It is often claimed that ‘humiliating’ a vanquished state only ensures hostility later down the line. The reality however is far more complex.
The Shanghainese have proved throughout their history that even the most solid prisons are ones they don’t care to tarry in long. Let’s hope they can escape very soon.
The Cannes Film Festival offers a unique perspective on the world and what it thinks and fears.
Despite the heavy baggage of the twentieth century, the country must now step up to its NATO responsibilities.
Although tainted by the history of Fascism, the Manifesto and La cucina futurista deserve to be remembered as a brave, bizarre and fascinating attempt to aestheticise gastronomy – even if the ‘abolition of pasta’ was always doomed to fail.
Countless musicians have been uprooted by war or persecution — to the benefit of conservatoires, orchestras and concert halls around the world. A newly formed Ukrainian refugee orchestra is set to follow in their footsteps.
Finland and Sweden are all but certain to seek NATO membership in the coming months. This is unlikely to be a straight forward process. Public opinion and recent history will dictate what kind of NATO members they will become.
Both the far-right and far-left have been seduced by Putin in a love match that not even war can uncouple.
The novelist’s grand finale was unnerving but his quest for his people’s native spirit lives on.
Digitalised defence systems and new technology are important, but they do not eliminate the age old realities of warfare.
The French Republic had to be built but then it had to be preserved. Its very attempts to conserve itself in the face of constant instability however, is what creates the tension and magic of France.
For the French, the drama of the ballot box is an almost religious ritual.
Style guides and standardisation have beaten out any creativity in punctuation. The near eradication of the multi-purposed ellipsis has been one of its greatest losses.
The Western alliance has got serious about coordinating its dissemination of intelligence, but it needs to avoid its pitfalls.
Putin took a clear lesson from NATO’s 1999 bombing of Serbia. His opponents’ failure to understand this stunted their ability to plan for Putin’s most recent invasion.
The Russian army has had its fair share of military disasters with its most recent in Ukraine being a clear product of a system that refuses to accept the truth and only deals in exercising unlimited power.
Russian concepts of collective responsibility guide how its army deals with partisan warfare with horrifying consequences.
Sir Basil Spence’s Coventry Cathedral remains an overwhelming triumph and feels just as enduring and ageless as any of Britain’s great medieval cathedrals.
For the west, Greece is classical Greece, the birthplace of western culture, thought, and democracy, while for the Slavic-speaking world it is a brother-nation of the Orthodox church, a common inheritance stretching across eastern Europe.
Many view reading Jack Kerouac as an embarrassing phase — but his work articulates so much more than American youthful rebellion.
From the Marseillaise to the Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, communal singing has inspired countless mass movements – even the most brutal regimes recognise they cannot shoot people just for singing.
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