitioning government in Damascus, notably Isis which has a history of grabbinbg territory when it sees an opportunity. If the 900 US special forces troops are allowed by Donald Trump to stay in their bases in northern and eastern Syria, they will continue to play a part in stemming any new Isis ambitions. As for Gaza, I think there is a good chance that by the turn of the year, there will be a deal of some sort to stop the fighting and get the remaining hostages released. But it could all go wrong. If there is a deal, then poor Gaza is going to need a massive reconstruction programme. Israel should be one of the countries obliged to contribute towards the cost. Ukraine is probably the most complex war to resolve because if Vladimir Putin is not prepared to negotiate - and that is a possibility - the war will go on whatver Trump says or tries to do. But the signs are reasonably positive. And again, a huge reconstruction programme will be required. Russia will not pay a rouble towards it.

Syrian rebel leader learns lessons of history

The victorious Syrian rebel leader now in control of Damascus has already learned a key lesson in history. After his forces swept into the capital, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, head of the Islamic militant group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), might have been expected to lay waste to all the institutions which had helped to keep the repressive Assad dynasty in power for 53 years. Instead, he chose pragmatism. He announced he would do business with the Syrian government and wanted civil service staff to stay in their jobs to keep the country functioning. This doesn’t make al-Jolani or Ahmed al-Sharaa as he now wants to be called (his real name rather than his nom de guerre), a Kissinger-style diplomat whom the world can embrace as a long-awaited saviour. However, he only had to look back 21 years to see what the Americans did when the US-led coalition toppled Saddam Hussein from power in 2003, to know what to avoid at all costs. Against the advice of the CIA and the US military who warned of dire consequences, the so-called “viceroy” of Iraq, Paul Bremer, a Pentagon official delegated by President George W Bush to administer Iraq during a transitional period, announced a wholesale de-Baathification programme. Anyone associated with Saddam’s regime as a senior member of the ruling Baath party was fired. That effectively meant the entire civil service was dismantled. The officials were sent home without jobs. The Iraqi army was also scrapped. Saddam soldiers with their guns went AWOL, by order. As a result, there was a gigantic vacuum. Bremer had no experience of Iraq, but he had the impossible task of building a new civil service and army from scratch. It was a grave error which led to an embittered Iraqi army, thousands of disillusioned government employees, and, worst of all, to an anti-West insurgency that lasted for eight years out of which rose the Islamic State and its self-styled caliphate across great swathes of Iraq and Syria. Eight days before the US led a coalition of forces across the Kuwaiti border into Iraq on March 20, 2003, the general in charge of 26,000 troops of the 1st UK Armoured Division, envisaged a very different scenario. Speaking at his desert divisional headquarters north of the Mutla Ridge mountain range close to the border with Iraq, Major-General Robin Brims, told me he hoped that Iraqi soldiers unwilling to fight should join the coalition against Saddam. “I wouldn’t expect them to march north with us (to Baghdad) but they could just go to their barracks and wait there,” he said. “After the war, Iraq will still need armed forces and they will have a role to play in securing their country’s future,” he said. It was a visionary moment in the lead-up to what was to be a swift victory for the coalition, but followed by political decisions which condemned Iraq to years of torment and destruction and tens of thousands of civilian deaths. Today in Damascus, there will be many civil servants who served in President Bashar al-Assad’s regime who will be afraid to return to their posts. Al-Jolani, the 42-year-old HTS leader, has declared he will issue a list of military and security officials who will be charged with war crimes. But this is actually in line with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254, adopted on 18 December, 2015, which laid down a roadmap for Syria’s political transition. It included accountability for atrocities committed by the Assad regime. While the search for Assad’s henchmen continues (similar to the US hunt for Saddam’s main acolytes), It seems the hope of those now in charge in Damascus is for all civil servants to return to duty to help keep the administration of government running smoothly while the potentially dangerous and unpredictable transition period is orchestrated. It will also be a period in which other nations in the Arab and Western world, as well as Israel, will rapidly have to grasp what could be a pivotal opportunity to influence the way forward in Syria and also to take advantage of the impact the dramatic change in Damascus could have on the whole of the Middle East and on Russia and Iran, Assad’s principle backers. If al-Jolani sticks to his promise and encourages the Syrian institutions to return to normal working routines, the new government in Damascus will have at least a chance of bringing some stability to the parts of the country where Assad formerly had control. Provided pragmatism wins and ideology is kept contained, the lessons of the past, notably in Iraq and Libya, will guide the new Syrian leaders, as the rest of the world comes to terms with the downfall of what David Lammy, the foreign secretary, called “a monster”. ends

Blow after blow for Iran

Iran is a big loser following the toppling of Bashar al-Assad. And it followed two other big whammy blows in its tit-for-tat missile battle with Israel and the devastating Israeli assaults on Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran is losing, losing, losing. What are they going to do about it? Well, first of all, so far Tehran has failed to retaliate for the last missile attack by Israel. They vowed to respond and they haven't. So, theoretically that is still to come. But now, with the fall of Assad, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has been deprived of the easy land route for supplying weapons to Hezbollah. The sea route is too vulnerable because the Israeli navy and US navy are on constant look-out for dodgy freighters. So Hezbollah has been mangled for the foreseeable future. Israel will get full blessing from Donald Trump to do whatever it takes to destroy its enemies and, with the loss of Syria as a friendly state in the Middle East, Iran has been sideswiped, stamped on and put in its place. That definitely won't please the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its Quds Force overseas bunch of malign operators. They will want revenge and they will want the Supreme Leader to give them carte blanche to get on with it. Could this include rushing, if rushing is technically feasible, to develop a nuclear bomb? Uranium-enrichment in Iran has already progressed to beyond 70 per cent, just 20 per cent away from reaching bomb-grade fissile material and they could probably get to the required level in a matter of months, although it would take another year or more to fashion the enriched uranium into a usable bomb. But if they did that, to try and frighten the world, the likelihood is that the US, under Trump, with Israel alongside, would smash up their nuclear facilities with air attacks. Could Iran dare risk another blow like that? I doubt it. So the IRGC and Quds Force have, for the moment, been immasculated. But it would be unwise to underestimate Tehran and the ayatollahs. The fall of Assad will make them even more angry and desperate.

Syria's future - terrorist state or democratic state?

