World

Tuesday

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Is Trump being played by Iran?

Half of America’s deployable air power sits within striking distance of Iran, and yet Washington is negotiating. Gaza is promised a gleaming future, and yet Hamas still refuses to disarm.Is this strategic patience, or proof that the US President has been dangerously misled, indulging adversaries who are buying time? By placing comprehensive proposals on the table, publicly, the administration creates a test for Iran Two US carrier strike groups sit in the eastern Mediterranean and the Gulf. Land-based fighters rotate through Jordan and the Gulf states. Long-range bombers have been repositioned. Analysts calculate that somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of America’s deployable air power is now concentrated in the

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Christopher Caldwell

The deep state vs Nixon

Americans took a break from their partisan vituperation in February to mull over newly revealed testimony that Richard Nixon gave to grand jury investigators in 1975, a year after the Watergate scandal drove him from power. James Rosen, a veteran Washington journalist and the biographer of Nixon’s attorney general John Mitchell, revealed the episode in the New York Times. Nixon had argued that his program of wiretaps had been made necessary by another spying operation that senior American military commanders were carrying out against him and his top aides. The outline of this story has been known to historians since James Hougan laid it out in Secret Agenda (1984): a

Monday

Michael Simmons

Former UK ambassador Peter Mandelson arrested

Peter Mandelson, Britain’s short-lived ambassador to the US, has been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office.  In a statement to journalists, London’s Metropolitan Police said: Officers have arrested a 72-year-old man on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He was arrested at an address in Camden on Monday, 23 February and has been taken to a London police station for interview. This follows search warrants at two addresses in the Wiltshire and Camden areas. Moments before the Met’s statement, Mandelson was photographed being led out of his house by police. The move comes days after the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, also under suspicion of misconduct in public office. The accusations

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Joshua Treviño

The truth about Mexico’s cartel wars

To understand the latest disturbing spasm of violence in Mexico, it helps to go back six years to an ultra-wealthy colonia called Lomas de Chapultepec, near the heart of Mexico City. Lomas de Chapultepec is protected, partly by a large security apparatus net that has been thrown around it, and partly by the pacto de narco, which protects the high-income neighborhoods in which both cartel leadership and their political partners live, along with their families. Not long ago, former Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was publicly threatening to use the Mexican armed forces to defend cartels That was why it was surprising when, on June 26, 2020, Mexico City’s

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Mark Galeotti

No, Zelensky: World War Three hasn’t started

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says that World War Three has already started. Speaking to the BBC on the eve of the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion, it’s understandable why he would want to take this line, but he’s wrong. What is striking about Putin is the lack of a messianic ideology On an emotional level, Zelensky has seen millions of his citizens flee within and out of his country, its cities and infrastructure shattered and Vladimir Putin’s propagandists denounce him variously as a Nazi apologist, drug addict and western puppet. Of course he will frame this in the most apocalyptic of terms. More to the point, Ukraine is now

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Niko Vorobyov

El Mencho’s death plunges Mexico into chaos

Mayhem has erupted across Mexico after security forces eliminated Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, the drug lord widely known as El Mencho, in a gun battle in the town of Tapalpa. El Mencho was the head of one of Mexico’s most violent and sadistic organizations, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). Henchmen forced passengers out of their cars before setting the vehicles alight, leaving them as burning roadblocks Their reaction was about as solemn and dignified as you’d expect. Henchmen forced passengers out of their cars before setting the vehicles alight, leaving them as burning roadblocks. Scorched sedans and toasted trucks lined the highway to the World Cup stadium in Guadalajara, Mexico’s

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Friday

Jacob Heilbrunn

Is Donald Trump becoming a globalist?

It was a banner day for Donald Trump. On Thursday, at the Justice Department, a long perpendicular banner with his stern visage was unfurled, proclaiming “Make America Safe Again.” And just across from the State Department, Trump convened his shiny new Board of Peace at the former US Institute of Peace, which has a dove-shaped white roof. It was seized in 2025 by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and renamed after Trump. “I had no idea,” Trump said. But for all his disclaimers, Trump was not shy about expressing his delight at the new name that adorned the building’s entrance. A bevy of strongmen, including Vietnam’s General Secretary To Lam

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Neal Pollack

Pam Bondi’s not-so-secret mission

On February 11, the arrow on the Trump administration’s “See ’n Say” pointed in the direction of Attorney General Pam Bondi, who spent four extremely contentious hours arguing with congressional Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, who questioned her about her handling of the Epstein files. “Your theatrics are ridiculous,” she said, in a case of the pot calling the kettle black, to New York’s Jerry Nadler, who asked her if the Epstein files would lead to prosecutions. Bondi called Jamie Raskin, a former constitutional law professor, a “washed-up loser lawyer.” She accused Kentucky’s Thomas Massie of having Trump Derangement Syndrome and said Vermont’s Becca Balint, whose grandfather was killed

Thursday

Charlie Gammell

Iran cannot afford to call Trump’s bluff

The talks are still alive. Just. Iranian and US diplomats, engaging indirectly through Omani intermediaries, have yet to make any substantive progress toward a framework of understanding that governs further talks – as Kafkaesque as that might sound – but they are talking, and that is the best that the diplomats can hope for right now.  What separates Iran and America is a vast chasm between their respective red lines, and beyond that, the very substance of the talks themselves. The US is not willing to countenance an Iran that enriches uranium, has a ballistic missile program and arms proxies throughout the region.  Iran, for its part, perhaps unwisely – as

Wednesday

Gavin Mortimer

France can no longer ignore the menace of left-wing violence

Police in France arrested nine people on Tuesday evening in connection with the death of a 23-year-old student in Lyon last Thursday. Most of those in custody are members of the “Young Guard,” an extremist splinter group of Antifa. Among them is reportedly a parliamentary assistant to an MP from Jean-Luc Melenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI). For many years Melenchon – along with swathes of France’s left-leaning mainstream media – have turned a blind eye to the activities of the Young Guard They are being questioned about the events that led to the death of Quentin Deranque. Hours earlier Deranque, a nationalist, had been providing security to a feminist group who

Owen Matthews

Is the war in Ukraine any closer to ending?

