Notebooks

Notebooks are snapshots from our writers, reflecting on current affairs and underappreciated aspects of culture and history.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Russian President Vladimir Putin greet each other during their meeting in Tehran (July 2022). Credit: Associated Press / Alamy Stock Photo.

notebook

How Putin got the Middle East wrong

With Russia’s key partner in the Middle East on the ropes, the Kremlin runs the risk of being drawn into a broader conflict it cannot afford.

Sergey Radchenko July 1, 2025

notebook

Russia’s reinvention of invasion literature

Russian 'Z' literature, a best-selling genre of fiction with storylines that inculcate young readers into the ideology of Putin’s regime, has its antecedents in the darker chapters..

Oliver Soden June 30, 2025

The steamer 'Caroline' drifting over Niagara Falls in 1837.

notebook

The rights and wrongs of self-defence

International law on self-defence has a long history, dating back to the ‘Caroline affair’ of 1837. In a new age of conflict, states are testing the limits of pre-emptive action.

Suzanne Raine June 30, 2025

Mural of Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

notebook

How Iranians paid the price for Ali Khamenei’s hubris

The record of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, is catastrophic. His day of reckoning may finally have arrived.

Roham Alvandi June 27, 2025

South Korean citizens watch North Korean military exercises.

notebook

The CRINKs’ quest for the bomb

North Korea's pursuit of nuclear proliferation provides a model for other rogue states.

Edward Howell June 26, 2025

notebook

The secrets of Erdogan’s staying power

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's enduring, pragmatic grasp of power has put Turkey in pole position to shape the future of a turbulent Middle East.

Hannah Lucinda Smith June 25, 2025

Members of Syria's security forces deploy in the town of Sahnaya.

notebook

The battle for Syria isn’t over

As Israel eyes Damascus and Iran stirs unrest, can Syria avoid becoming the region's next battleground?

James Snell June 24, 2025

A wall painting depicting an American F-117 Stealth Fighter Jet flying over Belgrade during the Kosovo War in 1999.

notebook

Lessons in the limits of airpower

Airpower advocates have long claimed that modern wars can be won from above, rendering ground troops obsolete. But from NATO’s campaign in Kosovo to the US strikes on Iran, strateg..

Peter Caddick-Adams June 23, 2025

A portrait of Sören Kierkegaard (1813-1855).

notebook

Kierkegaard’s philosophy of love

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard believed that despair could be transformed into hope, under the influence of love, a message that resonates in an age of pessimism.

Zachary Hardman June 20, 2025