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Nearly 70 years after her death the brilliant Mexican artist Frida Kahlo continues to fascinate for her unique artistic language that interprets her physical and emotional pain, her unconventional relationships with men and women, and her complex marriage to the great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera.
She has been the subject of many books, the best known of which is Hayden Herrera’s biography and a Hollywood film, with Kahlo played by Mexican actress and producer Salma Hayek. Her now-iconic face continues to be emblazoned across bags, t-shirts, prints, fridge magnets, jewellery, cushions and myriad other products.
The latest incarnation of the painter is Becoming Frida Kahlo, a three-part documentary made for BBC Two. The series will delight Frida fans with its wealth of photographs and archival films featuring the artist in her private and public moments.
Becoming Frida Kahlo promises to “strip away the myths to reveal the real Frida”. As I have noted before, this is a particularly tricky endeavour when dealing with an artist for whom self-invention was her craft.
In previous work I argued that questions of fact and fiction in the case of the Mexican artist are far from simple. The historical Kahlo created her own persona through art, dress and performances of self. She has become, to a degree, what her fans and admirers desire her to be: a symbol for Mexicans, Mexican Americans, Latinos in the US, feminists, and LGBTQ+ people all over the world.
Still, Becoming Frida Kahlo is a very comprehensive representation of the artist, and showcases the BBC at its best. It achieves this through rigorous research. Much of the narrative is driven by Luis Martín Lozano, professor and series consultant, and author of Frida Kahlo The Complete Paintings.
Mexican researchers Ruth Araiza Moreno and Lorenza Espínola Gómez de Parada also ensure a Mexican point of view infuses the series. The final credits reveal the impressive list of archives used to bring to audiences a treasure trove of photographs and film of Kahlo (and Rivera) from her childhood in the 1920s to the time of her death in 1954.
Through intimate photographs, home movies and newsreels we feel as if we are with Kahlo and Rivera in Mexico, San Francisco, New York and Detroit, among other points on their travels.
This is complemented with voiceovers of Kahlo’s letters and her diary entries, along with those of close friend Lucienne Bloch while in the US, contemporary newspaper articles chronicling events in their lives, and medical reports detailing Kahlo’s worsening health conditions.
Expert witnesses include art historians from Mexico and the US. Testimonials from Kahlo’s Mexican art students (now elderly men), and family members round off this multi-layered and multi-faceted series.
Truths are thus approximated through many voices and images. There is no single narrator, no single oversimplified truth, rather many stories are revealed in this telling of Kahlo’s story. The stories flow as we discover new photographs, new films, new anecdotes, new theories.
Some of these are also likely to create new headlines, such as the revelation by Rivera’s grandson Juan Coronel Rivera, that he believed Diego may have helped Frida end her life in a final act of love when the pain was too much for her to bear.
This is a celebration of Frida Kahlo and less convenient truths are omitted, such as the fervent love for Stalin that she embraced towards the end of her life.
Viewers are offered a fascinating insight into the worlds inhabited by Kahlo and Rivera; neither are presented as isolated geniuses, but rather important cultural figures in a period of change and conflict.
In episode one, we are taken to post-Revolutionary Mexico with its vibrant cultural scene, lively parties and fractious communist politics. In episode two we travel to depression-hit New York, and Ford’s repression of striking car workers in Detroit. Here we see the contradictions of the communist couple as Rivera works on mural commissions from wealthy capitalists such as Ford and Rockefeller.
Episode three returns to Mexico, but not before a stop off in Paris on the brink of the second world war and the Nazi invasion of 1940. We see Kahlo’s growing international success; she is invited to Paris to exhibit some of her paintings as the guest of André Breton, the French surrealist writer and poet. Breton claimed Kahlo as a surrealist on “discovering” her during his visit to Mexico in 1938. We also learn of her frustration with Breton and fellow surrealists who preferred talk to political action.
And at the centre of everything is Kahlo’s art which we see with new eyes as we learn the stories behind her deeply autobiographical, symbolic paintings. The series chronicles her politics, her miscarriages, Rivera’s infidelities, her physical agony.
Her embodied art is contextualised in her physical and emotional body. Telling a deeply personal story, her life, times and art are beautifully interwoven together here.
Deborah Shaw does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
With winter coming to a close in Ukraine, Russia is making a series of advances in the eastern Donbas region, with a primary aim of capturing the city of Bakhmut. While the city itself has some (limited) strategic significance as a regional transport hub, neither its symbolic nor material value justifies the price that Russia is paying.
Wave after wave of Russian forces have been thrown into the same sector of the frontline, with a heavy cost being paid for modest progress.
Weather is playing its part in this. With Vladimir Putin’s special operation having lasted a year already, Russia’s war machine is again encountering the same conditions that frustrated its initial advances back in 2022. The spring thaw, or rasputitsa, brings mud and rain, restricting freedom of manoeuvre and confining most movement to main roads and rail networks.
The spring thaw has historically dictated the pace of military campaigns in the region. In the past, rasputitsa spelled disaster for the Mongols, Napoleon’s grand army, and even played a pivotal role in the second world war, slowing the German push towards Moscow in 1941.
Of course, the mud has no allegiance. It blunted the Soviet counter-offensives of the subsequent year. There is little need to look at distant history to understand the significance of spring weather conditions, however.
The wet conditions, along with the poor state of Russia’s land forces caused Russia’s initial push for Kyiv last year to be conducted along major highways. The risk of getting bogged down off-road contributed to Russia’s decision to send lengthy columns of tanks and other armour advancing along main roads towards the capital, on which the Ukrainians able to inflict heavy losses.
Many vehicles were lost or abandoned. It’s fair to say that weather conditions undoubtedly contributed to Russian failures early in the war.
A year on and mud is again constricting Russian action. And it may be that the emphasis that Russia is placing on Bakhmut has more to do with its convenience from a logistical perspective than its material value to either side.
Given the state of the ground, it is not surprising that Russia is struggling to supply much of its front line, with massing resources and troops for an assault impossible along much of its 600-mile length.
Accordingly, Russian forces are focusing on the points they can reach and realistically assault. Bakhmut is relatively accessible from the Russian perspective, being fairly close to railheads and accessible by road. It is one of the few places along the front line that Russia can effectively supply in inclement weather, which is why it has been under attack throughout the winter and now into the spring.
Modern combat operations are hungry, requiring vast amounts of resources to sustain. For every soldier on the front line, there should be several providing support, moving supplies and fulfilling other vital services.
Russia’s military has always struggled with logistics, due in part to its relatively narrow “tooth-to-tail” ratio. This means it has fewer support staff serving its combat troops than, say, the US military, which can make it hard to keep frontline soldiers supplied.
