Keir Starmer cap and letter from the king in hand

There probably hasn't been a more cringing moment than when Keir Starmer, prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reached into his suit jacket pocket and VOILA, like a vaudeville conjuror, produced a letter from Buckingham Palace addressed to the Lord and High Master Donald Trump, inviting him to tea and a State visit to Balmoral. If King Charles III was watching which I assume he was, he must surely have cringed, too. It was bad enough to watch all the touchy touchy, let-me-caress your arm, oh Mr President. But the letter emerging was truly awful. Trump obviously knew it was coming but he played along with the script and asked Starmer whether he should open it now before all the cameras. Starmer seemed to nod but basically he was pleading with him: "Oh yes, Mr President, now is a good moment because then the whole world can see how well we are getting on, and His Majesty back home is dying to see your reaction." Poor Charles, it has come to this. The special relationship between the US and Britain is now all about pompery and ceremony and not a lot else. Couldn't Starmer have shown a bit more backbone and told the president to stop behaving like a dictator! A truly sorry and nation-belittling White House comic opera.

Will the minerals deal with Trump save Ukraine?

When it first came out it looked like Donald Trump just wanted to snatch all of Ukraine's so-called rare earth minerals to make up for the billions of dollars the US spent on arming Kyiv to fight off the Russians. But there is a more subtle game being played here. Trump genuinely believes that if American contractors are around in Ukraine in force to dig up all these vital materials, such as graphite, titanium, lithium and uranium, the Russians wouldn't dare to interfere, let alone breach a hoped-for ceasefire and start killing Americans. So, in other words, Ukraine's greatest security guarantee for the future, bar US troops on the ground, is to have as many Americans as possible working in Ukraine to keep Putin at bay. It would be more like an economic/industrial security guarantee. It might just work, although Zelensky is never going to be satisfied with that as his country's sole security guarantee. He still wants Ukraine to be part of Nato and to have alliance troops in Ukraine as the best deterrent for stopping any further agression from Putin. He's not going to get that, and Trump will tell him so when they meet in the White House tomorrow (Friday) But if that's the case, then Zelensky should ask Trump to make sure that every US company that comes in to extract the rare minerals should be protected by US private defence contractors. Then at least there will be armed American boots on the ground, albeit not from the Marines or the 82nd Airborne Division.

French president plays the nuclear card

President Emmanuel Macron has raised the nuclear card. He has offered to provide nuclear cover for Europe as fears intensify that President Trump is moving further away from Nato and from US historic obligations towards European allies. The concept of extended deterrence courtesy of France, the fourth largest nuclear weapons power in the world, is not new. It goes back a long way. Macron is just one of many French presidents who have contemplated providing a European dimension to France’s Force de Frappe. However, today the context is dramatically different. For the first time in Nato’s history, the US sided with Russia and not its European allies when the Trump administration refused to condemn Moscow for the invasion of Ukraine. Trump wants to focus America’s war-planning efforts on China and, as a consequence, the rest of Nato is fearful that the US will leave the defence of Europe to the Europeans – and that could include a less reliable American nuclear umbrella. Trump appears to believe that his rapprochement with Vladimir Putin will be sufficient to deter, or at least put off, the Russian president from considering any further aggression in Europe. Europe neither trusts that view nor feels reassured that in the event of a future Russian military attack on a Nato member, the US will rush to the alliance’s aid, as required under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. To meet this unprecedented moment in the alliance’s 76th year, Macron has envisaged a situation in which Trump becomes unwilling to guarantee American nuclear deterrence to stop the Russian hordes in their tracks. France’s president is reported to have raised the notion of a French nuclear umbrella for Europe in his seemingly fraught meeting with Trump in the White House yesterday (Mon). Specifically, according to the Telegraph, such an umbrella would consist of Rafale bombers armed with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles being stationed in Germany. Questions have been asked about a possible new role for the United Kingdom. Could Britain’s nuclear deterrent also be offered in a joint Anglo-French force to protect Europe in the event of what would be a dangerously risky decision by the Trump administration to withdraw all of its 100 air-launched nuclear bombs currently located in five European countries: Germany, Belgium, Turkey, The Netherlands and Italy. Friedrich Merz, the leader of the election-winning Christian Democratic Union and about to become Germany’s new chancellor, appears keen on the idea. He would like the UK to be involved, too. In many ways it’s a false premise. The UK no longer possesses air-launched nuclear bombs. The inventory of WE-177 free-fall bombs was withdrawn and dismantled in 1998. The UK is the only nuclear power to rely solely on one deterrent system, the submarine-launched Trident II D5 strategic missile. The UK’s four Vanguard-class ballistic-missile submarines – due to be replaced by Dreadnought-class boats costing £31 billion from the 2030s – are formally assigned to the defence of Nato. The UK deterrent has been intrinsically part of Nato’s nuclear strategy since 1962. The French deterrent is independent of Nato. The UK, unlike France, has been a prominent member of Nato’s Nuclear Planning Group since it was set up in 1966. However, the UK deterrent remains an operationally independent system and only the prime minister has the authority to press the button. France, on the other hand, has two arms to its nuclear deterrent capability: four Triomphant-class submarines armed with M51 missiles, and the Rafale nuclear bombers. The total number of warheads is around 290, compared with Britain’s estimated 225. Historically, France has always tried to impress on its European allies the need for an alternative Europe-led military capability to complement, or supplant if necessary, the US in order to safeguard the continent from an American president determined to pull up the drawbridge and focus on Fortress America to the detriment of allies across the Atlantic. However, even France is not as independent a nuclear power as it likes to portray. In the 1970s when Richard Nixon was US president and Georges Pompidou was the French leader, top secret discussions were held to arrange for American nuclear specialists to give guidance to their French counterparts to assist France with their ballistic-missile programme and nuclear safety procedures. There was no exchange of nuclear technology but the Nixon deal brought the US and France closer together in forging an effective French nuclear deterrent. Britain, of course, is in the unique position of enjoying a close nuclear weapons partnership with the US, following the 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement which allowed for the sharing of nuclear technology information and materials; and the Polaris Sales Agreement, signed on April 6, 1963 by President John K Kennedy and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in which the UK bought Polaris missiles for the Royal Navy’s Resolution-class submarines.The sales deal was amended in 1980 to enable the UK to purchase Trident missiles to replace Polaris. In each case, the UK’s Atomic Weapons Establishment designed the warheads for the missiles. As a result of this “very special” relationship, Britain is inextricably tied to the US on nuclear weapons strategy, technology and submarine reactor development. The prime minster may have sole authority to launch a missile, but a large proportion of the submarine-launched deterrent is US-made. (But there is no US in-built piece of technology that would enable an American president to prevent the prime minister from going solo). The idea of a “Euronuke” or an Anglo-French joint deterrent force, in the absence of the US umbrella, might seem a concept too far, although the British and French do cooperate on nuclear weapons matters, such as safety, and are involved in a joint research programme. However, the key to everything is deterrence credibility. Would Putin hesitate to order troops into Europe if he knew the European nuclear cover consisted of only a few hundred French and British warheads without the might of American firepower behind them? The accepted theology of nuclear deterrence is that if only a small proportion of nukes can get through missile defences, it would still pose a grave and, therefore, unacceptable risk, And yet, if Europe were to lose the US nuclear umbrella, might Putin take the gamble?