Is the latest round of Russia-Ukraine peace talks, sponsored by the United States and currently under way in Geneva, likely to hasten the war’s end? Donald Trump seems to believe so. On Friday, President Trump claimed that “Russia wants to make a deal, and Zelensky will have to hurry. Otherwise, he will miss a great opportunity. He needs to act.” Europe, for its part, remains deeply skeptical and is urging Ukraine to fight on. As the EU’s Foreign Affairs chief Kaja Kallas told the Munich Security Conference last week, “the greatest threat Russia presents right now is that it gains more at the negotiation table than it has achieved on

Tuesday

Freddy Gray

Has Jeff Bezos destroyed the Washington Post?

24 min listen

Freddy is joined by Tina Brown, former editor of several publications including Vanity Fair, Tatler, the New Yorker, and the founding editor-and-chief of the Daily Beast. She now writes her own Substack FRESH HELL. They discuss the staff massacre which has unfolded at the Washington Post, why Jeff Bezos is wrong to be led by views over journalism, and how the sordid nature of the Epstein files continues to haunt UK and US news.

Freddy Gray

Is Trump dismantling Venezuela’s socialist state?

24 min listen

Daniel Di Martino, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, joins Freddy to discuss the ongoing situation in Venezuela. Over a month on from the “bold and spectacular raid” and capture of Maduro, Daniel explains the reasons why he has hope in the government of Delcy Rodríguez and the changes that have occurred since – from the increase in the oil price to the release of political prisoners. With only three years left of the Trump presidency, how can he be sure that the interim president isn’t just playing for time? We hope our listeners will forgive the abrupt ending to this Americano episode, as The Spectator’s street was briefly evacuated

Freddy Gray

Why do climate activists own super-yachts?

Freddy is joined by Robert Bryce, energy expert and author of Robert Bryce’s Substack, to discuss his latest mini-documentary, YACHT-ZEE$. They talk about the billionaires funding radical climate activist groups, while yachting around the world, and whether they are modern-day robber barons.  

Monday

Hamit Coskun

I burnt a Quran. Now I may have to flee Britain

My name is Hamit Coskun and last year I was convicted in a British court of religiously aggravated public order offense. My “crime”? Burning a copy of the Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. Moments later, I was attacked in full view of the street by a man. I was hospitalized. Then I was arrested and convicted in Westminster Magistrates Court. I managed to get that conviction overturned, with the help of the Free Speech Union and the National Secular Society, but now the Crown Prosecution Service is appealing my acquittal, with the case being heard tomorrow in the High Court. Now I am in discussions with the White House

Mark Galeotti

Why Russia used poison to kill Navalny

When leading Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny died two years ago, the only real question was not whodunnit, but howdunnit?  His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, quickly blamed poison and said that his partisans had taken tissue samples from his corpse for examination. Yesterday, the UK, France, Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands announced that a combined intelligence operation had demonstrated that he was killed with epibatidine, a nerve toxin only found on the skin of Ecuadorian dart frogs. The announcement was followed by the inevitable stream of (not always unjustified) skepticism, trollish derision, and official denial. To be sure, making the announcement at the Munich Security Conference does highlight the degree to which this was being done as a political gesture, an attempt to

Jonathan Sacerdoti

Hamas is inching toward another war

Perhaps the biggest talent of humanity is our gift to adapt to challenging circumstances with creativity and ingenuity. It may also be our biggest fault. Just two days after I stood in the central Gaza Strip, touring the area and seeing the Yellow Line for myself, the IDF on Saturday announced another serious breach of the ceasefire. The Yellow Line is a mutually agreed demarcation. Both Israelis and Palestinians are supposed to remain on their respective sides. When I was there last week, officers explained how frequently that boundary is tested. They spoke about sniper fire, explosives planted near positions, and attempts to edge forward under cover. The pattern, they

Saturday

Lisa Haseldine

Rubio offers an olive branch to the Europeans

As Marco Rubio boarded his flight for Munich on Thursday night, he sought to reassure nervous Europeans that they weren’t about to be berated by America. “We’ll be good,” he said. It appears the Secretary of State kept his word when he addressed the Munich security conference this morning. Rubio kicked off his speech by harking back to 1963, the year Munich played host to the first security conference. Back then, he said, “the line between communism and freedom ran through the heart of Germany. Soviet communism was on the march and thousands of years of western civilization hung in the balance.” Triumphing over communism had, however, allowed the West

Mark Galeotti

Is Putin paving the way for a crackdown?

It may sound like a rather arcane development, but a change in the command structure of the Rosgvardiya, Russia’s National Guard, offers some clues about both the state of the country and the Ukraine war – and the Kremlin’s fears for the future. Zolotov has been lobbying for some time for the Rosgvardiya to have its own General Staff. This week, he got it The Rosgvardiya is an internal security force of some 180,000 personnel, ranging from the blue-camouflaged OMON riot police who patrol the streets alongside the regular police, through to the Interior Troops, a virtual parallel army with its own tanks and artillery. (There are also at least

Friday

Freddy Gray

The power of cryptid belief

23 min listen

Freddy speaks to Spectator writer Katherine Dee about the online obsession with cryptids and what it reveals about the modern internet. They discuss how folklore-style storytelling is thriving on platforms like TikTok, why conspiracy culture now resembles collaborative “alternate reality games” and how AI-generated images are blurring the line between what is real, fake and plausible.