Three things that never happen after a longstanding dictator and his regime fall after a violent uprising is peace, stability and tranquillity. First there is chaos, then there there is violence as different groupings rival for power or power-sharing, then there's retribution, and finally, all the hopes of freedom and security in the eyes and voices of the people gradually fade and it's back to terror and anguish and anarchy. See what happened in Libya for example. It's going to take a long time for Syria to settle down to some form of normality after the end of the Assad regime. For a start there are too many different factions with all their individual objectives and ideologies. The Kurds in the north struglling for autonomny, Isis battling to make a comeback, and a myriad other groups who won't necessarily be happy with whatever the coup leader does in Damascus. The leader of Hayat Tahrir-al Shams (HTS), Abu Mohammad al-Jowlani whose real name is Ahmed al-Sharaa, seems highly respected by his followers and fighters judging by his triumphant entry into Damascus. But governing the whole country is going to be a huge, if not imoossible, challenge. What experience does he have in running a country? None. So he will have to rely on the large Syrian civil service, including the encumbent prime minister, to run the show for him while he tries to sort out his priorities and who he is going to listen to most from the outside world - the US, Russia or China, or no one.

Damascus has fallen. What now?

Crucially, what will Putin do about the dramatic developments in Syria? He has lost his stooge in Bashar al-Assad and will probably also lose the two most important parts of Syria which he needs for maintaining influence in the region, the naval base at Tartus and the airbase at Khmeimim, south east of the southern city of Latakia. Putin will want to hang on to these bases which are vital for his meddling in the region. The anti-Assad rebels who have ousted Assad and taken control of Damascus are no friends of the Russians. But they aren't friends of the US and the West either. So Putin will no doubt be pulling out all the stops to get friendly with the new lot, especially as President-elect Donald Trump has announced that the US should not get involved but to leave Syria to whomever. This is a slightly carefree and careless approach to take. For a start, there are still 900 US troops in northern and eastern Syria and if he wants them to continue to play a role in fighting Isis in the area, he will need to keep them there. But I suspect Trump will tell them to leave, just like he tried to do when he was in power before and met strong disapproval from his then defence secretary, General Jim Mattis. This time round he will have a more compliant defence secretary who will do what he is told. Putin might take advantage of this by cementing a new deal with the Islamic militant rebels who are now taking over in Syria. Putin will do a deal with whomever it takes to do a deal with. Trump, by the looks of it, is washing his hands of Syria. This could be a bad move.

Let's hope the miracle of the renewed Notre Dame inspires peace and love and humanity. We need it

Nostradamus, the 16th century French astrologer, made some grim predictions about three world wars. We've had two, when is the third? Now we have Notre Dame, not Nostradamus, and the only prediction anyone wants is a future of peace and no wars and decent leaders who get on with each other. Donald Trump is at the reopening of Notre-Dame. Perhaps he will be filled by the glory of the wonderfully restored cathedral to seek peace everywhere. The restoration of Notre Dame is one of the most spectacular architectural and engineering acheievements of modern times. The dedication and skills of the thousands of people who played their part in making this cathedral great again after the terrible fire of 2019 have been truly awesome. President Macron said he wanted the restoration to be completed in five years and no one believed it would be possible. Yet, here we are on Saturday December 7th and it's being reopened with leaders from around the world attending. Brilliant. Vive La France.

Assad or al-Qaeda associates to control Damascus?

While the world was focusing on Ukraine and Gaza and Lebanon and Georgia and Romania and France and all the other places currently facing mayhem, a very large and well-trained bunch of armed fanatics, associated, among others, with the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation (which still exists!), has been plotting and planning to take over Syria. They have done so well that they are now within rocket-firing distance of Damascus. It's an extraordinary development which has taken the world by surprise and certainly taken Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad by surprise. He ran off to Moscow for help. Now we're in a situation, in the West, of wondering whether it's better to have this new lot in Damascus, with all their unfavourable links to the worst ideological groups around, or to have Assad, backed by Moscow and Iran, ruling the roost in the Syrian capital. There are still about 900 American troops in Syria, doing what they do with the remnants of Isis, so they haven't got involved. But what happens if the al-Qaeda look-alikes succeed in toppling Assad's regime? Will the US troops stay or will Washington pull them out? That'll probably be a question for the 47th president, Donald Trump.

Trump and his defence secretary problem

Trump doesn't always get his way. He has already lost one cabinet nomination, that of Michael Gaetz as attorney general. Now he is in danger of losing a second, his nomination for the Pentagon job, Pete Hegseth, until recently a top TV presenter at Fox News. Hegseth is having a helluva time trying to convince doubting Republican senators that he is the man for the Pentagon job, attempting to downplay his reputation for hard drinking and the alleged sexual harrassment issue for which he was never charged, let alone convicted. A handful of Republicans are showing a willingness to vote against his nomination, joining the Democrats in rejecting him. It would be hugely irritating for Trump to lose two nominees but reports suggest he already has another person in mind, Ron DeSantis, Florida governor. Poltics is a wonderul thing. During the election campaign when Ron DeSantis was number two in the line-up for the Republican nomination, Trump pretty remorselessly attacked him and demeaned him and insulted him. But now, it seems, he thinks the Florida governor might make a good replacement if Hegseth falls. DeSantis is a Big Cheese in the political world but does Trump really want a man with his ambitions to be in charge of the Pentagon which will give him almost daily news coverage with the way the world is going. In four years' time, DeSantis might have raised his game to such an extent he could be the one chosen by the Republican party to become the 48th president, rather than Trump's vice president, JD Vance. That wouldn't do. Mind you, Trump can always sack DeSantis if he gets too big for his boots.

Can Trump really end the war in Ukraine?

I wonder what Donald Trump thinks is his absolutely top priority for Day One of his presidency. Could it be the war in Ukraine? Even though it seems beyond realistic belief that he can literally stop the fighting on his first day in office. There are just too many other players who will insist on being involved, such as Zelensky and Putin for starters. Zelensky is fast running out of options, so he will want something, anything, from Trump which will save his country from Moscow-domination and give his countrymen and women a future without bombs and missiles. But he can't and won't give in if Trump tells him to hand over all of the Russian-occupied territory without something in return, like Nato membership or at the very least an international security guarantee of some sort. Putin will only listen to Trump if he gets what he wants which is 20 per cent of Ukraine and no Nato membership for Kyiv. Ever! Have Trump and his special envoy to the war, Lt-Gen Keith Kellogg, come up with a formula to please both Zelensky and Putin? It seems highly unlikely. Yet Trump still sounds optimistic that he can broker a deal. If he fails, it will be a huge setback for the new president and a blow to his super-confidence.

Will Trump pardon all those convicted for January 6 assault?

Following Joe Biden's dramatic change of mind and his declaration of a full, unconditional pardon for his son Hunter, will Donald Trumo do likewise for the people charged and convicted for crimes associated with the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021? He will feel that he has the right to pardon the lot and cite Biden as an example of how the Justice Department should be ignored. Nearly 1,000 people have been convicted for crimes related to January 6, many with prison sentences. Trump will be tempted to let them all out of jail. He has in the past described them as patriots because they were trying to reinstate the 2020 election result in his favour which was right and proper and constitutional because, in his view, he won and Biden lost. Trump, when he is president, might go ahead and do this anyway, but Biden's pardoning of his son Hunter has just made it easier for him to justify such action. Forty-eight days left before Trump takes over from Biden and it seems the whole of Washington and every nation around the planet are waiting and holding their breath for the first of Trump's executive decisions. Pardons, I suspect, will be one of then, followed closely by an edict on illegal immigration, a plan to end the war in Ukraine and a massive boost to Israel to destroy the last remnants of Hamas in Gaza.

