The cartoon images of former Prime Minister Blair playing poodle to President Bush wonderfully captured the perception many held about Britain's role in the so-called 'special relationship' - subservient, unquestionably loyal, and ultimately inferior. The playful mockery reflected serious concerns that stretched back decades before Blair ushered a...

Since Operation Enduring Freedom was launched in October 2001, relations between the Afghan people and American forces have always been brittle. This fragility is mirrored in the strained and intermittently brusque relationship between Washington and Kabul. Afghans are proud of their resolve and doggedness in out-lasting foreign aggressors. For the...

There is a narrative currently gaining primacy vis-à-vis Iran's nuclear program. It proposes that Tehran is determined to acquire the capabilities to develop a nuclear weapon; that the Islamic Republic's intentions, once this threshold is reached, are malign; that the fallout for regional security generally and Israel specifically would be...

The eyes of the international community intensified their gaze on Syria last week when distinguished war reporter, Marie Colvin, and French photographer, Remi Ochlik, were killed in the besieged city of Homs. Their deaths reinforced the severity of the situation in a country that is descending into civil...

Iran has again indulged in its favourite pasttime of thumbing its nose towards the West with the announcement (unverified) that it has used domestically-made nuclear fuel in a reactor for the first time and produced more efficient enrichment centrifuges. The elaborately staged ceremony to unveil the developments barely concealed Iran's...

In 2001 the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty published a report that challenged the traditional concept of security as the idea of territorial defence from an external aggressor. Events in the decade prior to the report - the Bosnian massacres, genocide in Rwanda, civil war in Sierra Leone...

The popular sport of 'bashing bankers', such a ubiquitous feature of global discourse over the last few years, is gearing up for a fresh season. The prize catch this year is Stephen Hester, Chief Executive of the troubled Royal Bank of Scotland, who waived his share-bonus valued at £963,000 after...