Look what finally landed! My volume (co-edited with @soulpatch68) on 'Games: Conflict, Competition, and Cooperation'. Available from @CambridgeUP: https://t.co/X6Vp5h1lBu (and a large, well-known online retailer). Intro available free here: https://t.co/NNj7AbaFOZ. Featuring...

Thing is, Kelvin isn't *actually* as stupid as he appears to be. He just thinks you are.

Deepest, deadliest f*ckwittery. So new Minister with background as - say - a gold salesman walks into the MOD and says “my amateur hunch is that we should just grow a pair and nuke Moscow”. Do you honestly not want expert officials to say “That *might* entail some downsides…”?

100% this. De Gaulle recognised it. Over time it was ignored and the US role in NATO taken for granted, so we joined in with brinkmanship vs Russia. Now the US is unreliable and we’re in the shit.

What a relief! Little boys playing tough-guy would only get in the way of the real men (and women).

(Yes, much of that hate is linked to certain views on certain foreign-policy questions…not going into that here, except to note that certain positions raise questions about consistency of theoretical logic)

…because if/when they turn against you, you’ll be in an even worse position - and they’ll be in an even more powerful position from which to coerce you - than if you’d prudently looked after yourself in the first place.

People love to hate on Mearsheimer. But his warnings about ‘bandwagoning’ strategies now look apposite. Specifically: subordinating yourself to another great power in hope of perks (e.g. ‘cheap’ security and/or profit) is a really bad idea… 1/2

Also, as @John_ForemanCBE notes, seemingly a woeful lack of boom defences here. Key aspects of Russian military performance may have improved since 2022, but apparently major parts of it - such as the cowed, demoralised, and under-resourced BSF - remain complacent/lazy/moronic.

Russia is bombarding Ukraine to try to incentivise Kyiv to accept an unfavourable peace. And of course, Kyiv has reason to do the same, i.e. increase the perceived cost to Moscow of continuing the war. Plus, if negotiations fail, they’ve attrited their adversary a bit. 1/2

Good news. Healey had prioritised recruitment and retention and investment in pay, housing and a new recruitment process beginning to have an effect.

Mamdani said he would do everything in his power to get a halal down from $10 to $8. We need to do something similar here - and get average pint to £3.50. Major re-think on VAT and alcohol duty needed!

What they know is most people won't notice and even fewer will care. This is really how AI will spread--slowly degrading the quality of everything

He quite literally does a fucking Christmas speech and hands out Maundy money every year. Ever heard of those, you fucking knobhead?

So much of the mess Britain is now in - hobbled productivity, ascendant populists selling snake oil, denuded national defence, etc etc etc - owes to those Cameron-Osborne years. And as for that “long-term economic plan”? Just vibes around ‘leanness’.

One of the silver linings to Brexit was how comprehensively it torpedoed Osborne’s prime ministerial ambitions. “I made a number go up by gutting the public realm, importing more cheap labour, crushing real wages, and flogging our assets to foreign oligarchs. Go me!”

Osbornomics = turning the UK into the ONLY advanced nation that experienced post-GFC GDP growth AND a contraction in real wages. The largest & lengthiest contraction in British living standards since the Napoleonic Wars. That’s because Gideon was happy to watch the BoE pump

That being said, this doesn’t mean that everything is hunky-dory with European capitalism. Europe is trading on the legacy of declining 20th century industries, while its industry is being eaten alive by China. There is a real risk of falling down the economic food chain.

One more (rather two more) for the "We should just buy a million drones instead of a few expensive assets."-crowd to digest. While useful to exhaust air defences, they will struggle to achieve any significant effect. Because they are small and cheap.

@jonathan_church @galendruke There was implicit at least prescription on energy: there has to be an energy strategy beyond Net Zero.

In just the past decade, Australia had about 40 deaths, from mass shootings, vs the US which had about 5500 deaths, from mass shootings. But please continue with your very invalid ideas.