Keir Starmer heads for Washington with a goody bag

Talk about timing. When Labour ousted the Conservatives in the 2024 election, Keir Starmer talked about increasing the amount spent on defence. He pledged to raise the current 2.3 per cent of GDP to 2.5 per cent but gave no timeline. Now, with his visit to the Trump White House, he obviously thought he better enter the Oval Office with a goody bag, or perhaps it could be called the goody-two-shoes bag because he felt it necessary to give something, anything, to the new president to keep him happy. A mini boost to the UK's defence budget in 2027 is likely to make Starmer's trip to Washington a little easier. Had Joe Biden still been in office I seriously doubt Starmer would have felt similarly obliged to up defence spending. Joe was too nice. So Starmer can shake Trump's hand and say:"You see, I've done what you asked." Actually Trump wants all Nato members to spend five per fent of GDP, but 2.5 per cent is a start. But he won't be pleased with the delay of two years. But that was for poor Rachel Reeves' sake. As chancellor, she is having enough of a nightmare trying to balance the books and boost the eoonomy. Now she has to find the extra cash for the Ministry of Defence which will mean cutting into the huge social benefits budget. So, Trump will be pleased, but Reeves will be biting her nails and secretly cursing the prime minister.

Europe and Ukraine versus the United States

What a state the western world is in. The gathering of European leaders and diplomats in Kyiv to show their support for Ukraine on the third anniversary of the Russian invasion is clearly intended to send a signal to Donald Trump that he is a not-to-be-trusted leader who has screwed up what was always a tight and long-lasting alliance and friendship between America and Europe. But the most bizarre aspect of this dramatic breakdown in the Atlantic partnership is that Europe has sided with the former satellite nation of the Soviet Union against the country that is supposed to be the Great Protector of European nations. The war in Ukraine which helped to unify Europe and the US in the joint effort to stand up to Vladimir Putin is now the reason for an historic breach in the Western alliance. The difference it makes between one president, Joe Biden, and his successor, Donald Trump, has been so startling that no one in Europe has quite grasped the immensity of this change. The winner, of course, is Putin who has now pretty well achieved at least three of his main objectives in life: a significant slice of Ukraine, total division within the Nato alliance, and the effective promise by Trump that Ukraine will never become a member of the western alliance. Not bad for three years of waging war. Now he is expected to get even more: possibly a pull-back of Nato troops from eastern Europe, a lifting of many of the sanctions against Russia and, of course, reinstatement as a leader on the world stage with no one daring to consider arresting him on the international war crimes warrant if he were to land in the US or Europe. Putin rules!

Musk memo: what did you do in the office last week apart from drink coffee?

Elon Musk really is trying to rule the American federal workforce. After his email demanding to be told what each and everyone did to advance things in the office last week or resign has put the fear of Trump into their lives. He did the same when he took over Twitter and turned it into X. Every worker had to justify their existence. Did they sit around all day drinking coffee and gathering to gossip around the water dispenser or did they actually achieve something, like come up with a good idea to create efficiency or save money or Make America Great Again? Imagine over this weekend tens of thousands of people are frantically sitting in their kitchens at home trying to remember what they did in the office. Oh yes, there was that meeting with the head of diversity when I suggested all women should be allowed a longer lunchbreak because they got more tired during the way what with all their duties at home an'all. No, no, don't mention that. Musk has already abolished the diversity department. Something has to be thought up which will impress Musk or it's out on your ear. Yes, this weekend is going to be make-or-break for thousands of federal workers. Trying to justify your role in the office to someone like Musk who spends each day trying to save a trillion dollars from the federal budget, mastermind X, supervise the development of new rockets to go into space and pursue the dream of all-electric cars, vans, lorries, trucks, tanks, and motorbikes. No trouble for him to justify his existence but if he compares his workload with the average federal worker, they are all screwed.