Biden pardons his son. Right or wrong?

On the face of it, Joe Biden's dramatic change of mind about pardoning his son, Hunter, sends all the wrong signals, politically, both for him and his legacy and for the Democratic party. It also opens Biden up for some revenge-type action by Donald Trump and co next year. So, all in all, the sudden about-turn after promising not to pardon his son, facing a possible three years in prison for tax evasion and possessing a gun while using drugs (forbidden under federal law), looks like a false and disastrous move by the outgoing president. But hang about! Hunter is his son! Ok, Biden is in a unique position, unique in the sense that no other American citizen has such a privilege, he has the right as the departing president to pardon whom he pleases. Sitting round the table with his family over the weekend, every member, no doubt including his son, would have pleaded with him to save Hunter from prison where he would have had a grim time as the son of a president. How could Biden have said, "no I'm going to stick to my principles, my son has to take his punishment." Had it been a Trump son, Trump would surely have pardoned him. Biden claims he decided to change his mind because the charges against Hunter were politically motivated and unreasonable and too punitively-weighted for the offences committed. The plea deal which was initially negotiated and then thrown out by a judge, would have sorted it all out without having to get to this point. So, poor Joe had to make this high-risk decision to save his son and his family. As I say, Trump would have done it. The wording of the pardon is so all-embracing that Hunter can never be charged again by a vengeful Trump but that surely makes sense. The lawyers involved wold have drawn up the pardon document very very carefully to ensure there were no gaps or loopholes. I say, give Joe a break. He has sacrificed his presidential reputation for the sake of his son. That's honourable and courageous.

BRICS countries can go hang, says Trump

You've got to give Donald Trump his due. Sometimes he just says it how it is and never mind the consequences. Often it's the wrong thing to say, certainly the most undiplomatic thing to say. But he gets his message out loud and clear. In one of his Truth Social media pronoucements he has issued a direct threat to the so-called BRICS countries which was initially formed by Russia, China, India, Brazil and South Africa as a stand-alone alternative to any US-dominated trade and currency groupings. The axis of China and Russia has always got to be bad news for the West, especially the US. Then other countries were persuaded to join BRICS: Iran (of course), Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates. Basically, the BRICS plot is to get the world to break away from the dominance of the US dollar and to switch to a new currency. Trump's message is, if anyone in the BRICS family pursues such a policy, they can go hang. He would impose 100 per cent tariffs on everything being imported into the US from their countries. In other words, trading with the US will be finished for good. Have a bit of that, BRICS. It may sound like another splurge of Trump rhetoric but deep down he probabvly means it. His view is, how dare these whippersnapper nations dare to undermine the US dollar. They should take the threat seriously, although I guess China, Russia and probably India, will pursue their currency plot whatever Trump says. But I suspect, despite the BRICS vision of a world less dominated by the dollar, it's going to be a long time, if ever, before this happens. And certainly not while Trump is in the White House.

Should the mystery drones over US bases be shot down?

The US warned yesterday it reserved the right to defend its air bases in the United Kingdom against invasive drone flights. The warning followed mysterious appearances of drones over four American bases in Suffolk, Norfolk and Gloucestershire . “Small unmanned aerial systems continue to be spotted in the vicinity of and over RAF Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, RAF Fairford and RAF Feltwell since November 20,”, a spokesperson for US Air Forces in Europe, said. “To safeguard operational security, we do not discuss specific protection measures. However, we retain the right to protect our installations,” the spokesperson said. Investigators attempting to unravel the mysterious drone appearances have the challenge of judging whether or not they have hostile intent. “Unfortunately, it's very difficult. Hostile intent would likely focus on the most sensitive areas of the bases, but many amateurs would want to snoop there also, “Mark Cancian, a former senior Pentagon official, said. “If a drone comes down, it's possible to see where it came from. It might have some uniquely identifiable parts such as sensors. On the other hand, spy agencies can buy highly capable drones at Amazon just like anyone else,” he said. Why haven’t the drones been shot down, as a precaution? “In the US they are driven by safety considerations. If a drone is endangering people or aircraft on the base, then base personnel would take action.,” Cancian said. “However, those actions are often taking place in heavily populated areas. What goes up, must come down. So if base personnel start shooting at drones, it would be easy to hurt someone in the neighbourhood. That's likely why they haven't taken action yet.,” he said. The US has begun fielding non-kinetic, counter-UAS (unmanned aerial systems) weapons. Some have been sent to Ukraine. They are expected to become common at airports and military airfields in the US. “I suspect that the US can take action if there's an imminent threat but security in general belongs to the UK,” Cancian said. What if the mystery drones are foreign--operated? “It’s possible that the drones are operated by adversaries like Russia. However, I think the likelihood is that this is an amateur snooper. The Russians have satellites that can track what goes on at bases,” Cancian said. “The only reconnaissance advantage of a drone for them is to get inside a building. So that might be the key distinguishing factor. There are lots of amateurs out there who track the goings on at military bases, sometimes for quite benign reasons like gathering information for war games, and sometime for malicious reasons,” he said.

There will be no let-up for Palestinians in Gaza

The ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanoan has been widely welcomed. But not in Gaza because there is no complementary ceasefire deal for them and now that israel Defence Forces troops can switch all their efforts back to Gaza, the tiny strip of territory is going to feel the full brunt of Israel's firepower against the Hamas remnants. Many more people are going to die in the crossfire and bombings. Already the figure, according to the Hamas-run health mnistry in Gaza, is 44,000, although at least 15,000 of those will have been Hamas fighters. Hamas has lost all of its key leaders but somehow is still posing a threat to IDF troops and to Israel itself. Of the 30,000 or so Hamas members, probably fewer than half that number are still alive. But with their mass of tunnels and underground bunkers, they are fighting on. The IDF, with Hezbollah shut down, at least for the moment, the order given by Benjamin Netanyahu to annihilate Hamas will be grimly pursued. Gaza over the next few months is going to see more destruction. And the poor hostages who have managed to stay alive face another terrible, desperate winter. It's time this war ended.

Can Biden do the double whammy, a ceasefire in Gaza as well as Lebanon?

