Military

Barack Obama has authorised the use of targeted airstrikes in Iraq against forces of the Islamic State, which are hell-bent on massacring Yazidi and Christian minorities, and threatening American assets and citizens. David Cameron has welcomed Barack Obama’s decision. There are already voices calling for wider deeper intervention; special forces and conventional ground troops have been mentioned by former US generals and diplomats. Interventions have a habit of escalating, a point that Douglas Murray made in The Spectator this time last year when Barack Obama and David Cameron were preparing to intervene in Syria. Douglas urged Obama and Cameron (and any other statesmen considering intervention) to prepare throroughly: ‘The repercussions

Britain is to deploy one warship, the Type 45 destroyer HMS Daring, which is currently on station near Singapore, and RAF support aircraft, including one Boeing C17 transporter, to the Philippines. The US has deployed a carrier group. It will take HMS Daring 5 days or so to reach its destination. It will provide engineering equipment, first aid, water sanitising kits and the means to turn sea water into drinking water. Most reports from the disaster area warn of the threat of waterborne disaster, so HMS Daring’s supplies will be very welcome. The destroyer is also equipped with one Lynx helicopter, which will extend its operational reach inland. The RAF

 Kabul A strange new institution is rising from the dust in the mountains west of Kabul. The foreigners here call it the Sandhurst in the Sand. Those who work at the new British-led military school, which welcomed its first cadets last week, prefer the more cumbersome ‘ANA-OA’, short for Afghan National Army Officers Academy (though the Australians who guard the place call it ‘Duntroon in the Desert’ after their own Sandhurst equivalent). Whichever name sticks, the ‘Afghan Sandhurst’ will be perhaps the only significant British contribution to Afghanistan’s security after the Nato mission finishes at the end of next year. Some see it as a way of making up for

The most dramatic part of Lothar-Günther Buchheim’s unmatched submarine novel, Das Boot, takes place beneath the Straits of Gibraltar, when Buchheim’s U-boat is ordered from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. ‘How can we get through?’ Asks one of the luckless crew, certain that Gibraltar’s massive defences will be the death of them. At least 9 U-boats were destroyed making that perilous run during the Second World War. The story of Gibraltar is not merely a tale of garrisons and gunships. The Spectator’s unique archive provides some insight into the life of the colony over the last 200 years, especially at times when the Rock became embroiled in Spanish intrigue or when it was threatened by

A terrific debate last night at the Spectator: ‘Assad is a war criminal – the West must intervene in Syria.’ I don’t think there was any disagreement on the first part of the motion. But there certainly was on the second. I spoke in opposition to the motion and much of the argument I made is in a piece I’ve written for this morning’s Wall Street Journal which readers might be interested to read here.

‘Drones save lives’ is the title of my piece in this morning’s Wall Street Journal. President Obama is currently receiving criticism from left and right for his policy of targeted assassination by unmanned drones. I think among a range of bad options drones are the least bad option for dealing with the threat, and explain this further in the piece which is available here. Along the same lines readers might be interested in a debate I did last week on the same subject for Google and Intelligence Squared. The motion was ‘America’s drone campaign is both moral and effective’. I was lucky in having David Aaronovitch on my side. The