A Great Power has been humbled, and its leader’s reputation has suffered. It has had to retreat in the face of successful military manoeuvres from a much less powerful state, and it has come in for a lot of criticism from its allies about its actions. This Great Power is discovering, in quite stark fashion, that it cannot just expect to send its soldiers anywhere in the world, lay down the law, and expect things to go swimmingly just because …
It is now twenty five years since the First Gulf War. I remember being woken by my radio alarm clock on the first morning of the air campaign. There was a roaring sound which I thought was static on my analogue radio. Actually it was the planes taking off on bombing raids: the harsh sound of low bypass ratio military turbofans. Now twenty five years later we can see that the world changed yet remained very much the same. At …
The actions of the Israeli military against the civilian flotilla of aid into Gaza has provoked widespread international reaction. Israel is bracing itself for a wave of diplomatic repercussions in the aftermath of the interception of the small crafts where at least nine people have been killed. Perhaps the gravest consequences from the killings will be the effect on Israeli-Turkish relations, which have taken a disastrous hit. Al Jazerra reports the claims of a Turkish charity that the majority of …