For good longlasting legacy reasons, President Joe Biden is keen as mustard to get a ceasefire in both Gaza and Lebanon before he trots off into the retirement sunset. He and his envoys have managed a ceasefire with Hezbollah, although there will be huge room for trouble if Hezbollah fighters start crossing the line drawn beyond which they are supposedly banned from overstepping. The last time there was a line drawn, in 2006 after a stalemate war with Israel, it didn't take too long before they were back in southern Lebanon and firing rockets at Israel like before. So the current ceasefire will have to be monitored very very robustly. Not by UN peacekeepers of course who have a pretty poor record for monitoring anything, but by US spy satellite systems. But a ceasefire has been agreed and we'll see whether it holds. But whether it will lead to a deal in Gaza is another thing. I don't think Benjamin Netanyahu is ready yet for a deal with Hamas. Actually he doesn't want a deal at all if it means Hamas survives for another day of fighting. But there are remnaining hostages to consider and so some sort of deal will have to be done. But I suspect Netanyahu will bide his time. Which means Biden probably won't get his double whammy ceasefire victories. By January 20 when Donald Trump becomes president, there is almost bound to be fighting going on in the Middle East, possibly involving both Hezbollah and Hamas.

All charges against Donald Trump are effectively dropped

Donald Trump didn't just win the US 2024 election, he also, as a consequence, won every case against him for allegedly committing federal crimes.The charges have effectively been dropped, includinhg the most serious one in which he was accused of being involved in the attempted intervention to reverse the 2020 election result, as well as the removal of thousands of classified documents to his home in Florida, and the hush money he is accused of paying a porn star to keep her mouth shut during the 2016 election. Oh and the 34 business fraud charges being brought by the New York attorney general. All thrown into the waste basket, theoretically until Trump has completed his four-year term. But no one imagines that after four years, the new justice department will reinstate all the charges and put the second-time-round ex-president on trial at the age of 82. And anyway, if Trump is followed by his vice president, JP Vance, as the 48th president, there is no way he is going to do that to his political boss. So the huge saga of trying to get Trump convicted of nefarious crimes is over. Once and for all. What a masive victory that is for Trump. He must be saying to himsrelf, thank God I won the election, otherwise....The dropping of the charges of course is all about the constitution which stiupulates that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted, and Trump is very nearly the sitting president.

All of Biden's men and women just two months to go

It must be a strange feeling of relief and regret for the thousands of Biden-appointed officials who will be out of a job in two months' time. This is the way it has to be. It's something like 4,000 officials across government who have to go when a new president steps in. You get used to all the big names, such as Antony Blinken, secretary of state, Jake Sullivan, national security adviser, and Lloyd Austin, defence secretary. They will all vanish, along with their Biden-appointed advisers. I'm sure they will all be making arrangements for new jobs in the private sector or perhaps just taking a break after four years of hard grind and mass travelling around the world. That's the relief bit. But the first morning they wake up after January 20, 2025, they will have to come to terms with the fact that they no longer have the trappings of power, no chauffeur-driven cars available, no Secret Service protection, no desperate calls from foreign leaders seeking help, no huge decisions to make. That's the regret bit. As for Joe Biden, I suspect he will eventually feel huge relief but with a large splash of nostalgia as well. However, in his case, he will still have all the stuff that goes with being an -ex-president, including Secret Service bodyguards. But he won't have to make any more speeches with the whole world watching to see if he slips up, slips over, or just looks lost. His biggest regret is that he wasn't allowed to have another go at beating Trump. He had to hand over that job to Kamala Harris and she failed.

Putin threatening to hit the UK with hypersonic missile? Really?

If the world was lucky enough to have responsible political leaders who actually devote their waking hours to ensuring peace and prosperity on the planet, we would all be able to sleep at night and plan for the future without fearing the world might come to an end at any moment. But we don't. We have Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un and the warmongers in Tehran and Beijing who want to disrupt international order and go about threatening everyone. This time it's Putin threatening to fire hypersonic ballistic missiles at those who dared to give long-range weapons to Ukraine to launch into Russia. In other words, the US and UK. Well, he's not going to do that because that would lead to conflagration. But he still gives out the warning because he knows, as the owner and sole controller of thousands of nuclear warheads, he can scare the pants off everyone if and when he likes. But is this responsible leadership? No, it's not. It's all bluff (hopefully) but dangerous bluff. What he is really doing is upping the ante and raising the stakes and all the other cliches, in order to give himself maximum leverage when or if he agrees to chat to Donald Trump about bringing the war in Ukraine to an end. Russia does hold most of the leverage cards, so somehow President Zelensky and his exhausted army have to try and grab some territory back from the Russians in the next two or three months to give them a sporting chance of negotiating not too awful a peace settlement. As of now, Putin holds the trump cards (pun intended).