Trump's clear-out at the Pentagon

It hasn't taken long. Everything I predicted in an analysis piece in The Times last month has now happened: the purge of employees has begun wholesale and two key military chiefs have been sacked, General Charles Q Brown, the chairman of the Joint Ciuefs of staff, and Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to be Chief of Naval Operations. Sacked for being too woke because they built up efforts to improve diversity and gender equality. With Pete Hegseth as defence secretary obeying every wish of his president, there is no one inside the Pentagon able to withstand the mighty purge now underway. Hegseth has announcnd an eight per cent cut in the $850 billion budget which apparently he hopes to achieve by removing waste, duplication and what they call legacy weapon systems which are no longer needed for his aim to build a ready fighting force to take on China. General Brown was a good guy and a highly respected military commander but Trump thought he was too keen to push diversity. Likewise Admiral Franchetti. And woke in all its aspects is the enemy to Trump. So, anyone connected to these same efforts, as well as weapons platforms, like warships powered by alternative energy fuels - green warships - might get the chop. The Pentagon doesn't know what is going to come next.

Starmer tiptoeing or barging his way into the White House?

Going to pay a call on Donald Trump at any time is a risky business. What sort of mood will he be in? Will he be friendly? Will he just say no to everything? But for Keir Starmer, there will be much more at stake when he visits Trump next Thursday. Trump knows what Starmer is going to say about Ukraine and his cosy chat with Putin last week. Trump will expect Starmer to be full of advice and warnings and appeals. But if Starmer has the right stuff in his head and heart, he should take a much tougher line and stand up for what's right and go for it. Namby pamby appeals for poor old Britain to be involved in the peace negoatiations or overstated admiration for Zelensky will not impress Trump. He hates whiners. But if Starmer walks in 6ft tall and strong handshake and no-nonsense presentation of the facts, and Trump might listen. He will already have heard the same story from President Macron who is due in the White House on Monday. Trump likes Macron, ever since he was invited to attend the Bastille Day military parade in Paris during his first term as president. That parade seriously impressed Trump and he returned to Washington demanding a similar parade. He didn't get it. So, Macron will lay out the worries of the Europeans about Trump's rapprochement with Putin and the deal-in-the-making to end the war in Ukraine. Trump will listen because Macron is of equal status although only in the sense that they are both presidents. Starmer is just a humble prime minister with a king as head of state, although Trump has said before he likes him. But if Starmer whinges he will get nowhere. It will have to be tough talk all the way. But he mustn't forget the importance of his opening line which has to be something along these lines: "Mr President, I want to say, thank God for your leadership. Here we are with the real possibility that you, with us behind you, can end this terrible war in Ukraine. Brilliant, wonmderful, a breath of fresh air. Bye bye Biden, hello King Trump." Then Starmer can say what he really wants to say while Trump is glowing with the praise from the Man from Blighty.

Macron and Starmer head for Washington

Both President Macron and Keir Starmer will be in Washington next week, trying to persuade Donald Trump to back down over Ukraine and stop giving Putin everything he wants. It will be a wasted trip. Trump has made up his mind that he prefers to deal with Putin if he is going to end the war in Ukraine. The Europeans - and Ukrainians - are a side issue for him but he will go along with hearing the appeals from Macron and Starmer. The only thing he will support is the idea of a purely European peacekeeping force for Ukraine but since the likelihood of this happening is about 100-1, I doubt Trump has given it much thought. Sergey Lavrov who has been around (as Russian foreign minister) longer than anyone else on the global political stage apart from his boss, Vladimir Putin, has made it abundantly clear that this concept is unacceptable. So it seems no matter how much huffing and puffing there is from Macron and Starmer, including talk of sending fighter planes to patrol the skies over Ukraine, Moscow will not sign anything with this in the small print. Trump has stated before that he likes Starmer and thinks he is doing a good job. But his opinion will have changed somewhat after Starmer rejected his description of Zelensky as a dictator and to emphasise his point he rang the Ukrainian president to give him his full support. Trump won't have liked that, so Starmer could get the cold shoulder. Macron might fare a bit better but I suspect both leaders will return to their capitals with a Trump rebuke in their ears.

Why is the war in Ukraine Zelensky's fault?

On February 24, 2022, 150,000 Russian troops with tanks and armoured fighting vehicles invaded Ukraine. I know this happened because I wrote about it at length in The Times and watched TV footage as the huge convoy wended its way slowly towards Kyiv. So, how is it possible that Donald Trump can feel it's right to accuse Ukraine of starting the war? It's like saying Britain invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982. Did Trump mean that if Kyiv had just handed over Ukraine's sovereignty to Moscow, there wouldn't have had to be a war? Or perhaps he meant that if Kyiv hadn't applied for membership of Nato, Putin wouldn't have invaded? Or maybe he meant that once the Russian troops had crossed the border, Kyiv should have surrendered and no one would have been killed? There isn't any other way of interpreting Trump's words. The only remotely arguable aspect of these three choices is the one about Nato membership. Kyiv's insistence it wanted to turn to the EU and Nato and away from the Russian Federation clearly angered Putin and he resolved to stop Ukraine joining Nato by invading three years ago. But, as the US and Europe always argued, Ukraine is a sovereign state and therefore can decide for itself whether it embraces western institutions rather than be a vassal to Russia just because they are neighbours. But Putin never saw it that way. He said Nato membership for Ukraine would pose a direct threat to Russia's national security and very existence. If that is what Trump had in mind then ok. But he is still seeing it all from Putin's perspective rather than as the leader of the western free world which has spent billions and billions of dollars over the last three yers supporting Ukraine with weapons, munitions and cash to survive against the Russian onslaught. So, whatever Trump was thinking when he blamed Ukraine for the war, it's a pretty warped view.

