Chatham House is the Royal Institute of International Affairs. It is based in St. James’ Square, Mayfair, London, a short walk from Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square. I have been a member of Chatham House for several months but with me being based in Wales all of my interactions thus far have…
Silvio Berlusconi has died today at the age of 86. It has been said that not a day has gone by in Italian news media over the past 50 years without him making headlines of some sort. He certainly was a larger than life character and a major figure on…
View More Riposa In Pace Silvio Berlusconi
On May 28th 2023, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was giving a victory speech to the excited Turkish masses, who had democratically elected him to a third term as President of Turkey. He achieved 52.2% of the vote in the second round of elections compared with the 47.8% of the challenger, Kemal…
View More Erdoğan’s Third Term as President of Turkey and What It Means
What’s a grown 45 year old male doing reading a little Bosnian girl’s diary you might ask yourself. Well, it cropped up as a recommendation in a documentary on the war in the former Yugoslavia, a subject to which I have passionately researched from its genesis. The Balkans conflict is…
View More Review: Zlata’s Diary – A Child’s Life in Sarajevo – by Zlata Filipović
This is one of the very best books I have ever read. It is up to date material and full of cutting edge military theory and ideas and I believe is critical essential reading for any politician or military personnel, especially those who conduct their employment in the NATO led…
View More Review: The Dragons and the Snakes – How The Rest Learned to Fight The West – by David Kilcullen
I’ve read Gordon Correra’s previous work in espionage literature and for this reason I was drawn to seek out this new offering. In the current climate of the Russian invasion of Ukraine under ex KGB spy, Vladimir Putin, I felt that this relatively recent work would highlight some of the…
View More Review: Russians Among Us – Sleeper Cells & The Hunt for Putin’s Agents – by Gordon Correra
Mikhail Gorbachev was one of the most influential and critical figures of the twentieth century. When I was growing up in the 1980s he was part os a set of international world leaders that seemingly had much more influence over people than the political leaders of today. Gorbachev was the…
View More Review: Memoirs – by Mikhail Gorbachev
The author of this, the best study of Vladimir Putin that I have read to date, is Catherine Belton, a Financial Times journalist that was based in Moscow. It is a comprehensive study of the rise of Putin and how he has cemented a Tsar-like power as head of the…
View More Review: Putin’s People – How the KGB took back Russia and then took on The West – by Catherine Belton
When the Soviet Union ended and thus the Cold War ended on Christmas Day 1991, it was probably one of the biggest political events of my lifetime. This well-researched, detailed book, by Ukrainian author Serhii Plokhy, details the last 18 months of the Soviet Union’s existence. After USSR President Mikhail…
View More Review: The Last Empire – The Final Days of the Soviet Union – by Serhii Plokhy
Garry Kasparov, former world chess champion, is clearly an intelligent man. Having retired from the game he has entered the world of politics and is a key human rights activist. The book explores his frustrations with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. It is a study of Putin and the way in…
View More Review: Winter Is Coming – Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped – by Garry Kasparov
When I first purchased this book I thought it would be a work of non-fiction, but instead I discovered it was actually fiction. The author, a former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, was, in his employment, well-used to war-gaming scenarios with, in particular, Russia. This book, aimed at the general…
View More Review: 2017 War With Russia: An Urgent Warning from Senior Military Command – by General Sir Richard Shirreff