Warnings of a global war from someone Trump trusts

The new emerging axis of China, Russia, Iran and North Korea has created “the most serious and most dangerous challenge” since the second world war, a former top US military chief has told The Times. “China, Russia Iran and North Korea are working effectively together. What has happened is that they have perceived us, the US, to be weak and that we have lost the political will to confront them,” General Jack Keane said. He warned that the danger will have to be rapidly addressed when President-elect Donald Trump takes power in January. It will mean a comprehensive reform of the Pentagon to rebuild the military, fix the ossified business practices and replenish the defence industrial base. The retired four-star general and former vice chief of the US Army, is one of the most influential military figures in Washington. Everyone seeks his advice, democrats and republicans, including the man who is to be the 47thpresident. They go way back. When Trump won the election in 2016, he wanted Keane to be his defence secretary. But tragically, the favoured general’s wife had just died. Keane reluctantly declined the job. Now with the same president about to return to the Oval Office, Keane has been laying out the challenges ahead for him and his national security team. The war in Ukraine is top of the list of dangers for Trump’s administration. The axis of China, Russia and North Korea is no more clearly defined than in the war in Ukraine, where thousands of troops from Pyongyang are now fighting alongside Russian soldiers against Ukrainian forces who seized 1,000 square kilometres of territory in western Russia’s Kursk region in August. “At the moment there are 10,000 North Korean troops who have joined the Russians. But is this a one time deal or do we have the beginnings of a pipeline of North Korean troops coming to support Russia? “ Keane questioned. “Another country fighting alongside Russia to try and overthrow Ukraine? This is the biggest escalation of the war .” This week’s launching by Ukraine of the US ATACMS long-range missile and Britain’s Storm Shadow cruise missile into Russia for the first time, and President Putin’s firing of an experimental intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile against Ukraine in retaliation have raised the danger levels of a potential global war. Could there be a peace settlement, promised by Trump, with such an inflammatory atmosphere increasing by the day? “Putin is accelerating things. I’m in favor of negotiating with Putin when it is in Ukraines best interest. But I don’t think he really wants to negotiate a deal. He still wants to take the whole country, “ Keane said. “However, he has significant challenges. He’s been trying to take the whole Donbass region in the east for eight months. But he has had only small but steady tactical successes., no major operational gains, and he’s suffering 30,000 casualties every month. In October it was 57,000. That’s staggering. “But he doesn’t want to go for another mobilisation because of the fear of stirring up protest. He won’t go to recruit in western Russia where the educated live, he goes to the rural areas and poor communities and gives them money to join up. He’s avoiding a national call-up because he knows it will be resisted. When the soldiers from these poor families are killed they received 150,000 dollars for every dead body. For people in impoverished communities, it’s a huge figure and it buys their silence. “He also has significant equipment problems. Russia has lost so many tanks and other armoured vehicles his industrial base can’t keep up. Thousands of vehicles have been destroyed. “ “Mechanised offensive operations as we know them have effectively ceased because of Ukraine’s drones. The technology of warfare has changed. It was always said that the best way to destroy a tank was with another tank. But that’s not the case anymore. Drones and anti-tank weapons and anti-tank mines have taken over. “The Ukrainians have also developed long-range drones that can go hundred of miles into Russian territory. So I don’t think they are in danger of losing their country to the Russians. “So If we can help [President] Zelensky by giving him everything he needs and fund their drone forces, they should be able to take back lost territory in 2025. But support for the war is eroding and the soldiers are exhausted. The new recruits replacing them are not so well trained. They can pick their skills up as they fight but then they become casualties.” Will Trump do as he pledged and start to end the war on his first day in office? “I think there’s a difference between what has been said in the campaign and what is now being discussed among the people with the responsibility for dealing with the war. These people are all getting classified briefings and they likely know that what is needed is a favourable outcome for Ukraine, at a minimum, when negotiations end. “The pressure on Zelensky is enormous. This is not only about giving up the 18 per cent of territory the Russians have seized, it’s about giving up Ukrainian lives. The Ukrainians living in these areas will be subjugated under Russian domination. This is what Zelensky cannot allow to happen. He needs leverage so that he gives up less territory. That’s why we have to give him everything he needs.” To meet the growing threat from the new anti-West axis, Keane envisages significant changes at the Pentagon under the Trump administration. As a member of a congressional commission which examined every facet of President Biden’s defence strategy, Keane gained unique insight into the way the Pentagon appears to have failed to adapt to meet the new security challenges. “Our assessment was that the DoD [department of defence] challenges were more formidable than at any time in eight decades. “In the last four years we haven’t increased our defence budget because of inflation. It has been flat under Biden. This was irresponsible and reckless. We have got to prioritise our capabilities to deter a major conventional war, ie with China. China is the most rapidly developing military in the world and it has been going on for 20 years. “The acceleration in their defence capabilities has been extraordinary and they outgun us and outman us in every platform except submarines. Meanwhile our army is the smallest it has been since prior to the second world war, the air force is the smallest in 40 years and our navy which needs 360 ships is something in the low 290s and there is no hope of getting even close to the number we need for ten to 15 years. “The Trump team has got decisions to make and they are going to have to be made pretty soon. We have war in Europe and war in the Middle East and President Xi [Zinping] threatening war. There is the potential for the first time since the second world war of another global war. “We were prepared to deal with a global war when we had the Soviet Union [as the West’s adversary] but are we prepared now to confront a global war? Our Commission concluded we are not prepared. “One of the problems is that our defence industrial base is depleted. Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union we had 55 Tier 1 defence companies [biggest and best] . Today we have just five, such as General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin. That gives you a sense of how the industry has collapsed. “The war in Ukraine has been a major learning lesson. We have raided our war stocks to send weapons and munitions to Ukraine and it forced us to come to grips with what the stockpiles should be for our use. When we conduct war games now with China in mind we find that some key weapon systems run out after two weeks and others in several weeks, which means we could lose. That needs to be fixed. “We have to reach out to the commercial non-defense sector to purchase items they can produce very rapidly. At the moment Congressional restrictions prevent us from purchasing tens of thousands of drones. Compare this with Ukraine. By the end of this year they will have developed in Ukraine 1.4 million drones with some the help from US and Eoropean companies operating in Ukraine. Next year they aim to have five million. We build at best a few hundred drones a year. The Pentagon is trying now to turn this around. “We need to persuade Congress to give us more agile funding so that we can buy drones off the shelf and get them into operation. We have to change the Pentagon’s business practices. We have thousands of civilians involved with these weapons programs but it’s all about the emphasis on cost, performance and schedule which drives a risk averse process . We test, test, test everything and it drags on. It takes too long and it costs too much. If we don’t change the business practices in the Pentagon a portion of any increase in the defence budget in the next administration will just be squandered. “Again, look at Ukraine. They have managed to do serious damage to the Russian navy without having a navy just by developing and deploying aerial and underwater drones. We can’t wait years to get them through Congress. Congress writes the cheques and nothing gets done without their authorisation. In the DoD we need competent people who have the right experience. The status quo is no longer viable. The Trump team are coming up with names. the sort of people who will turn things round. “

Does Putin really want a peace plan for Ukraine?