Nato/European troops in Ukraine? Niet, says Sergey Lavrov.

The talk about putting British and other European (Nato) troops into Ukraine as peacekeepers in the event of an end to the war seems to have fallen on very stony ground. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said niet niet niet when it was raised at the US/Russian Ukraine war/peace summit in Riyadh today. It's early days but I cannot image any scenario in which Vladimir Putin will agree to having anyone from Nato marching around in Ukraine to deter him from invading Ukraine all over again at some future date. Keir Starmer boldly announced he was prepared to send British troops to Ukraine but has he thought it through? The numbers game has already started, with some saying 150,000 would be needed, Zelensky puts it at 200,000 and some of the European countries are saying 30,000, with a reinforcement capability built in. But that would mean a whole lot of troops training and readying themselves to rush to Ukraine in an emergency. The numbers are building up. But is it all fanciful thinking? If Putin says niet, then it's difficult to see how a peacekeeping force is going to be written into a peace deal. And even if it was, how long would such a force have to be stationed in Ukraine, a year, two years, for ever? There is a lot of drawing-board stuff required here.

The Ukraine talks in Saudi Arabia are just the beginning

There is no likelihood of a fully-formed peace settlement to end the war in Ukraine emerging at the first meeting of Americans and Russians in Saudi Arabia tomorrow (Tues). It's more like a reunion party for top US officials and top Kremlin officials to talk about old times when the two countries were not at permanent loggerheads. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has been around long enough to start this new process very slowly and suspiciously. He will have to go back to Putin and give him some good news, so there will be no caving in to the Trump team demands. Each side will lay out their hopes for a deal but there won't be any signatures and stamps of approval. Both sides will be pushing their luck and seeing what comes of it. So, in a sense, Ukraine will not be missing out that much. A Ukrainian delegation will surely be more involved in the detail at some later stage, although one can understand Zelensky's anger and frutration. As for the Europeans, their time will come, too. All this rushing to Paris in panic mode will be viewed in the White House as the reason why Trump didn't want them all putting in their pennorth in Saudi Arabia. It would be so much blaa blaa blaa. On the other hand, if the Paris emergency summit gets the Europeans to spend more money on defence and preparing for a war with Russia without the US, then Trump will see that as a result. I would say it's all going Trump's way right now.

Who is going to Saudi Arabia for peace talks?

Talk about confusion. There is going to be a big peace-talk meeting in Saudi Arabia but do the Saudis know how many chairs and glasses of water to provide? We know the US delegation, Marco Rubio, secretary of state, Mike Waltz, national security adviswr, John Ratcliffe, CIA director, and Steve Witkoff, billionaire and Trump's special envoy for the Middle East. Witkoff is the most interesting Trump representative. He has a reputation for being a brutal, no-nonsense negotiator. He says it how it is and how he thinks and has no time for chit-chat. The Russians will get to know very quickly they are dealing with a tough nut to crack, except he doesn't crack. The rest of the Trump team will be less in the Russians' face but the combination could be quite effective. Trump said there will be a Ukrainian delegation but Kyiv says they haven't been formally invited. How can this be? As for the Europeans, they won't be represented which is why Macron has called a summit in Paris to discuss how the hell Europe, a big supporter of Ukraine, is going to play a meaningful role. But they won't be going to Saudi Arabia. Trump doesn't want them. Putin has achieved one of the major things he always wanted, division and confusion in the western alliance. But this is the way Trumps wants it. He doesn't want a delegation of Europeans getting in the way of his instant blueprint for Ukraine's future. At present the Saudi meeting looks like Trump team versus Putin team with Zelensky not sure whether he has been invited or not.

What is Trump going to offer Zelensky for the Ukraine war to end?

President Trump has said he wants more than anything to leave the White House at the end of his term with a reputation as a peacemaker and unifier. On that basis, and on that basis alone, what is he going to offer Zelensky and the Ukrainian people to make sure they feel that all the blood, sweat and toil in their defence against the invasion troops sent by Vladimir Putin nearly three years ago was worth it? In other words, if the war is brought to an end and the killings stop, what will be the benefit to Ukraine other than the survival of those who have not been targeted by Russian aircraft and long-range missiles? For Trump to emerge from negotiations with Putin as a peacemaker and saviour, he will have to give the Ukrainians something back: some of the territory currently occupied by Russian troops, a massive reconstruction effort and. above all, solid security guarantees for the future to ensure that Putin can never again feel tempted to attack Ukraine. So far, all we have heard is that Trump wants a slice of Ukraine's rich minerals, not t to help with Ukraine's economy but as recompense for the all the billions of dollars US taxpayers have paid out to sustain the country under Russian bombardment. Where are the incentives for Zelensky to sign a peace deal? What promises are going to be made to the Ukrainian people? None of these questions have been answered yet. The answers can only come from Trump if he really wants his legacy to show that he was a genuine peacemaker.

Could Britain play a role in Trump's plan to end the war in Ukraine?

