Michael Baker

Stalemate in Ukraine In three weeks' time, the war in Ukraine will have lasted as long as the First World War. The two conflicts have often been compared. As on the Western front from the end of 1914 onwards, in Ukraine too the war has settled into a trench-bound stalemate of attritional ferocity in which, on both sides, advances are minimal and casualties heavy. At least, that was true until more recently when Ukraine's adroit use of innovative drone technology began to tip the balance,...

Despite all the rhetoric, much of it contradictory on the American side, surrounding the causes and goals of the present war in Iran, it's clear that Teheran's ambitions to have their own nuclear programme has long been the critical issue that divides the combatants. The Iranians insist this programme is for pacific civilian use, the West broadly (led aggressively at the present time by Israel and the US) believes they want to make their own atomic bombs and should be stopped from doing so....

One of the more singular aspects of what I would call loosely the standard or traditional British narrative of the First World War has been its sombre focus on casualty rates and, more particularly, on those killed or missing in action - the war dead. Any visitor to the Western Front today cannot fail to note the acres of beautifully laid out tombstones, in graveyards big and small, devoted to the hundreds of thousands of British military personnel who gave their lives in the Great War. You...