Donald Trump is still two months away from becoming the 47th president of the United States, and yet his return to the Oval Office in January has already provoked a flurry of policy U-turns by the White House and rising expectation, even in Moscow, of a deal to end the war in Ukraine. Elements of a potential settlement reportedly agreeable to President Putin have emerged on Reuters today based on kite-flying suggestions by Russian officials. While there is nothing particularly new in the broad outline of Moscow thinking, the fact that Russian officials are pushing it out in some detail reflects an awareness in the Kremlin that with Trump in power, the potential for a deal that will satisfy Putin after 1,000 days of war, might be on the cards. Anything that pleases Putin will be rigorously opposed by the European members of the 50-nation US-led coalition backing and arming the Kyiv government who still believe, or at least claim they do, that Ukraine can win the war. However, Trump has boasted on so many occasions that he will fix things on his first day in office that Putin, as well as President Zelensky, are preparing themselves for the man who promotes himself as the master dealmaker. President Biden, too, has responded in his own way to the imminent arrival of Trump in his place. His decision, after months and months of reluctance, to authorise Kyiv to fire American ATACMS long-range missiles into Russia and to send anti-personnel land mines to Ukraine, was claimed to be in retaliation for the presence of 10,000 North Korean troops alongside Russian forces. But for Biden, it was much more than that. He wanted to remind Trump that under his administration, Russia was never going to win the war. So, are there real prospects for a settlement or is the latest reporting from Moscow all part of another Putin-inspired game plan to reset in concrete his personal red lines for a deal which haven’t really changed ever since the first attempts were made to end the war as far back as 28 February, 2022, four days after the Russian invasion. According to the Reuters report, Putin is making it clear he is ready to discuss a ceasefire deal with Trump, but not on the basis of any handover of Russian-occupied territory. Nato membership for Ukraine must also be abandoned but Putin is open to some form of security arrangement being put in place., provided Ukraine is declared a neutral state. The Moscow deal would effectively freeze the conflict along the current frontlines although there could be negotiations over the precise carving up of the four eastern regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, location of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, and Kherson. The Russian officials said there might be some leeway over small patches of ground Moscow holds in the Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions in the north and south of Ukraine. Crimea, annexed by Russia without a fight in 2014, would never be given up. There is no official Kremlin confirmation of the latest Moscow thinking. Indeed, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, has said that Putin would not countenance freezing the conflict, presumably because in recent months Russian troops have been making small but steady gains in eastern Ukraine, forcing Ukrainian troops back. Putin has in the past admitted he would consider the deal first outlined at a “peace” conference in Istanbul in April, 2022, in which Ukraine would have to accept permanent neutrality in return for international security guarantees underwritten by the five permanent members of the UN security council, the US, Russia, China, Britain and France. But no Nato troops on Ukrainian territory. This appears to be his thinking today. But while Russia is winning mini victories in the war, the next two months are likely to be among the toughest for Ukraine, as Putin piles on the leverage he wants to force Kyiv into a humiliating peace settlement. Nato leaders are still voicing their hopes that somehow Ukraine can reverse the setbacks on the battlefield and build its own heavyweight leverage to make Putin agree on territorial concessions. This is why Zelensky sent combat-proven troops into Kursk in western Russia in August. But while it seemed to be a bold move and a clever strategy, it could ultimately fail, as Russian and North Korean troops have begun to seize back some of the 1,000 square kilometres of occupied territory in Kursk. A ceasefire deal, if it happens, will be a tussle between Putin who is determined to present his “special military operation” to the Russian people as a victory for the motherland as well as two fingers to the US and Nato, which spent multi-billions of dollars to arm Ukraine, and Zelensky who called upon his people to make unbelievable sacrifices in order to preserve and protect the whole of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Giving in to Putin in a Trump-brokered deal would not just be devastating for him personally but might also bring to an end his political career as the warrior leader.

Storm Shadow attacks Russia

The first launching of the Anglo-French Storm Shadow cruise missile against targets inside Russia has brought Britain into a more direct confrontation with Moscow. The reports of Storm Shadow missiles being fired against hardened military sites in the Kursk region of western Russia follow the attacks yesterday by Ukraine, using the American ATACMS ballistic missile to hit a Russian weapons depot in the Bryansk province, 70 miles from the border and 235 miles southwest of Moscow. The Kyiv government wasted no time in launching the long-range ATACMS missiles over the border into Russia once President Biden had given his approval, reversing his policy after months of pleading by President Zelensky. Sir Keir Starmer has been careful to avoid confirming whether he, too, had given Zelensky permission to use Storm Shadow in attacks in Russia. But the evidence of long-range strikes by Ukrainian aircraft indicates that the UK government has followed the switch in policy adopted by Washington. ATACMS (army tactical missile system) and Storm Shadow (the French version is called Scalp) are two of the most deadly and effective weapons supplied by the US-led 50-nation coalition which has been arming and supporting the Kyiv government since the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022. However, it has taken 1,000 days for the US and UK to giver Zelensky authority to use the weapons in attacks inside Russia. *Will Storm Shadow make a difference? The 155-mile-range cruise missile has been used by Ukraine in numerous attacks against Russian targets in Crimea and in eastern provinces since the weapon was first delivered in 2023, but always on short-range missions. Storm Shadow packs a powerful explosive punch, with a 990lb warhead, designed specifically to hit and penetrate hardened military sites, such as ammunition depots, airbase storage facilities, radar installations and naval ports. In Ukraine, the cruise missile has been carried by the Soviet aircraft, Sukhoi Su-24. but prior to its operational use by the Ukrainian air force, it was supplied to the RAF for Tornado GR4s and Eurofighter Typhoons . It was first launched from a Typhoon on operations against the Islamic state (Isis) in Syria in March, 2021. But it was fired from a Tornado GR4 as far back as 2003 in Operation Telic in the Iraq war. Storm Shadow is equipped with “fire-and-forget” technology, with autonomous guidance. It was designed to hit targets with enhanced accuracy, with all the details of the target fed into a computer. As it’s a cruise missile, as opposed to a ballistic missile, it is subsonic but can creep up on the target at low level, only rising to a higher altitude in the final part of the journey to give maximum penetration power as it plunges downwards close to the speed of sound. It also has stealth technology built in, making it difficult for enemy radars to detect its approach. Storm Shadow has the potential to make a difference on the battlefield because of its accuracy and penetration capabilities. However, the missile is in demand among allies, and Ukraine has been given only limited supplies. This could hamper Kyiv’s hopes of causing significant and long-lasting damage to key military facilities inside Russia. Because the missile is air-launched, it also means that the Ukrainian pilots will have to adopt skilled manoeuvre tactics to evade Russian air-defence systems. *How will Russia react to ATACMS and now Storm Shadow? The most important development is that both the US and the UK have given authority for Kyiv to use these two weapon systems to their maximum range. This poses a challenge to Russian air defence systems. Previously, Russia’s main concern within its s own borders was to look out for and try to shoot down Ukraine’s long-range drones which have become increasingly more capable but without ever causing significant damage. Now Russia is facing two advanced western weapons which can fly over the border and reach targets spread out over a huge area. It has been estimated there could be around 245 potential military targets within reach of ATACMS and Storm Shadow. Russia has advanced and effective air-defence systems but they can’t be everywhere. Storm Shadow, with its ability to fly along a low-terrain path, is regarded as a highly survivable weapon system. But on July 9 last year, a Storm Shadow missile was shot down by Russian air defences. However, the inaugural use of both ATACMS and Storm Shadow inside Russia has demonstrated to Moscow that Ukraine’s western allies remain determined to supply Kyiv with the systems necessary to defend the country even if it meant lifting the longstanding ban on their use against Russia itself. The Kyiv government knows that it has two months in which to make maximum use of these long-range weapons before the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House in January when the whole issue of continued backing of Ukraine will come under the microscope. Russia, of course, is also fully aware of the Washington timetable and will no doubt retaliate with strikes against Ukraine which will ensure the grimmest of winters for the Ukrainian people.