Britain has the opportunity to become a master in tightrope diplomacy between Donald Trump and an increasingly alarmed Europe after the 47th president’s blitz of foreign policy announcements. To say that European leaders have been hyperventilating over the dramatic chess move made by Trump in his 90-minute phone call with Vladimir Putin is to put it mildly. Trump has been accused of appeasement a la Neville Chamberlain and his paper of peace following the US president’s seeming surrender to Putin’s two key demands to end the war in Ukraine: permanent retention of ground seized and no future membership of Nato for his suffering neighbour. Horrified leaders and politicians in Europe have condemned Trump for giving away any leverage he might have had in starting negotiations with Putin. The reaction from Moscow – all smiles and back-slapping – only underlined the European view that the new leader of the western world had miss-stepped and blundered his way into a negotiating sit-down with the bones of a deal already settled without Kyiv’s say-so. However, there are three points worth making: First, Trump has effectively been promising to do what he has just done for so long that every government in Europe should have been prepared; second, after Trump‘s 2017-2021 presidency, the world knew everything about Trump’s leadership style and shock-and-awe foreign policy tactics (his wooing of Kim Jung Un of North Korea); and, third, Trump is famous for his wild opening gambits. In the case of Ukraine, his ultimate objective is to end the death and destruction as swiftly as possible and leave the Europeans to provide the boots on the ground if a peacekeeping force is ever approved and implemented. This is where the UK comes in, holding a unique position. We are longer a member of the European Union, regarded by Trump more as a rival than an ally, and have a partnership with the US which no other country in the world shares: we buy (actually lease) Trident nuclear missiles from the US Navy’s base in King’s Bay, Georgia, guaranteeing Britain’s permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council. The Trump declaration about brokering peace in Ukraine via a big power session hosted by Saudi Arabia has all the hallmarks of the US president’s negotiating style. He has already chosen his players at the table who will include Marco Rubio, secretary of state, John Ratcliffe, CIA director, and perhaps surprisingly, Steve Witkoff, his special Middle East envoy, fresh from his starring, behind-the-scenes manipulating to reach the Gaza ceasefire deal. Whether Europe will be represented at the Saudi summit is still up in the air, which has caused an outburst of anger and astonishment throughout Europe. The Europeans, after all, have supplied $52 billion in arms to help Ukraine fight off the Russians (compared with $145 billion by the US). Although there has been some rowing back from the initial image created of an exclusive Trump team versus Putin team in Saudi Arabia, the US president has made it clear he believes he is the only realistic dealmaker. As many commentators have already pointed out, this is the new reality of world politics. However, Britain can provide a calming influence and should seize the chance to act as the main bridge between Washington and Europe, to ensure that the European voice is heard, especially if the UK is asked to lead some sort of security/peacekeeping force in Ukraine. John Healey, the UK defence secretary, seems to be a politician with common sense, and although he has joined the cries for Ukraine and Europe to be represented in the negotiations, he could be the one to take on an influential role in enveloping Europe into whatever Trump and Putin come up with. He has already donned the responsibility of chairman of the Ukraine defence contact group of 50 nations supporting Kyiv. It was founded and previously led by Lloyd Austin, President Biden’s defence secretary. Britain has experience of tightrope diplomacy, often in the past acting as intermediary between Washington and European capitals, principally because of its historic nuclear and intelligence-sharing relationship. While Trump blasts his way through negotiating obstacles, Britain could be in a position to provide measured contributions. Not least of which would be to inject a little realism into the concept of a large (150,000 troops?) peacekeeping force in Ukraine. There has been talk of Britain supplying a division of 15,000. With a British Army of fewer than 75,000 regular soldiers, that would seem to be somewhat far-fetched.

How can Putin not win the war in Ukraine?

With Donald Trump in full swing to bring the war in Ukraine to an end, it's difficult to see how the end result can be anything but good news for Putin and very bad news for Zelensky. The Ukrainian armed forces can't drive the Russian army out of eastern Ukraine and Crimea. So "peace" negotiations aren't going to be able to do it because Putin will just refuse to let go of any of the territory his forces have seized and occupied. So, he will keep the near-20 per cent of the Ukrainian sovereign territory which includes Crimea. What could Trump ever say or do to Putin to force him to reduce these territorial gains to, say, 15 per cent or ten per cent? It's not going to happen. That means the negotiators on the US side (with or without their Ukrainian counterparts) will have to start on the basis that the 20 per cent stays under Russian occupation and control and, I guess, ownership. So, Zelensky has lost already. All that suffering and death and destruction and the enemy gets to keep everything. Then there's the matter of the future security of Ukraine. Trump says Nato membership is out. Pete Hegseth, his defence secretary, says Nato membership is off the table. So that's gone, too. What is left for Zelensky to see even the tiniest of silver linings in a future peace settlement? A huge peacekeeping force manned by European armies to keep Putin at bay? It's never going to happen. Europe can't afford it and none of the countries have the troops or the defence budgets to sustain a massive peacekeeping force for years and years in Ukraine. Trump wants Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, to head the negotiations in Saudi Arabia (why in Saudi Arabia?) but what will Rubio have up his sleeve to offer Zelensky to lessen the blow of humiliation and defeat? Nothing. There is nothing. The only thing he might get is a promise to appeal to countries around the world to send cash to help repair all the damage caused by Putin's rockets, missiles and bombs. But no guarantees. After all, Gaza has got to be rebuilt, too. Who will get preference?

Who's going to bury the Hamas tunnels?