Critically, Russia lacks the capacity to sustain operations at any real distance from its depots and rail networks. Its limited inventory of supply vehicles struggles to replenish ammunition, food and fuel at the rates they are expended. When the going is bad, these constraints become even more pronounced.
The Russian problem with logistics, compounded by both an icy winter and now a spring thaw, forces them into repetitive and predictable patterns. There are few places along the front line where Russia can move enough resources to attack. Bakhmut is one of them. It is not good to be predictable – as the reported casualty ratio of one defender to seven attackers makes fairly clear.
While Bakhmut is within the reach of Russian forces, it doesn’t mean the logistics problem is solved. Wagner Group forces have been leading the offensive in the region and taking devastating losses.
These forces are even worse equipped and supported than the average Russian conscript, with commanders taking to social media to complain about the lack of equipment and munitions. Indeed, there have been reports that some units are close to mutiny – not just frontline troops, but across senior levels of the military as well.
Clearly, this supply challenge may have less to do with the rasputitsa, and more to do with Russian internal politics. Conventional Russian forces and Wagner Group do not get on. It may be the case that competition between the military hierarchy and Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner Group’s influential leader, is behind the lack of support.
For their part, the Wagner private army is seemingly willing to sacrifice as many lives as necessary to secure victory in Bakhmut, perhaps seeking to demonstrate their value by scratching out a rare Russian success.
Whatever the reason behind the Russian fixation with Bakhmut, the struggle is taking on a symbolic value for Ukraine as well. After consulting with his top generals, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has ordered more troops to reinforce those desperately holding out in the city.
Whatever happens in Bakhmut, with the end of the rasputitsa comes the main campaigning season. By late April, both sides will seek to take advantage of warmer, dryer conditions, possibly leading to some rapid changes in territory across the breadth of the frontline. This is where Ukraine will need to have the advantage of the sophisticated armour promised by its western allies.
Christopher Morris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In the run-up to Pokémon Day – an anniversary created to celebrate the first Pokémon video game, released on February 27 1996 – a small but significant piece of news was announced.
There is to be a new Pikachu character, named Captain Pikachu. This Pikachu will partner with a new human, Professor Friede, in an animated series based on the most recent video game: Pokémon Scarlet and Violet.
The pokémon has been a global marketing tool for Nintendo products for over 25 years. Fans are used to seeing Pikachu dressed in all manner of outfits, including 2019’s Detective Pikachu.
However, the announcement followed a seismic shift in the animated franchise. Pikachu’s longtime child partner, Ash, finally achieved his goal of becoming a Pokémon Champion at the end of 2022. As a result, the Pokémon Company confirmed that the character would bow out of the television series in early 2023.
In response, fans on the social media platform Reddit asked what would happen to Pikachu. How could he possibly continue without Ash in future stories?
Without the iconic character, Nintendo would lose more than just an important piece of intellectual property – they would lose the heart of what makes the franchise so endearing, so it’s no surprise to see Pikachu’s return, albeit in a different guise.
Pikachu was not necessarily destined for great popularity. He was not a standout “pocket monster” in Nintendo’s first Game Boy Pokémon title, Red and Green, but was one among 151 creatures that children could choose to play with.
The Pokémon video game was quickly followed by the trading card game in October 1996, where players could pick from a range of cards to battle or trade with a friend.
Early audiences were entirely domestic as the game was not available outside Japan. However, when Kubo Masakazu, a comic book publisher and manga enthusiast, was hired by Nintendo to take Pokémon beyond the national market, he immediately saw the potential to build a global franchise and audience around one character: Pikachu.
Masakazu developed the animated television series and movies, focusing the stories on a trio of young travellers – Ash, Misty and Brock. Each traveller had a partner pokémon that would never be tucked away in a pokéball (devices in which pokémon are captured and stored), with personalities of their own.
As author Anne Allison described in Millennial Monsters (2006), this new empire of entertainment (games, trading cards, a TV show and films) was based on Masakazu’s vision of harmony. This was shown in the way humans and pocket monsters live side by side, treating each other with kindness and love. The bond between Ash and Pikachu is at the heart of Pokémon’s global success.
Kawaii, or cuteness, is a profitable Japanese cultural export and the Pikachu character personifies its success. Pikachu’s appeal lies in the character’s design, backed up by his emotional resonance, which is developed in the animated series and films.
Pikachu’s colour and frame are easily recognisable and can be redrawn in any style. The name is catchy and repeatable, whether or not you are a native Japanese speaker. The character is small and huggable and helps children develop feelings of attachment, nurturance and intimacy when they play with Pikachu toys.
These visual features are reinforced by Pikachu’s personality and powers. He is loyal to Ash, brave in front of countless challenges and conveys emotions openly through facial expressions, noises and constant affirmation of who he is: “Pika, Pika, Pikachu!”
Famously, in the animated series, Ash’s Pikachu does not wish to evolve (the process through which a pokémon can change form, grow stronger and gain new abilities). This goes against the internal logic of the game where players must care for and evolve their pokémon to help them win more battles.
Therefore, Pikachu’s strength comes from his individual identity as the Pikachu, not a Pikachu. Ash’s Pikachu is unique. So while countless others have been encountered in the games and animated series, they are not the same as his Pikachu. Or, more importantly, they are not the same as our Pikachu.
The multiplicity of the character – that he is both the same as and different from other versions in the same entertainment universe – allows Pokémon to create new stories and scenarios without disrupting the overall backstory or inherent qualities of the Pikachu character.
This is how Pikachu has managed to be both the image of a global corporate brand and a distinctly familiar and individual partner on Ash’s journey. The children who grew up watching his adventures with Ash are now adults who can still reconnect with him because their relationship with the character was developed over multiple games, TV series and films.
Now that Ash is retiring, our Pikachu can too. His memory will continue in the minds of multi-generational fans while the kawaii Nintendo still wants to export will continue through the familiar design and distinct new personality of his successor: Captain Pikachu.
Lincoln Geraghty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Despite receiving the greatest number of votes cast in a presidential election, there is discussion among some Democrats and commentators about breaking up the Biden-Harris partnership for the 2024 election.
While Joe Biden has become the target of much criticism for the inflationary challenges of the current US economy, it is vice president Kamala Harris’s position on the ticket that is subject to much more debate.
Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants to the US, is the first woman to become the US vice president. Seen by many as a trailblazer for women of colour and women in general, it may seem surprising that Democrats are discussing dropping her from the ticket.
But there are some signs of unhappiness. Recently, influential senator Elizabeth Warren gave lukewarm support to Harris as vice president for a second term.