Joe Biden's last throw of the presidential dice

President Biden’s decision to approve Ukraine’s “limited” use of the US Army’s long-range ATACMS missile system to attack targets deep inside Russia has transformed the battlefield dynamics in the near three-year war. It will also effectively give the green light to the UK and France to authorise Ukraine to fire the Franco-British air-launched cruise missile, known as Storm Shadow and Scalp, respectively, to hit Russian military sites across the border. Both the UK and France have been ready to give this permission for months but have been waiting for Biden to make up his mind about ATACMS. *Will Sir Keir Starmer and President Macron give Kyiv the authority? On the face of it, it should be a straightforward decision. Storm Shadow/Scalp has a range of up to 155 miles and would be a highly effective weapon to target key Russian bases and munitions storage sites, all vital for President Putin’s war against Ukraine. The Labour government has given every indication that it wants Storm Shadow to be available for Ukraine over the border in Russia. The weapon system has been effective against Russian targets inside Ukraine, especially in Moscow-annexed Crimea. While there is little doubt that Starmer will want to join Biden in offering to let Kyiv use these longer-range weapons to hit Russia where it will really hurt, there is one new factor which will have to be taken into account. Biden has just two months left of his presidency. From January 20, Donald Trump will be in the White House, and the Starmer government has to make a careful strategic decision. Does the prime minister go along with Biden’s sudden reversal in policy vis a vis the use of ATACMS inside Russia, or hedge his bets and find a half-way measure so as not to upset the man with whom he will need to nurture a good working relationship over the next four years? Trump has made it abundantly clear he wants to wrap up the war in Ukraine as soon as he gets into power in order to call a halt to the billions of dollars of American weapons flowing for ever into Ukraine. He plans to end the war with a negotiated settlement between Putin and President Zelensky. Would Trump consider a UK decision to end restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Storm Shadow as likely to persuade Putin to come to the negotiating table or just ramp up the war to a more dangerous level? *Is the answer to give Zelensky partial permission to use Storm Shadow against targets inside Russia? According to today’s media reports, Biden has already done this by emphasising the “limited” use of ATACMS inside Russia. Biden has in mind Kyiv using the 190-mile-range ATACMS to help Ukraine defend against the imminently-expected counter-offensive by Russian troops, backed by 10,000 North Korea soldiers, to drive Ukrainian forces out of the Kursk region of western Russia. Ukrainian troops crossed the Russian border into the Kursk province in August and seized 1,000 square kilometres of territory. The aim was to give Kyiv extra leverage in the event of a negotiated settlement with Moscow to end the war. In a move, seen in Washington and in London as a dangerous and escalatory decision by Putin, the North Korean troops have been under training for weeks in Russia in order to play a role in the planned counter-offensive in Kursk. Thousands more North Koreans are said to be ready and waiting to join the Russian side. Starmer could follow Biden’s lead and restrict the use of Storm Shadow to Russian targets in and around Kursk, or he could give free reign to Zelensky to deploy Storm Shadow as and where he sees fit. This would be more risky but would be welcomed by the Ukrainian leader who has been pleading to use western-supplied longer-range weapons inside Russia for more than a year. *Would attacks by ATACMS and Storm Shadow inside Russia make a huge difference, in Kyiv’s favour? The war has been going on since February 24, 2022 and during that time there have been a number of significant moments in terms of the West’s upgrading of weapon systems. They have included the decision to send tanks to Ukraine, M1A1 Abrams tanks from the US, Challenger 2s from the UK, Leopard 2s from Germany, among others, as well as F-16 fighter aircraft from Europe, and ATACMS. Zelensky has welcomed every decision but has admitted his disappointment over the delay in sending the equipment which he felt would make a difference against Russian forces. ATACMS has been used already inside Russia but Biden stipulated that they could only be fired on Russian airbases just over the border from where Moscow was launching bombers with cruise missiles against Ukrainian towns and cities. All the upgraded weapon systems sent to Ukraine have helped Kyiv to carry out decisive strikes against Russian positions in eastern Ukraine and ammunition sites. But none of them have so far made such a difference that Ukraine can be said to be heading towards victory against Russia. In fact, the opposite is the case. Russian troops have been making advances in eastern provinces, and Putin has increased the level of missile strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure, particularly power plants. Permission to deploy ATACMS, and Storm Shadow if the Starmer government agrees, against targets in Russia would not in itself change the battlefield landscape. This is partly because Russia has already taken steps to move back its bombers and other aircraft from the border with Ukraine to keep them out of harm’s way. This has not weakened Putin’s ability to attack Ukraine because Russian air-launched cruise missiles have ranges from 340 miles up to 2,800 miles. However, Kyiv has now been engaged in attacks inside Russia with long-range drones for more than a year, reaching as far as the outskirts of Moscow. While many have been shot down, some have got through, and drone debris has added to the damage to buildings which have caused anger and fear among the Russian communities affected. With ATACMS and Storm Shadow added to his inventory for attacks inside Russia, Zelensky and his military commanders would have the firepower to cause much greater damage, and, symbolically, to drive home to the Russian people that their leader’s war in Ukraine is putting their own lives and livelihoods at grave risk. *How might Putin respond to the Biden and expected UK/French decision giving permission to Zelensky to attack Russia? Putin has in the past warned that any such move by the West would effectively mean Russia was at war with Nato. However, for Putin, too, the political circumstances have now changed. With Trump back in the White House in two months, he has every reason to hope that the new US president will pull out the stops to get a negotiated settlement which would tend to favour his own strategy. In other words, he would get to keep all the territory seized and occupied by Russian troops which amounts to about 20 per cent of Ukrainian sovereignty. According to reported Trump ideas to end the war, Putin would also receive reassurance that Nato membership for Ukraine would be off the table, at least for 20 years. So, it wouldn’t necessarily be in Putin’s interest to counter the ATACMS decision with massive retaliation, possibly hitting targets close to or linked to any Nato countries in the region. As for turning to tactical nuclear weapons to hit Ukraine, that would surely be a gamble too far. He might get support from Kim Jong un, the North Korean leader who is now firmly allied militarily and strategically to Putin, the rest of the world’s leaders, notably China’s President Xi Zinping, and the whole of Nato, would unite in condemnation. Putin’s hopes of a favourable settlement brokered by the new Trump administration would be scuppered.

Biden's late late missile decision

Talk about leaving it to nearly the last possible moment. Poor old Zelensky in Kyiv has been bashing Joe Biden's ears for months, if not years, to let him have and use long-range weapons to hit Russian targets deep inside Russia only to have the US president shaking his head wearily from side to side and telling him, "You can have the weapons but you can't use them over the border in Russia". Now after no no no, Biden has decided to say yes yes yes to launching the 190-mile-range ATACMS rockets at targets inside Russia. Biden has eight weeks left of his presidency and it seems like a parting shot at Putin, take that, Vlad. Biden and his officials have tried to suggest that what drove the decision at last was the presence of 10,000 North Korean soldiers fighting alongside their Russian comrades to force the Ukrainian troops currently occupying the western Russian province of Kursk back over the border. But, to be honest, I really don't see why this bizarre move by Putin and Kim Jong un is reason to announce a major change of mind and policy in Washington which, until now, was based on Biden's obsession with not escalating the war between Russia and Ukraine into a war between Russia and the whole of Nato. The North Koreans have no combat experience and can be finished off without too much trouble with directly-targeting artillery and tank shells. What will ATACMS rockets do to the North Koreans which a bit of good infantry and armour manoeuvring could do? But it's Biden's last throw before exiting the White House and he obviously wanted to show Zelensky that he would back him all the way to his last minute in the White House. Was it a sensible move? We will see how Putin responds. One person who is not happy about it is Donald Trump who wants to end the war altogether on Day One in the Oval Office. The ATACMS decision by Biden could complicate that.

