How do you organise a successful genocide – in Turkish Armenia a century ago, in Nazi-occupied Europe in the 1940s, or in the Middle East today? A remarkable investigation by a young Harvard scholar – focusing on the slaughter of Armenians in a single Turkish Ottoman city 103 years ago – suggests the answer is simple:…
The prospect of German, French and British companies being hit with US sanctions in the wake of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran Deal carries with it an element of poetic justice. Over the past few years each of the aforementioned governments have been slavish in their support for sanctions against Russia, and therefore now that they are faced…
In the wake of Donald Trump’s thoroughly unsurprising decision to scuttle the Iran nuclear accord, two countries that may be most in the hot seat are Germany and Russia. The big question now is whether their mutual discomfort leads them to find common cause. Angela Merkel’s plight is especially painful. Not only are Germany’s extensive…
The Panzer-Abteilung 129, a tank battalion serving with the German 6th Army, fought its way into the Soviet city of Stalingrad in late 1942 only to find itself pinned down during winter. A a million-man Red Army counter offensive, attacking in two giant pincers, surrounded the Germans that November. Trapped, the battalion’s soldiers sheltered wherever…
Like any successful wheeler and dealer, Donald Trump knows how to make his clients feel valued. But, as Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron discovered last week, there’s a considerable difference between sincerity and salesmanship. PARIS – Barack Obama wasn’t very interested in Europe. Something which was made clear in 2010, when he didn’t even show…
Fifteen years ago, in the run-up to the US-British invasion of Iraq, the US media was ferociously denouncing Germany and, in particular, France for failing to line up behind the US war drive. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld excoriated “Old Europe,” the French were painted as cowards and back-stabbers, and media pundits called for changing the…