Before November’s midterm elections, Washington Post columnist George F. Will not only called for Biden to be dropped for 2024, but said that Harris, was “starkly unqualified as his successor”.
This attack on Harris has been echoed by other columnists, with one suggesting that Biden replace Harris with Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, while another stated that Harris’ poor communication skills illustrate that she was a poor choice as VP or as Biden’s successor.
Presidents with unfavourable ratings have often been advised to find a new running mate for a second term. It would be unusual, but not unprecedented, for such a partnership to be dissolved. The last elected vice president to be dropped from the ticket was Henry A. Wallace in 1944.
Wallace’s bid for a second term as vice president was defeated at the 1944 Democratic convention after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt refused to endorse him. Democrats opted for Harry H. Truman instead.
In 1976 Gerald Ford exchanged his vice president Nelson Rockefeller for Bob Dole, but neither Ford nor Rockefeller had been on the ticket in the 1972 elections. Ford had become vice president after Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973 amidst a tax evasion scandal. Ford then replaced Nixon as president after Nixon resigned in August 1974 during the Watergate crisis.
However, Biden has consistently included Harris in talking about the administration’s achievements.
In his state of the union address last month, Biden identified her efforts in helping small businesses. He also stated that he and Harris were doing everything they could “to protect access to reproductive health care and safeguard patient privacy”.
Harris is incredibly popular with African American voters, and this was an important part of Biden’s coalition during the 2020 election campaign.
If Biden were to drop Harris, it could seriously impact his popularity with Black voters and undermine his support from women voters too.
Aprill Turner, spokeswoman for Higher Heights for America, an advocate group for African American women in politics, told one reporter that if Biden was to cast aside Harris it would “definitely ricochet through Black America”.
One of the reasons behind the calls to drop Harris might be her poor national poll rating. Even though Biden is polling badly with the American public, Harris is rated even lower.
Republican-controlled Southern states, such as Texas, have been battling with the Biden administration over immigration policy, and Harris has been targeted for blame as she has been put in charge of border policy.
On Christmas Eve 2022, buses of central and southern American migrants were transported from the border states and dropped off outside Harris’ home in Washington. And with Democrats also criticising federal immigration policy, Harris could become an easy target in a 2024 election.
Not all the criticism laid at Harris’ door is fair. She may have taken a while to visit the border, but she had to spend more time than most vice presidents overseeing things in the US Senate. With the Senate gridlocked at 50 votes each, her casting vote as president of the Senate was essential, forcing her to stay in Washington DC.
If Biden does replace Harris, who does he choose? Leading contender would be Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Immensely popular on the campaign trail, Buttigieg would be the first openly gay vice president. He has struggled in the past to win over minority voters.
There might be calls for a potential successor to Biden that has a wider appeal than Harris. Governor Newsom might have that although he has said that he will not run for president in 2024. If he campaigned as Biden’s vice presidential nominee, it would raise his profile, something that he would need to do to achieve his national ambitions.
For a man who demands loyalty, Biden might also be reluctant to get rid of a partner who has been exactly that. Despite suggestions that Biden was going to be a one-term president, there has been no question of Harris as a power behind the throne, as there was in the Bush-Cheney years.
Perhaps, more importantly, Harris has the respect and admiration of both the president and the first lady, as well as the support of leading progressives.
If Biden does choose to end his partnership with Harris, it would be a bold move in what might be a close-run race in 2024. There could be a repeat of 1944, where senior Democrats decide that Harris will not be Biden’s successor, but if inflation continues to ease, then the Biden-Harris ticket may be too successful a partnership to break up.
Dafydd Townley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The amount of ammunition being consumed in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict has surpassed all estimates. This is starting to put pressure on the production and supply chains involved in the manufacture of ammunition for artillery guns among other weapons systems.
This is not an unprecedented problem. In warfare throughout history, armies have often underestimated the level of force and destruction of equipment that will be encountered and the amount of ammunition that will be consumed.
Time and again, this has affected military planning. For example, a lack of shells for British artillery in the first world war resulted in a crisis that led to the downfall of the government of Herbert Asquith.
But the protagonists of the two world wars were typically able to sustain their efforts despite huge levels of destruction comes down to the fact that weapons of that era were relatively simple to produce compared to today’s sophisticated military hardware. And the relative cheapness of the weapons allowed extensive numbers to be produced during the conflict.
Since Vladimir Putin sent his war machine into Ukraine on February 24 2022, The Conversation has called upon some of the leading experts in international security, geopolitics and military tactics to help our readers understand the big issues. You can also subscribe to our weekly recap of expert analysis of the conflict in Ukraine.
The Russo-Ukrainian war has not involved loss rates of equipment or consumption of material on the scale of the world wars. But, despite this, destruction of major, technologically cutting-edge, equipment can cause a headache for military planners and strategists.
Nato members and other European countries have sent a great deal of equipment, beginning with air defence systems and escalating more recently to main battle tanks such as the Challenger II and Leopard. If the security of individual nations, Europe and Nato is to remain secure, this equipment will have to be replaced.
While losses of equipment in the Russo-Ukrainian are difficult to verify, various bodies including Oryx and Army Technology, an open-source intelligence site, have provided estimates on equipment losses. But when looking at these figures it is important not to look at just the raw numbers. Weapons lost, destroyed or used up need to be compared with the total numbers estimated to have been deployed.
Estimates of the numbers of Russian equipment deployed since February 2022 are 15,857 infantry fighting vehicles and 1,391 aircraft. Their estimated losses, up to the end of December 2022, according to Oryx, are 794 infantry fighting vehicles, 71 aircraft and 91 artillery pieces.
Ukrainian estimated available deployment has been 3,309 infantry fighting vehicles and 128 aircraft. Their estimated losses as of the end of December 2022 are 418 infantry fighting vehicles, 55 aircraft and 92 artillery pieces.
Major modern defence equipment, such as the F-35 Lightning fast-jet aircraft and the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers, is becoming ever more sophisticated and expensive. So it’s no longer possible for replacements to be manufactured quickly. And the sheer cost of this hardware means it’s virtually impossible to keep replacements in reserve for when losses occur.
When ordering the F-35 Lighting, with the first deliveries expected in 2012, the UK originally set out to purchase a total of 138 aircraft. But the timeline for reaching this total has been delayed and now that number has been reduced due to affordability problems.
The first batch of 48 aircraft is due to be delivered by 2025, with an additional 27 by 2033. This delivery schedule, which represents less than four aircraft per year between 2025 and 2033, has been agreed with the manufacturer largely on production and cost factors. Such numbers make the creation of a reserve force next to impossible.
