Lawrence Freedman+

The war against empathy

Last week Reform’s treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick set out proposals to cut welfare spending on working age adults in half.

Will Russia change course without a "cliff-edge" crisis? Will Netanyahu lose the Israeli election? How should we spend our defence budget?

Answering your questions

Should Burnham call an early election? Have we passed peak Reform? Could Restore become an electorally viable party?

Answering your questions

AI and the New Fog of War

I have been involved in two projects looking at the impact of AI on contemporary conflict.

Was Thatcher a Thatcherite?

The hidden history of "neoliberalism" in Britain

Ask us anything

Every few months we offer paying subscribers the chance to ask us questions on any topic you like.

The war beyond the frontlines

Assessing Ukranian and Russian strategies for long-range attacks

The myth of the "Boriswave"

Over summer 2024 anonymous right-wing accounts on twitter, who support Reform or more extreme ethnonationalist parties, started using the term “Boriswave” to describe the brief but sharp rise in net migration from 2021-2024.

Always Look on the Dark Side of Life

Warnings of doom from German spies to the Thucyides Trap to a biological war

The right way to tax wealth

A 10 year programme for an incoming government

Burnham's first mistake

The problem with his education plan

Will Putin be forced to announce another mobilisation?

Like many people trying to follow the Russo-Ukraine War I spend a lot of time staring at maps of the front line.

Burnham's defining project

The five biggest challenges to making devolution work

Turmoil at the top: what Ukraine's defence shake-up means for the war

On 15 July President Zelenskyy sacked the Minister of Defence Mykhailo Fedorov.

A theory of power

Burnham's cabinet choices and changes to No. 10

Trump's War Won’t Go Away

Why has the fight over the Strait of Hormuz restarted? Can a permanent resolution be found?

Burnham's Inheritance

Five of the biggest challenges facing the new prime minister

Putin's energy crisis

The growing impact of Ukraine's attacks and whether Russia can adapt

Farage's Folly

Why he's in serious trouble and what happens if he quits

The Russian Threat: Now or Later?

The defence investment plan and the challenge for the UK and NATO

The Badenoch Conundrum

Here are three things that are all true:

How do you solve a problem like Crimea?

The big story in the Russo-Ukraine War remains the siege of Crimea.

Burnham's policy agenda

What we know about what he wants to do

"There is no despair and there is no optimism"

An interview with Andrey Kurkov

Trump turns on Netanyahu

What does the Iran debacle mean for the future of US-Israeli relations?

After Makerfield

What happens next and is the result replicable?

"The Kremlin faces some very difficult choices later this year"

An interview with Dr. Jack Watling

How to beat Reform

Including exclusive polling on the most effective attack lines

Putin has missed his best opportunity for a ceasefire

On the 4th June President Zelenskyy made a direct appeal to President Putin to agree a ceasefire.

The gap that never closes

Why we're thinking about inequality the wrong way

The Cognitive Dissonance of Donald J Trump

Why he is stuck in the Middle East

Race to the bottom

Falling immigration is pushing the right to further extremes - will it work?

Ask us anything

There’ll be a post soon on the latest ructions in British politics (as I said last week things can spiral after a bad defeat, even if it’s expected).

Who will blink first? *Updated*

This was initially posted on 7 May when the Iranian response to the latest American proposal was unknown.

Seven things we learnt from the elections

Hopefully Comment is Freed readers will have felt a sense of familiarity as election results came in over Thursday night and Friday.

Who will blink first?

There was a famous moment during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when news came through to President Kennedy and his advisors that the Soviet ships they feared were about to challenge the US blockade of Cuba had turned away.

How to follow the elections

Over the past month I’ve written three preview posts about this week’s local and devolved elections:

Back to the future

The problem of prediction markets

Is time running out for Putin?

Ukraine's Micawber strategy

Where's the centre?

An exclusive new poll challenges conventional wisdom on one of the biggest questions in British politics

The US no longer leads

The changing context for UK defence policy

"My generation thought in argument"

Alan Milburn on how politics has changed and tackling youth unemployment

Elections 2026: London

There are local elections in the UK every May, and every year I do a preview.

Is Ukraine winning the drone race?

Barely six months ago it appeared that Russia was ahead in the drone race.

Elections 2026: The Five Battlegrounds

There are local elections in the UK every May, and every year I do a preview.

The fall of Orbán

What it means for the global battle against the radical right

The causes and consequences of Trump’s defeat

The Islamabad negotiations were supposed to conclude the Iran War in such a way that the US and Israel would have something to show for the thousands of lives lost and ruined, the vast quantities of ordnance expended, and the huge costs incurred.

Understanding MAGA

This piece orginally appeared in the Times Literary Supplement and is reproduced with their permission.

Elections 2026: The Preview

Part one

A Plan to End the Iran War?

This post was largely written yesterday with the aim of identifying a possible way forward to bring an end to the Iran War.

Cordon Sanitaires and Purity Spirals

What the rise in antisemitism teaches us about radicalisation

Trump runs out of options

For the past week I have been in Washington.