01/9/2021
In Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, a hapless British RAF officer (played by Peter Sellers) tries to prevent a maverick US general precipitating nuclear Armageddon. Spoiler alert: he fails. So did Boris Johnson in trying persuade President Biden to delay his precipitous and damaging withdrawal from Afghanistan. Almost all the commentary on Afghanistan has been …
Introduction This year is the 120th Anniversary of the Royal African Society. This is worth celebrating, but also examining. Relations between Africa and Britain have changed dramatically in that time, as has the Society itself. In some ways, they reflect each...
14/6/2021
Image: Malian troops in the north of the country. Credit: Fred Marie. The nature of terrorism in Africa has been both much studied and much misunderstood. Both African and Western governments are still making fundamental mistakes in their efforts to t...
02/6/2021
Today, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) published the Report of the Special Committee to Review Historical Inequalities in Commemoration (available here). A century after the First World War, the Commission has acknowledged that its mission to ens...
22/4/2021
Last week the British Government published Global Britain in a competitive age, its Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy. The aim is to demonstrate that, with Brexit achieved, Britain intends to play a constructive and influen...
25/3/2021
On the surface, Addis Ababa appears much as it always has. The streets are full of people, some wearing masks, most not; the roads are full of cars; businesses are open and busy; construction continues, at least on some sites. South of Addis, across muc...
16/3/2021
This June, the British Prime Minister will welcome G7 leaders to a summit in Cornwall. He has announced he will also invite the leaders of India, South Korea and Australia for a meeting of major democracies, to be called the D10. He should now make it a “...
01/3/2021
2021 looks like being a turbulent year in Africa. Economic convergence will go hand-in-hand with political divergence and a continuing heavy impact from the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite the high hopes that the new vaccines will help insulate us from the c...
15/1/2021
Jerry Rawlings passed away on 12 November this year, peacefully in Korle Bu Hospital. He was Ghana’s longest serving president and, if the current constitution is respected and his successors resist the temptation to change it to hang on longer, will remain ...
04/12/2020