Such a delivery schedule, caused partly by having to spread deliveries over a longer time period due to cost implications, but also because of the length of time that such equipment takes to be manufactured, means these assets become of increasing value.
Reports suggest that it takes more than 41,000 hours per worker to manufacture an individual F-35 jet aircraft. Such a lead time in manufacturing limits the total amount that can delivered in any one year. With the current backlog of orders awaiting delivery, the replacement of aircraft lost to enemy action or flying accidents could take many years, and perhaps even decades.
Losing such important and technologically sophisticated military assets, may lead to commanders in the field becoming more risk-averse when it comes to their direct deployment and engagement with an enemy that has an equivalent – or near equivalent – capability.
Without a mass of reserves to replace equipment that has been destroyed in the war, some of this equipment (which – let’s not forget – can cost millions or even billions of pounds) may not be deployed at all. While this is an extreme outcome, the potential for political backlash from the general public is great for politicians and senior military leaders.
This potential for increased risk averseness could mean these cutting-edge assets are not deployed or deployed only in exceptional circumstances.
There’s also an interesting equation involved in modern defence budget calculations. The increasing sophistication and accuracy of today’s weapons means fewer can be deployed to achieve similar damage to the enemy. In other words, more can be achieved with less.
Defence budgets as a proportion of overall government spending have tended to fall since the second world war – and particularly since the end of the cold war. This is what’s known as the “peace dividend”.
But at the same time, individual pieces of equipment are vastly more expensive. Time will tell whether this will mean field commanders are more unwilling to commit to the use of such expensive equipment when it is more difficult to replace. This could change the nature of the conflict and bring another meaning to the phrase the “cost of war”.
Matthew Powell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
When Russia’s ramshackle armies trundled into Ukraine a year ago, very few gave the defenders a chance. After all, they’d spent eight years unsuccessfully trying to fight off pro-Russian separatists (heavily backed by Moscow) in the east of their country. Meanwhile Russia had been ostentatiously developing and modernising its armed forces and using them with decisive effect in Syria.
Analysts – focused on Russia’s supposed “hybrid” “approach to war” had failed to appreciate two things. First, shiny gear and buzzwords does not an army make. Second, a nation in arms, united, motivated and well led makes a very formidable opponent.
Russian forces looked good on parade but, behind the paint and uniforms, the military was corroded by corruption, graft and inefficiency .
Since Vladimir Putin sent his war machine into Ukraine on February 24 2022, The Conversation has called upon some of the leading experts in international security, geopolitics and military tactics to help our readers understand the big issues. You can also subscribe to our weekly recap of expert analysis of the conflict in Ukraine.
The men manning its modern equipment were led by generals who had failed to obey the essential precept that planning and preparation prevents poor performance. Troops were not trained properly, or at all, and had little or no idea of what they required to do.
Such planning should and does involve a deep appreciation of the environment into which they are about to plunge – this is called “intelligence preparation of the battlefield”. By the way, while western generals might sagely comment on these matters, they made exactly the same mistakes in their disastrous wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
The signs were there early on, when units of Russia’s elite airborne troops were annihilated at Hostomel airfield near Kyiv. It took a just month for Russia’s chaotic and ramshackle columns to be thrown back from Kyiv.
A highly regarded Russian tank brigade was defeated by a Ukranian armoured unit a tenth of its size at the battle of Chernihiv – just one of several embarrassing defeats for Moscow’s war machine.
Ukrainian air defences were as well organised and prepared as the Russian air force was inadequate in all respects. They dispersed their assets, ensuring the survival both of most of its aircraft and – vitally – an intact and superbly efficient ground based air defence system. This continues to defend Ukraine with panache.
Ukrainian airspace is denied to Russian aircraft, with the area above the battlefield an aerial no man’s land where only drones venture. Russia continues to conduct a failing strategic air campaign against Ukrainian civilian targets from aircraft flying deep inside Russian territory.
Even inside Russia, at its most vital and secure bases, Ukrainian drone attacks have forced Russia’s most capable bombers to seek safety.
In the maritime domain, Ukraine didn’t just manage to sink the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. It was also able to retake Snake Island, which is not only an iconic symbol of Ukrainian resistance, but a vital asset in the battle for the western Black Sea.
Russian ships venture out now rarely, and usually only to fire their cruise missiles at civilian targets before scurrying back to ports that find themselves under Ukrainian attack.
À lire aussi : Ukraine: Russia's inability to dominate the sea has changed the course of the war
Having won the battle of Kherson and retaken a poorly defended Kharkiv region in a lightning assault, the lines have been drawn for the next, and decisive stage.
The war has – for now – devolved into a first world war-style slogging match, where artillery dominates.
Russia is now capitalising on its only advantage: sheer numbers of largely poorly trained troops and mercenaries. It has been said that quantity has a quality all its own, but in modern warfare there are serious limits to the validity of that axiom. It is true only if that quantity can be protected by some form of armoured mobility and protection (apart from deep trench systems) on a battlefield saturated by artillery.
Western assistance has been vital and will be critical in two major respects. First, Ukraine needs to strengthen its air and ground defences and reconstitute them along higher-quality Nato lines. Nato and other western tanks, missiles and especially precision gun and rocket systems like the brutally effective Himars, have allowed Ukraine to counter Russian advantages in artillery.
Second, as Ukraine has taken fearful casualties including and especially in its most experienced units, training will become more and more vital. As Russia discovered early in the war, equipment is of little use unless troops have been properly trained to use it. This is especially so in combined arms warfare, the extremely difficult task of coordinating infantry, tanks artillery and air power.
Ukraine will counterattack, probably in the spring and will need all the help it can get if it is to drive Russian forces back to their borders.
Drawing a parallel with the second world war where the ethics for Britain and her allies were clear, this is the “good war” of our generation. Over the past year it has been well fought by the men and women defending their people, country and culture. They are also defending what remains of the international order.
Having defeated Russian forces at the battles of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson, Ukrainian forces now need to stave off the counterattack and demonstrate to a carefully watching west that they can retake and secure their country. Their success over the next few months will define the shape of the rest of the war, determining whether victory will come this year, or whether this will be a long and even more grinding conflict.
Last week General Mark Miley, the chairman of America’s joint chiefs of staff, while stating that Russia has already lost strategically, argued that neither side were likely to prevail this year. If nothing else, Ukraine has demonstrated that during this phase of the war it can and will surprise us, generals, analysts and all.
They will do so again this year.
Frank Ledwidge is affiliated with Globsec (Kyiv)
The recent bout of shuttle diplomacy around the capitals of Europe by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, appears to be yielding results.