Even if the third phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal is successfully completed and all hostages, alive and dead, are handed over, Hamas will still retain its most treasured and most deadly warfare advantage: hundreds of miles of deep tunnels and bunkers known as the Gaza metro. From day one of the Israel Defence Forces’ retaliatory invasion of Gaza, the search began for the tunnel complex which their opponents were using to hide command bunkers, weapon-making plants, munition stores, fighters and the 250 hostages seized from southern Israel on 7 October, 2023. The IDF may have killed an estimated 17,000 of Hamas’s 30,000 soldiers, but the remnants of the battered fighting force survived because of the Gaza metro. Hamas will also now have potential new recruits among the 1,900 Palestinian prisoners being released under stage one of the ceasefire deal, and a lot more under stage two. There is nothing in the small print of the ceasefire deal which obligates Hamas to destroy the tunnel complex. So, although the IDF has destroyed or blocked a significant percentage of the tunnels which criss-cross under every Gazan city, large sections have survived; and Hamas has the capacity to rebuild the damaged underground network. Did this crucial issue come up in conversation between President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, in their White House discussions last week? Was it perhaps one of the topics raised which stimulated Trump to announce his plan to relocate the two million Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt, and then take over Gaza, bulldoze the ruined buildings and convert the territorial strip into a Riviera-style resort? If that grand reconstruction programme were ever to happen, it would provide a unique opportunity to bury the tunnels, finally eliminating what took Hamas an estimated 6,000 tons of concrete, 1.800 tons of steel, tens, possibly hundreds of millions of dollars and years of often hand-digging effort to build. The use of unskilled digging was made possible because of Gaza’s soft sandy soil. It took the IDF a month or so of hard fighting in Gaza after the 7 October attack to reassess the threat posed by the Hamas tunnels. When the retaliatory strikes were launched, Israeli intelligence had estimated that there were 250 miles of tunnels under Gaza. This was staggering enough seeing how the Gaza Strip is only 140 square miles in size. The new estimate, however, reported in January 2024, raised the total figure to between 350 and 450 miles. Israeli intelligence told the New York Times there were an estimated 100 miles of tunnels just under the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis where IDF thought the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was hiding. He was eventually found and killed in Rafah, five miles away. When the IDF ground campaign began, the tunnel complex posed the gravest threat to infantry attacks because Hamas could emerge at will from deep shafts, launch attacks and then return to the safety of their burrows. Some of the tunnels were more than 160ft below the surface. The IDF lost five soldiers in November 2023 when they entered a booby-trapped tunnel entrance. In other attempts to enter and destroy tunnels, Israeli special forces engineers of the famed Yahalom unit found improvised explosive devices embedded in the walls. One of the biggest tunnels, reinforced with concrete and iron, was wide enough for a vehicle to pass through. Flooding the tunnels with industrial pumps was one option to force the Hamas fighters out of their refuges. But it was a slow process. ‘It took two weeks for a small Hamas tunnel to fill before the IDF finally saw Hamas fighters on the surface where they could be targeted,’ the Modern War Institute at the US Westpoint Military Academy reported early in the war. ‘Due to the tunnels’ porous concrete lining, the water simply drained out of them. Some tunnels were even built with drainage holes in them. Flooding had little impact,’ the institute said. No official estimate has been given of the proportion of Gaza metro which has survived. But even if the IDF managed to destroy or disrupt 30 or 40 per cent of the tunnel network, Hamas will have enough of its underground complex left to plan future attacks once the IDF has fully withdrawn from Gaza under stage two of the ceasefire arrangement. Netanyahu said his objective in launching a war in Gaza was to annihilate Hamas and gain the release of all 250 hostages. It was in large part the existence of the Hamas tunnel complex which thwarted the Israeli leader’s hopes of achieving both goals. If the ceasefire deal (currently on the rocks) really does end the war, Hamas will survive, along with significant elements of the Gaza metro. No wonder Netanyahu was smiling when Trump announced his proposal to clear Gaza of all Palestinians (Hamas included) and reconstruct the strip of land into a fancy resort.

A huge Europe-led peacekeeping force in Ukraine? Who's kidding?

There's growing talk about a peacekeeping force led by Europe going into Ukraine if Donald Trump manages to broker a peace deal to end the war. Trump has spoken on the phone to Putin and I guess the subject must have come up. There are two things: first, I can't see Putin ever agreeing to it, and, second, where on earth is this huge force going to come from? The Brits seem to think they could provide a division. That's 15,000 troops. This is pie in the sky. The British Army is now so small it can barely put up a division for a full-scale war. So, 15,000 for a peacekeeping mission? I seriously doubt that's feasible. The talk is about sending at least 150,000 European troops to peacekeep and act as a deterrent to Russian aggression post-ceasefire. I just don't see this happening. Germany is reluctant, Poland is not happy, no one, apart from the Brits, seems enamoured. Of course, the main argument is, yes, ok but we need the Americans to back it with hefty airpower, intelligence, logistics and probably some infantry, too. But Trump wants to get shot of Ukraine and leave it to Europe, so I doubt he will be willing to spend a lot of money on supporting the poor Europeans to carry out a peacekeeping mission. But even if, by some miracle, the Europeans managed to drum up 150,000 troops, Putin would never go along with it. He didn't invade Ukraine to see a European-led army occupying the land he wants for himself. It's a non-starter. Trump will have to think of a different way of deterring Russia from further aggression against Ukraine if there is to be a ceasefire.