Trouble for Britain's Eurofighter Typhoon combat fighter

Britain’s fighter jets are running missions into Syria, dropping bombs on the Houthis in Yemen, patrolling over Estonia, Lithuania and Romania, close to Ukraine, and guarding our shores from interloping Russian bombers. And yet, the Typhoon final-assembly production line at Warton in Preston has effectively come to a halt. There are no new orders from the Ministry of Defence, and there is a battle going on between Typhoon supporters and those who want Britain’s military to have more American Lockheed Martin F-35 aircraft instead. The government is saying nothing because there is a strategic defence review underway. It’s an old, old story, rehearsed so many times in the past. Do you buy British/European military aircraft to save jobs, maintain technical skills and boost the economy, or give in to the salesmen from the giant US defence companies and opt for the American alternative? For the Labour government, desperate to prove it can generate growth in the economy (no sign of that yet) the answer should be straightforward: go British and save jobs. But defence procurement has never been simple, especially when embroiled in politics. The question mark over the future production of Typhoons at Warton arose this week when Steve McGuinness, a member of the Unite trade union executive council, reported in a letter to MPs on the Defence Committee: ‘As it stands, there are currently no Typhoons being final-assembled at the Warton site and no orders for future aircraft.’ ‘Essentially, production has stopped for British-built Typhoon aircraft,’ he wrote. He added: ‘We are becoming increasingly concerned with reports that the Typhoons being retired from active RAF service are to be replaced with American-built F-35 aircraft. This would be a hammer blow to the British aircraft industry and potentially could end the design, manufacture and assembly of fast jets in this country, seriously damaging our sovereign capability.’ The warning couldn’t have come at a worst time. On 3 and 4 December, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar which already has one squadron of Typhoons, will be in the UK for a state visit, with every expectation, or at least hope, that he will arrive with a new order for the jet aircraft. If the UK government fails to order more Typhoons for the RAF, how will that impact on the Emir’s strategic thinking about developing his nation’s air force? The Typhoon, which first came into service in 2003, was developed by a European consortium consisting of the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain. Production arrangements are a mix-and-match process, with each nation partner contributing. Airbus Germany supplies the centre fuselage section, Airbus Spain the right wing, BAE Systems the front fuselage, the fin and, together with Leonardo from Italy, the rear fuselage. Leonardo also produces the left wing. The twin engines are built by a consortium of European companies which includes Rolls-Royce. There are four final assembly lines. BAE and Leonardo produce the aircraft at Warton in Lancashire. It’s a huge and complex production extravaganza, securing 100,000 jobs in Europe, with 25,000 of them in the UK. It involves 400 companies. With a predicted service life into the 2060s, new orders are crucial to keep the production lines moving. So far, the Typhoon has been a success story. Apart from purchases by the members of the consortium (680 aircraft), orders have also come from Austria (15), Qatar (24), Saudi Arabia (72), Kuwait (28) and Oman (12). Part of the reason for the high order numbers is that any breakthroughs in avionics and other technical advances have been incorporated as upgrades to the base model, ensuring over and over the Typhoon’s capability against potential adversarial air forces. The RAF ordered three tranches of Typhoons, a total of 160, the initial ones only air-defence versions, but later also ground-attack models. But the last order by the RAF was placed in 2009. There is a fourth tranche available which Germany has already ordered. At present the UK is the only member of the consortium with no new order for Typhoon jets. The Typhoon consortium faces hot competition, principally with the US F-35 and the French Rafale. Saudi Arabia, for example, which spent billions of dollars on the Tornado fighter jet and then on Typhoons, as well as US aircraft, is now considering buying 54 Rafales. However, this is not necessarily bad news for Typhoon. As Paul Beaver, veteran defence analyst and aviation historian, pointed out: ‘Saudi Arabia always hedges its bets. They’ll buy more Typhoons.’ Beaver is a strong Typhoon advocate and unfavourably compares the European jet with the F-35. ‘The F-35 only has a short range. Its time to target in air defence operations is five minutes less than a Spitfire in the 1940s [in other words, it runs out of fuel rapidly],’ he said. ‘It doesn’t have a lot of legs, so it needs tanking [air refuelling] and yet half of the RAF want more F-35s as opposed to buying additional Typhoons,’ he said. The future of the Typhoon for the RAF is all tied in with the next generation of combat aircraft, now being studied in a project with Japan and Italy called the Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP). The programme is focusing on a sixth generation stealth fighter known as Tempest (which will replace Typhoon), an unmanned combat air vehicle called Loyal Wingman and some other autonomous platforms. The Eurofighter Typhoon is not a stealth fighter, although special materials were incorporated which make it hard to identify. Only 15 per cent of the aircraft is metal; the rest is made up of carbon fibre and other non-metal materials. The government has yet to make a long-term commitment to the GCAP programme, which leaves Tempest somewhat in the air, unless the defence review recommends the go ahead. Steve McGuiness was adamant in his letter to the defence committee in saying that the government should urgently commit to ordering a squadron of 24 more Typhoons while the review is underway. ‘A domestic order will not only fulfil a military requirement for the RAF in these unstable times but will also ensure that vital skills required to build the next generation aircraft [Tempest] are retained at Warton,’ he wrote. ‘Without a domestic order for Typhoon there will be no GCAP due to the loss of the skills necessary to build and fly aircraft.’ Staying in the business of building domestically-produced fighter aircraft is an immense investment, one that George Robertson, former Labour defence secretary and Nato secretary-general, and his team producing the defence review will be pondering over for the next few months. They’ll know the importance of Britain maintaining an industry capable of producing the most advanced fighter aircraft – particularly when two potential adversaries, Russia and China, are continuing to research and develop weapons platforms aimed at overcoming the West’s perceived superiority in military technology. China recently unveiled its own Shenyang J-35A fighter. It has striking similarities to the US F-35 joint strike fighter, although it could never be described as a direct copy. It was shown this week at the Zhuhai airshow in the southern province of Guangdong. This means China now has two fifth-generation stealth fighters – the J-35A and J-20 – making it only the second country in the world to have two such technologically advanced aircraft. The US has the F-35 and F-22. Russia has only one stealth fighter, the Sukhoi Su-57, but is developing a second called the Su-75 Checkmate.