Zelensky’s appearances in the UK, France and Brussels had two main aims. The first has been constant since the war begin a year ago: to maintain western focus on his message that Ukraine will not accept Russian occupation of his country’s sovereign territory. His second is currently even more important: to continue his pressure on European nations to continue to provide arms.
That his message on Ukrainian sovereignty was getting through was evident. The same day that Zelensky addressed a joint sitting of the UK parliament, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the Commons that Britain remained committed to ensuring Russia’s defeat in Ukraine. And days later, Sunak told a Munich Security Conference on February 18: “Now is the moment to double down on our military support.”
One specific issue that emerged from Zelensky’s visit was Ukraine’s need for sophisticated fighter jets. There is understandable reluctance among western governments to provide the latest fighter aircraft, which many leaders see as risking escalation into direct conflict between Nato and Russia. But there is also considerable sympathy for Zelensky’s demands, which could transform the conflict on the ground.
So it’s worth looking in a little detail at how air power has transformed warfare over the past century to get an understanding on how they might affect the conflict in Ukraine.
Since Vladimir Putin sent his war machine into Ukraine on February 24 2022, The Conversation has called upon some of the leading experts in international security, geopolitics and military tactics to help our readers understand the big issues.
Air power has been used in a variety of ways since the first air raids were carried out by Italian pilots who threw bombs from the cockpits of their biplanes at Ottoman troops during a campaign in Libya in 1911. In more than a century since, air power has redefined how wars are fought, from its reconnaissance capabilities to transporting troops and equipment and mounting aerial attacks on enemy targets at and behind the front lines.
But to gain and maintain aerial power, modern fighter and multi-role aircraft are vital. Apart from anything else, air superiority denies the same capabilities to the enemy.
It was arguably the British, in the development of their thinking surrounding the application of air power prior to 1914, who understood how important it would be to dominate the skies above the battlefield and deny the enemy the ability to use aircraft for observation purposes.
This was put to the test on the western front of the first world war, where all sides used air power in a variety of ways to increase the effectiveness of their ground forces.
Aerial observation proved decisive in the opening phase of the conflict. For example, French air reconnaissance spotted a mistake in the German advance on Paris in September 1914 and allowed the allies to counterattack at the River Marne.
This of course was followed by years of trench warfare, where air reconnaissance allowed both sides to spot any changes in defensive structures or troop buildups. Reconnaissance also enhanced the deadly capabilities of both sides’ artillery.
With guns placed far behind the front lines, it was difficult for the battery commanders to judge the location and range of their targets. Aircraft spotters were able to pass this information back to commanders who could adjust their aim.
In the second world war, aircraft became adept at supporting forces on the ground prior to and during attacks. The British developed a system that allowed close air support to be conducted when required, rather than being planned.
This meant that forces on the ground could request support when required, allowing greater flexibility in planning and conducting operations. Attacks could also be conducted behind enemy lines with the intent of sealing off the battlefield and preventing reserves and supplies from entering the battle.
Aircraft were also used to attack targets of strategic importance in the enemy homeland, as we know from the blitz in London and other major UK cities. Britain and the US also conducted major bombing raids against German factories and oil supplies and on centres of population to target German morale as well as industry.
At present it appears unlikely that any aircraft given to the Ukrainian military by its allies will be used to attack targets in Russia, due to the danger of escalation. But they can be effective in a number of other ways.
Ukraine presently has 175 fighter jets. Boosting that number significantly will make it easier for Ukraine’s air force to conduct more reconnaissance missions. This will be vital ahead of fresh offensives in the spring and summer when better weather brings greater mobility back to the battlefield.
Given the multi-role nature of the aircraft that are being requested, attacks in support of ground offensives through close air support and battlefield air interdiction can also be conducted with greater ease and regularity. This would make Ukrainian ground forces more effective in offensive operations and provide greater resistance in the face of Russian attacks.
It is unlikely that these aircraft will be seen in combat missions over Ukraine in the short term as the training required will take many weeks and potentially months or even years. While they will not guarantee victory, they will provide Ukrainian forces with greater capabilities with which to conduct operations on the ground.
Matthew Powell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
The US-China rivalry in east Asia has taken an interesting turn after the recent visit of US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, to the Philippines. Austin’s trip ended in an expanded deal, the enhanced defense cooperation agreement (EDCA).
This gives the US access to four additional military bases in a highly strategic region, a significant move for the Philippines, which – not so long ago – had signalled its intention to prioritise its friendship with China over the US.
Since Ferdinand “BongBong” Marcos took office as president in June 2022, the US has revitalised its engagement with the Philippines. In July, Washington appointed career diplomat MaryKay Loss Carlson as its ambassador, filling a post that had been vacant since 2020.
Washington and Manila had enjoyed a strong relationship since the end of the second world war, characterised by a continual US military presence. This was crucial during the Vietnam war and afterwards enabled a significant and continuing US military presence in the region.
But the relationship soured after the election of Rodrigo Duterte as president in 2016, who made it clear he wanted to prioritise a relationship with Beijing over Washington.
A low point was reached in 2020 when Duterte announced his decision to terminate the visiting forces agreement controlling bilateral military arrangements including legal jurisdiction over US troops in Philippines and vice versa. The Philippines president subsequently reversed his decision in 2021, admitting he had done so in return for access to COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic.
But Duterte’s antagonism towards the US and his growing closeness to Beijing had threatened to tilt the scale of geopolitics in the region at a time of mounting tensions across east Asia over Chinese expansion.
Meanwhile in the US, anger at Duterte’s shocking human rights abuses, including the extra-judicial killings of thousands during his “war in drugs” in 2016 and 2017 prompted the US Congress to debate a bill in September 2020 suspending all security aid to the Philippines.
Duterte, meanwhile, had been telling Beijing it was “time to say goodbye to Washington” and pursue closer relations with China. But this flirtation with China ultimately came to nothing. The South China dispute was left to rumble on in the background and Duterte did his best to ignore the issue.
During the 2022 presidential election campaign Marcos remained vague about the direction of his foreign policy. He hedged between his problematic family history with the US – which had played an important role in ending his father’s dictatorship – and the ongoing South China Sea dispute that has pitted Beijing against most of the rest of the region over China’s territorial claims.
But since assuming office, Marcos has been firm in keeping the alliance with the US strong, and America’s attitude towards the Philippines has thawed. For Washington’s part, the Philippines’ strategic importance to the US has only increased as China continues enact its claims to islands in the South China Sea with a growing military presence.
Washington is also disturbed by Beijing’s repeated statements about its desire to “reunify” with Taiwan and the increasingly authoritarian nature of its administration of Hong Kong.