Democrats in US are overwhelmed by the Trump blitz

In the three weeks since Donald Trump became the 47th president of the United States, all political opposition against him and his policies have been literally buried. The Democrats have vanished. They don't know how to react or what to do. It doesn't help that they don't have a leader. Kamala Harris hasn't yet worked out what her future is and there doesn't seem to be any clamour from her party for her to keep the baton and start fighting Trump. After her defeat by Trump in the election it's hardly surprising she wants to keep a low profile. But the Democratic party desperately needs a strong voice. The only opposition to Trump at the moment is coming from individual judges who have agreed with litigants seeking curbs on the president's more extreme executive orders.But the judges will probably be overturned in the higher courts. So who in the Democratic party is going to be brave and start sounding off against the new president's power-grabbing everywhere. Whoever it will be, he or she better be good and tough and challenging because Trump keeps on talking about how he might be able to serve a third term, even though the constitution forbids it. Seeing as how it's Trump musing on this possibility, it just might happen.

The prisoner swap ratio between Hamas and Israel is totally out of balance

To see the three emaciated-looking Israeli hostages being relased in return for 183 Palestinian prisoners hekd in Israel's jails was a reminder of the grossly unequal business of prisoner release when it involves Israel and Hamas. Just three hostages held in Gaza since the 2023 October 7 Hamas atrocities in exchange for nearly 200 Palestinian convicts. It seems that in this grim hostage-taking business, the bad guys always win. In the past, Israel has been prepared to free hundreds of Palestinians for just one hostage. In that particular case it was a soldier: Galid Shalit in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in 2011. It's in Hamas's interest in the present crisis to stretch out the hostage releases bit by bit to ensure the terrorist-designated organisation gets as many Palestinian prisoners back to Gaza as possible. Israel goes along with it because the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is desperate to get all the Israeli hostages and other nationals freed during the second phase of the ceasefire deal. It may not happen because Hamas holds all the cards. As Israeli troops begin to withdraw, the opportunities for Israeli special forces to sweep in and free hostages by military force will become seriously limited and would, in any case, be viewed as a violation of the ceasefire agrement. So it will be totally down to Hamas to pick and choose which hostages they release and how many at any one time. It's an obscene arrangement.

The power of the US president: no more paper straws!

Yet another executive order by the 47th president. This time Donald Trump has reversed a decision by Joe Biden to turn all plastic straws into paper ones to save the environment. Trump thinks this is so woke and ridiculous. So it's back to plastic. It does seem extraordinary that the president of the United States is involved in such minutiae. But it also shows the power of the office. Since he became president again on January 20, Trump and his acolyte Elon Musk have thrown the whole Washington establishment up into the air and it still hasn't come down yet. The return to plastic straws was Trump's final decision of a turmoil week in which he announced he wanted to turn Gaza into a luxury resort and then faced a worldwide no no no. I doubt it will stop Trump from pushing ahead with his scheme. But back to straws. Plastic product manufacturers will be delighted but what happens when the wretched straws get thrown nonchalently into rivers or oceans? Plastic detritus is already a global catastrophe. Trump has ensured that the plastic nightmare will be with us for a long time.

The great rowing back on Trump's Gaza plan

The White House just didn't knowq how to react to Donald Trump's grand plan to move all Palestinians out of Gaza, bulldoze everything into the ground and construct a Riviera-style resort. He seemed to be suggesting, in fact he WAS suggesting, that the Palestinians moved out would not be expected to move back in. In other words, they were to find a new life in neighbouring Egypt or Jordan. Two million of them. If Trump has a dream of turning Gaza into a glorified Sunset Boulevard, then presumably he imagines a lot of rich investors moving in. The Trump dream was gradually shot down by his own officials. The White House press spokeswoman said the relocation of Palestinians would only be temporary, indicating they would all be allowed back in once the rebuilding had occurred. Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, said the same thing. OOps! Was Trump angry about this? What was to happen to his Riviera Gaza ambition? But this is all so typical of Trump. He comes up with an extraordinary idea, seemingly off the cuff, and then the whole administration tries to come to terms with it and put it into a different context. It all makes little sense but it makes terrific headlines!

Gaza for the US? You cannot be serious!

Yesterday I was wondering how long Marco Rubio would survive as US secretary of state. Today I'm wondering whether Marco Rubio will last another week! Did Trump warn him that he was going to announce his plan for the US to take over Gaza and for the two million Palestinians to be relocated to Egypt and Jordan? Or was this off the cuff after chatting to Benjamin Netanyahu who, presumably was tickled pink by the idea. No Palestinian citizens or Hamas terrorists in Gaza? Yes, he must have agreed with Trump that that was a really good idea. But was Marco Rubio told beforehand and is he ready to go forth and carry oput his master's wishes? Of course the whole concept is against international law and sounds like wholesale ethnic cleansing. The only thing that Trump got right was that the Gaza Strip is a total mess. There are no homes for the Palestinians to go back to. So while the destroyed buildings are bulldozed to form new foundations, where will the Palestinians go? They will have to be relocated while all their houses are rebuilt, and Egypt and Jordan are the obvious places. But that is one thing. It's quite another for Trump to suggest that the real estate boys should move in and turn Gaza into a Mediterranean resort for the rich. It'll never happen, of course, but I think there's a hidden message here. The message is for Hamas. Trump agrees with Netanyahu that Hamas must be obliterated for ever. So why not move everyone out of Gaza, including the estimated 13,000 Hamas survivors, and tuck them away somewhere else and only allow any of them back into a rebuilt Gaza if they are disarmed and given identity cards? Could that be what Trump and Netanyahu have in mind? It's still ethnic cleansing.

