The following is a (substantially) adapted version of a talk I gave as President of Defence Humanists on World Humanist Day, 21 June 2022, to Ministry of Defence staff at the invitation of the Department's Humanists And Non-religious in Defence (HAND) network. We seem to be living in a Brave New World: the pandemic, the [...]
As the weeks turn into months for the people of Ukraine, and as Russia threatens to consolidate the most ambitious of its ‘frozen conflicts’, the liberal democracies have so far maintained their focus. This was probably the last thing Vladimir Putin expected. He launched this adventure on the assumption that we in the West are [...]
According to official Russian sources, the Ukrainians are either killing their own people or staging highly realistic scenes of mass murder, with the sole aim of discrediting Russia’s invading forces. Of course, nobody in their right mind, except perhaps the most dyed-in-the-wool ideologue or craven fellow traveller, believes any of this. Applying David Hume’s test [...]
Putin’s war of choice in Ukraine has untold impact on countless lives and on the future security and stability of human civilisation. What to say? Let's start with the nature of decision-making. Much has been made of Putin's shift from cool-headed strategist to Napoleonic visionary, and I confess that I saw nothing in the evolution [...]
Many years ago, I was talking with an Afghan who had lived through the country's civil war. After he had described the horrendous privations and dangers he and his family had experienced, he paused. 'Don't ever leave us like that again', he said. And that, horrifically, is exactly what is happening. Not everything since the [...]
This Page Left Intentionally Blank 