Austin’s trip marks the third high-profile visit by a US official during the first year of the Marcos presidency. In November 2022, US vice president Kamala Harris visited Palawan, a strategically important archipelago abutting the South China Sea, meeting with coast guard officials there.
It was a historic visit of a high-ranking US official to the home of the Philippine’s western command whose main area of responsibility is the West Philippine Sea, the sovereignty of which is hotly contested by China. Harris reaffirmed US support for the defence alliance and keeping the Indo-Pacific free and open.
US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, also visited the Philippines in August 2022 at the same time as the former house speaker, Nancy Pelosi, made her controversial visit to Taiwan. Blinken reassured Marcos of Washington’s “iron-clad commitment” to the countries’ mutual defense treaty. Now Austin’s visit has gained the Philippines an expanded defence agreement and a potential US$100 million (£84 million) in military aid.
The enhanced defense cooperation agreement was negotiated and signed in 2014 by the countries’ respective presidents at the time, Barack Obama and Benigno Aquino. The new detente between the Biden and Marcos administrations has returned the relationship between the two countries to a firmer footing and suggests that “America’s pivot to Asia” has survived the pressures of the Trump administration’s isolationism, Duterte’s belligerence and China’s increasing assertiveness in the region.
The agreement over the additional bases under the EDCA was initially negotiated in September 2022 by Austin and the newly appointed national defence senior undersecretary Jose Faustino at a meeting in Hawaii, so Beijing was well aware that the announcement was in the offing.
The maintenance of US influence in the east Asia region remains a plank of Washington’s security strategy, something it ensures by making nations like the Philippines chose sides periodically. Thailand, a staunch US ally during the Vietnam War which felt abandoned after the 1975 withdrawal, has been pulled in both directions too.
China has criticised the latest strengthening of the EDCA as an agreement that would “escalate regional tension and undermine regional peace and stability”.
Meanwhile Marcos – who said in January that the South China Sea issue was “keeping him awake at night” – is taking great pains to remain at least on terms with Beijing. Earlier this year, Marcos secured US$22.8 billion in new investment deals in January during a meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping in Beijing.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago, Washington has committed significant amounts of money and military support to Ukraine. But America’s greatest adversary still looms in the Indo-Pacific. And nations caught in between the two biggest global powers will continue to be bargaining chips for the two major powers while trying to get the best deal they can for themselves.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Humans are naturally afraid of the dark. We sometimes imagine monsters under the bed and walk faster down unlit streets at night. To conquer our fears, we may leave a night light on to scare away the monsters and a light over the porch to deter break-ins.
Yet, in huddling for safety under our pools of light, we have lost our connection to the night sky. Star counts by public awareness campaign Globe at Night revealed that, between 2011 and 2022, the world’s night sky more than doubled in artificial brightness. Yet local interventions can create meaningful change.
Light pollution is cutting us off from one of nature’s greatest wonders, harming wildlife and blocking research that could help fight climate change. Stars are more than pretty glimmers in the night sky. They have shaped the mythology of every human civilisation. They guide birds on their astonishing migratory journeys. And now we need to do our bit to prevent light pollution so stars can be part of our future.
The human eye can detect around 5,000 stars in the night sky. But the light emitted by skyscrapers, street lamps, and houses obscures all but a handful of the brightest stars.
Our ancestors used the rising and setting of the constellations as calendars. They also navigated by the stars as they searched for new lands or traced nautical trade routes. Sailors don’t normally use the stars to navigate any more, but they are still taught how to, in case their navigation systems break down.
Migratory animals, including birds and insects, are drawn away from their natural flight paths by the beckoning “sky glow” of cities. In the summer of 2019, Las Vegas was invaded by millions of migrating grasshoppers, while the beams of New York’s 9/11 Tribute in Light are a magnet for flocks of migrating songbirds flying at night.
Disoriented by the bright city lights, birds crash into towering skyscrapers. Insect numbers are collapsing worldwide and light pollution is making matters worse by disrupting their nocturnal life cycles.
Light pollution is caused by the same physics that turns the sky blue during the day. Sunlight is made up of all the colours of the rainbow and each colour has a different wavelength. The air that surrounds us is composed of tiny particles (such as oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules).
As light from the Sun makes its way through the air, it is scattered by these particles in random directions. Blue light (with shorter wavelengths) is scattered more than red light (which has longer wavelengths). As a result, our eyes receive more blue light from every direction in the sky.
At night, light scattered by the same air particles causes the sky to shine down on us. A small fraction of this sky glow is caused by natural sources, such as starlight and the Earth’s atmosphere. But most of the light that creates sky glow is artificial.
Light pollution also affects our ability to study the universe. Even modern observatories, built on remote mountaintops, are affected by the encroaching sky glow from growing, sprawling cities. Light pollution is so widespread that three quarters of all observatories are affected.
There is no reason to despair, though. We created light pollution; we can fix it.
Around the world, dark sky associations are working to educate the public about the hazards of light pollution, to lobby for legislation to protect dark sky reserves and encourage people to reignite their connection with dark, star-studded skies.
Fighting light pollution begins at home. If you need to keep outside lights on for security, use shielded lamps that only shine downwards. Use light bulbs that do not emit violet and blue light as this is harmful to wildlife. Smart lighting controls will also help reduce your house’s effect on wildlife and make it easier for you to observe the night sky.
You will also find interactive maps that show how polluted the skies are in your area. These maps are created from data gathered by satellites and by citizen scientists taking part in annual star counts. You can help darken our skies, too.
In the UK, the 2023 annual star count will take place on February 17-24. And, wherever you are in the world, you can always take part in the year-long Globe at Night star count whenever you want.
The task is simple: step outside on a clear night, count how many stars you can see in a well-known constellation, such as Orion, and report back.
To defeat light pollution, we need to know how severe it is and what difference national policies and local interventions (such as replacing the street lights in your town) make. In the UK, for example, star counts show light pollution may have peaked in 2020 and has started to decline.
Perhaps the most important aspect of star counts is that they shine a light on our vanishing night skies and galvanize us to take action. Ultimately, it’s up to each and every one of us to reduce our effect on the sky, by changing the way we light our homes and neighbourhoods and by lobbying our representatives to pass dark sky legislation.
Or Graur does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Republican Representative George Santos has been continuously embroiled in scandal since his election in November 2022.
The controversial congressman for New York’s 3rd district has admitted embellishing his election campaign. He misled the electorate about his education, falsely claimed his grandparents “survived” the Holocaust, and wrongly suggested that his mother died during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He has since apologised for this. Santos has said he has not committed any crimes and that he is sorry for misleading the public.
Despite the raft of accusations and constant news stories about Santos, Republican Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the US House of Representatives, is still showing support for Santos.