I wonder how long Marco Rubio will last as secretary of state?

Marco Rubio is a pretty smart guy. He wanted to be president but jumped in a bit prematurely. The Big Beast, Donald Trump, was very much the man in favour and he stood no chance. But now he is secretary of state, a fine and prestigious appointment, and the fact that he sailed through his Senate confirmation was proof enough that Congress was happy with his appointment. Crucially, Rubio is one of them, in other words, he was a long-serving senator, was vice chairman of the intelligence committee and served on other key committees. He is well liked and has a charming manner. None of these qualities were necessarily the vital ingredients that persuaded Trump to nominate him to be America's top diplomat. But Rubio was the obvious choice for the job, and the state department seems pretty content with having him there, rather than some pal of Trump's who made a few billion dollars doing something or other. Rubio has certainly started his job on the run, whisking off to Panama and elsewhere in Latin America, promulgating his president's well known theme about America taking more control of stuff (such as the Panama Canal) and kicking Chinese influence down the track. Rubio has also quietly taken over the US international aid department USAID, absorbing it into the state department. Lots of people from USAID, which, by the way, is a pretty good organisation filled with dedicated staff, have been made redundant or fired. The Grand Wielder of the Axe, Elon Musk, has claimed to have discovered all kinds of dodgy donations to undeserving countries and judged it best to close the whole department down and stuff what's left into the state department. Rubio has acquiesced. So far, so good for Rubio. But there will come a time when Trump wants to do something outrageous foreign-policy-wise whch mnight be just too tricky for Rubio. Then what does he do? He knows that if he shows the slightest hint of disagreement or disloyalty to the Trump cause, he'll be out. So let's see how long he lasts.

Pete Hegseth made it, will Tulsi Gabbard?

Tomorrow is Tulsi Gabbard's moment of truth. Will she get confirmation for her nominated post of director of national intelligence in the Trump administration? She is a very controversial choice. She has some odd views that needed explaining when she appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee but she seemed reluctant to give answers that either made sense or were acceptable to the senators. For example, if she is to be in overall overseeing charge of America's 18, yes 18, intelligence services, why did she find it so difficult to agree with the senators that Edward Snowden who leaked thousands and thousands of CIA and NSA (National Security Agency) secrets to the media, and thus to the Russians and Chinese etc, had betrayed his country and was, therefore, guilty of treason and treachery? Edward Snowden, whistleblower or traitor, has been the big question ever since he was exposed as the former CIA and NSA contractor who stole all those secrets. But you would have thought that the person chosen by Trump to head up the whole intelligence apparatus should have a pretty clear conviction that Snowden betrayed his former employers and his country. Will that be enough of a negative factor for the Senate to reject her nomination? Probably not. Pete Hegseth, ex-Fox News presenter, managed with a lot of arm-twisting to get confirmed as defence secretary, and hasn't he been busy since taking over the Pentagon, sending troops to the border, scrapping diversity, bombing terrorists in Somalia? So I guess Tulsi Gabbard will probably swing it as well and soon will have the country's biggest intelligence secrets in her in-tray.

Trump goes to war with tariffs

So, from Tuesday the US will impose 25 per cent tariffs on all goods coming into America frrom Canada and Mexico, and ten per cent on Chinese goods. This is Donald Trump's first war since taking office for the second time on January 20. He said he'd go to war and he has. It's a trade war, not a military one. But all the same it will mean these countries will suffer trade casualties. But then so will the US. Because as in all wars, shooting ones and otherwise, the opposition fights back, and thus China, Canada and Mexico will all retaliate with tariffs of their own on American exports into their countries. Trump doesn't seem to care. He is playing the long game and hopes to Make America Great Again by punishing countries who dare to export to the US but don't do so on Trump's terms. Trade wars are generally disastrous. They affect the whole planet and no one really gains. They just lose. Again, Trump cares not a jot. This is the way he likes to do business with the outside world, never mind the blowback that American companies will have to endure. Trump's aim, presumably, is to encourage American companies to produce the same goods which they are currently importing. The trouble is that the companies involved import whatever it is because they are cheaper which is better for their financial spreadsheets. How long the war will continue we have no idea but at some point there will be a breakpoint and it may well be American firms, not Chinese, Canadian or Mexican companies who will most lose out.

Trump is not going to let go of his Panama Canal dream

By God, I think he means it. Donald Trump really does intend to take control of the Panama Canal if he can, one way or another. He has sent an envoy to Panama City to lay the groundwork and then Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, who knows Latin America better than most, will fly in next week to try and fix some sort of deal. If all fails, who knows what Trump will do next? Right now, the Panamanian president is talking about the number of casualties that his countrymen and women will suffer if Trump sends in the Marines. At this point in time, with two weeks under his belt as president, I wouldn't put it past Trump to threaten military muscle if he doesn't get what he wants. But using force to seize control of the Panama Canal would be so outrageous and so morally repugnant that even Trump would surely hesitate to start killing innocent civilians for the sake of having the canal in his pocket. The special envoy for Latin America has apparently suggested a way out which is for Panaman to allow US commercial shipping and naval vessels to use the canal free of charge. But since about 60 per cent of the traffic is linked to the US, I doubt Panama would be happy with that. So maybe, the Panamanian government might agree to reduce the fees to keep Trump happy. But preparing for war? That surely is madness.