McCarthy said that he did not have the power to do so “simply because if I disagree with somebody or what they said”. McCarthy added that his support for Santos to remain in office was “because his constituents voted for him”.
McCarthy’s position has reflected Santos’ own statement that he would step down only if the 142,000 New Yorkers that elected him, voted him out. A recent poll indicated that 83% of registered voters in his district thought of him unfavourably. More worrying for Santos are the 78% of Republicans that think of him in the same manner.
McCarthy has said that if Santos was found to have broken campaign finance laws, then he would move to have him removed. He added, however, that “a person’s innocent until proven guilty,” suggesting that no action would be taken by leadership until the results of the investigation are known.
Read more: Speaker Kevin McCarthy: how backroom deals have put controversial Republicans into key roles
The speaker’s reluctance is understandable. He is in a difficult position and has already seen a significant challenge to his leadership during the vote for the influential position, where he struggled to get the necessary votes. The refusal by some members of the Freedom Caucus to support McCarthy’s bid for speaker undermined his control of House Republicans.
McCarthy may be keen to reward Santos for the loyalty he showed in January’s speaker election. Santos voted in support of McCarthy during the fifteen rounds. By standing by Santos, McCarthy is showing all his supporters that he has their back too.
If McCarthy wants to achieve his objectives for this Congress, such as the recent removal of Muslim Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar from the House foreign affairs committee, then he will need the support of all House Republicans, including Santos.
Santos has tried to distance himself from the scandals after his appointment to the committees on small business and science, space, and technology led to criticism. Santos told fellow Republicans that he would withdraw from the committees.
In doing so, Santos said that he could “focus on serving the constituents of New York’s third congressional district and providing federal level representation without distraction”.
What is more likely is that Santos jumped before he was pushed. Democrats on the bipartisan House ethics committee have managed to launch an investigation into the claims concerning his campaign finance irregularities. This had put pressure on the chairs of both committees to support Santos’ membership.
A statement from Santos’ office stated that he had not resigned from the committees, but had recused himself until he had been cleared of any allegations by the ethics committee investigation. As a result, his place on the committees “will be reserved until the congressman has been cleared of both campaign and personal financial investigations”.
Texas Representative Roger Williams, who chairs the small business committee, called the move sensible and that the committee’s attention could turn to the job at hand. “It’s about our committee and we have so much to do,” he said.
Democrats, including fellow New York Representative Ritchie Torres, have called for Santos to be stripped of his office. Torres called for an investigation into Santos’ time at a Florida-based investment company. Santos failure to register as a broker was, Torres said, “a clear violation of federal securities law”.
But removing Santos from Congress is not straightforward. It would require the whole of the House to vote and for a two-thirds majority to support his expulsion. For this to happen, a considerable number of Republicans would need to vote against him.
Predictably, Congress is split along partisan lines, although not cleanly so. Some Republicans have joined Democrat calls for Santos to resign. Mike Lawler, another New York Republican Representative, said that it was clear that Santos had “lost the confidence and support of his party, his constituents, and his colleagues”.
There would be no guarantee that a Republican would win the vacant seat if Santos was removed. Perhaps surprisingly, during the November midterms, the Republicans over-performed in New York, and Santos managed to flip a previously Democrat-held seat.
If Santos was removed and the resulting special election went to the Democrats, it would mean a Republican majority of just six seats in the House, so they would only have to lose three votes before needing the support of Democrats to get any legislation passed.
History is on Santos’ side. Only two members of the House have been expelled by their colleagues since the end of the US Civil War. In 1980, Michael J. Myers was expelled after being caught on camera accepting a $50,000 bribe (£40,000) from undercover FBI agents. More recently, James A. Traficant was expelled in 2002 after being convicted of ten felony counts including bribery, racketeering and tax evasion.
It seems unlikely that Santos will be expelled from Congress. It is more likely that the House will censure Santos – give him an official reprimand – over the embellishment of his CV.
Again, history suggests that this would not be the end of his career. Only two members of the House have been censured by the House this century, Charles B. Rangel and Paul Gosar, and both managed to not only remain in office, but were re-elected to the next Congress.
Any action taken by McCarthy is likely to hinge on the ethics committee investigation, but the extent of the punishment could be tempered by the razor-thin Republican majority in the House, and McCarthy’s own position as speaker. Such punishment would not indicate the end of Santos’ congressional career, but probably the final judgement will be made by the citizens of New York’s 3rd congressional district in the 2024 election.
Dafydd Townley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
A significant element of the UK government’s levelling up plan to create thousands of jobs, regenerate more deprived areas and attract overseas investors is the introduction of freeports. These special low-tax trading zones allow all kinds of businesses to trade.
Under the UK model, freeports can encompass two different kinds of sites. On customs sites, authorised businesses will be able to import certain goods with simplified customs documentation and without paying tariffs. Domestic goods can also be held in a customs site and used in any manufacturing process. And on tax sites, authorised businesses will benefit from reduced stamp duty, lower business rates and lower national insurance contributions for new employees.
A number have already been approved at strategic transport hubs across the UK. These include Solent, Plymouth and South Devon, Liverpool City and Freeport East at the Port of Felixstowe and Harwich International.
On a practical level, a freeport consists of designated buildings and zones within the larger perimeter of an existing port or on a newly developed site. They are designed as a tool for boosting business and the local economy. However, as my research shows, in the absence of usual customs checks, they may also harbour international crime.
The government claims that freeports will boost international trade, innovation and economic growth in areas which need it most. It intends to encourage foreign and local investment by streamlining business processes and lowering tax. According to its latest estimates, the Solent Freeport, for example, is set to provide £1.35 billion in private sector investment alone.
The government also intends to loosen planning reforms for freeports in order to boost construction and infrastructure projects, thereby sustaining high-skilled jobs and growth in the longer term. It says those local council areas neighbouring freeports will be able to keep all the money they make from the business rates to stimulate further growth in the local community.
Many international freeports do point to such economic benefits. The Jebel Ali freeport in the United Arab Emirates employs over 135,000 people and generates the equivalent of £81 billion in wealth. Geneva’s freeport in Switzerland, meanwhile, helped its local economy withstand the impact of 2008’s global financial crisis and contributes some £8.8 million to the surrounding area every year.
Some observers have likened the British model to “Singapore-on-Thames”. They see this freeport plan as a bid to emulate the economic success Singapore has known since independence in 1965 – success helped largely by international trade links, liberal tax and free trade policies.
Research shows that high-tech freeports, such as Dubai Internet City, enable faster economic growth in developing areas. Those with strong marketing plans, like Geneva freeport, succeed better in competitive markets. To be truly successful, the UK freeports will similarly need to invest in tech and marketing, factors which have not been fully addressed so far in the government’s plans.
Without proper technical and logistics infrastructure in place to support wider growth, studies suggest that the UK’s freeports will probably displace jobs – and therefore economic growth – from nearby communities. Firms outside the designated freeport zone might struggle to remain competitive. Support for local businesses, too, has not been adequately outlined.
British economists Leonard Alan Winters and Peter Holmes have warned that freeports may offer little benefit when the UK’s trade tariffs are already low because they do not allow suppliers access to final (end of line) markets without having to pay tax. Further, due to the rules on import duties currently implemented within the UK, these new freeports may not actually result in goods being entirely free from tariffs. Instead that taxation may simply be delayed until the goods arrive at their destination.
Crucially, as a briefing paper from the Royal United Services Institute think tank warns, freeports might facilitate the illegal import of drugs, wildlife and counterfeit or stolen goods. The report points out that the European Parliament has called for the abolition of freeports across the EU. And it highlights the link between freeport trading and a near 6% increase in the value of counterfeit goods being shipped into a country.
Such illegal import activities often involve tax evasion and what global watchdog Financial Action Task Force terms “trade-based money laundering”. This risk of criminals taking advantage of the relaxed regulation in freeports has been highlighted by several studies.
Customs provide crucial scrutiny of goods, processes and documentation. Without similarly robust measures in place, another aspect which has not been fully addressed in the government’s plans, freeports risk harbouring criminal activity and helping criminals evade authorities.
Paul Michael Gilmour does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
In December 1972, Nasa’s final Apollo mission (Apollo 17) took the iconic “Blue Marble” photo of the whole Earth. Many, including science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, had expected that the sight of Earth from afar would instil the belief that mankind’s future lay in space.
Instead, it made Earth appear more unique, and has since become an icon of the global environmental movement.
But that portrait is now a historical artefact. Fifty years later, on December 8 2022, Nasa took a new image of Earth from its Deep Space Climate Observatory approximately 1.5 million kilometres away. The photo reveals clear changes to the face of the Earth, some of which are indicative of 50 years of climate change.
The first photos taken of Earth from space were momentous historical events. In 1966, the robotic Lunar Orbiter 1 (the US’s first spacecraft to orbit the Moon) sent back some early pictures including a black-and-white image of a partly shadowed Earth. The following year, a satellite called ATS-3 took the first colour image of Earth.
Then in 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 became the first humans to see and photograph Earth from space. They took various photos through the capsule’s windows, including the famous photo known as “Earthrise”.
This photo energised the environmental movement and helped to launch the first Earth Day in 1970. Held on April 22 each year, Earth Day now involves over a billion people worldwide in activities that support environmental protection.
In 1972, Nasa – aware of the public value of Earth images – resolved to capture an image of the whole Earth as Apollo 17 moved away from Earth orbit. Lit by the Sun and taken at a distance of 33,000 km, the photo included the first view of Antarctica from space. The image centred on Africa rather than Europe or America, and became a photographic manifesto for global justice.
The Earth also provided the only visible colour in space. Dominated by blue light, water and clouds, it appeared a unique environment that displayed no signs of human activity. “We live inside a blue chamber, a bubble of air blown by ourselves,” wrote cell biologist Lewis Thomas in 1973.
This was also the decade in which climate scientist James Lovelock put forward the Gaia theory of the Earth as a self-regulating set of combined living and non-living systems. “Earth systems science”, as it is now known, unites scientific understanding of the planet, its biosphere and its changing climate.
In December 2022, Nasa’s new Blue Marble photograph was compared with the original image at the University of Portsmouth’s “The whole Earth: Blue Marble at 50” conference. Since 1972, the planet has visibly changed.
The Antarctic ice sheet has visibly reduced in size, even though the main losses to the Larsen ice shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula are not visible in this particular image. Differentiating between the permanent ice sheet and seasonal sea ice is also difficult. When the new photo was taken, sea ice was still in retreat from the previous winter.
While it can be hard to differentiate between snow and cloud in satellite images, in the original photo, some snow appears to be visible on the Zagros and Central mountain ranges in Iran (north of the Arabian Gulf). This snow has vanished entirely in the new image. However, this is again within the range of seasonal variation, and research has failed to identify any significant long-term trend in seasonal snow cover in Iran between 1987 and 2007.
Most striking is the reduction in dark green vegetation in the African tropics, particularly at their northern extent. The dark shadow of Lake Chad in the northern Sahara has shrunk, and forest vegetation now begins hundreds of miles further south.
This is consistent with evidence of desertification in north Africa’s Sahel region. Research found that tree density in the western Sahel declined by 18% between 1954 and 2002. And the UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that between 1990 and 2010, Africa lost 3–4 million hectares of forest per year, a large proportion in the Sahel.
Madagascar’s once-green landscape is now mainly brown. Long renowned for its ecological richness, the country is now classified a “biodiversity hotspot”, a term given to a region with significant levels of biodiversity that is threatened by rapid habitat loss.
Many species that are found exclusively in Madagascar, including the Malagasy giant jumping rat, are now at risk of extinction. The population declined by 88% between 2007 and 2019.
The original Blue Marble photo symbolised a historical turning point, from faith in unlimited progress to understanding the limitations of the planetary environment. Most satellite technology is now focused on servicing and understanding the Earth, and space exploration has confirmed just what a unique planet we inhabit.
The former Star Trek actor William Shatner felt this powerfully on his brief ride into space in 2021. On his return, he remarked: “I discovered that the beauty isn’t out there, it’s down here with all of us.”
The evidence of 50 years of environmental degradation is before our eyes. The space mission that really matters now is the mission to save Earth.
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I am author of 'Earthrise: a Short History of the Whole Earth'. It will be out February 2023.
Nick Pepin has received funding from RGS, Royal Society, NERC and other organisations for research into climate change.
Oliver Gruner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Warning: this article contains spoilers.
From the widely panned Super Mario Bros. movie (1993) to Netflix’s Resident Evil (2022) releasing to decidedly mixed reviews, game adaptations have historically been cursed on both big and small screens.
HBO’s series based on the hugely successful PlayStation game The Last of Us, is the latest entry into this genre. Early indications from critics and viewers suggest it has broken the dreaded video game curse.
The series occupies a unique position. In 2013, when the game was released, post-apocalypses were incredibly popular science fiction worlds. In 2023, such pandemics, as we’ve discovered, hue closer to science fact.
The scene in which protagonists Joel and Ellie encounter a mass grave has a distinctly different impact when humanity has so recently had to grapple with such tragedies in the real world.
In the series, a child’s blanket links this scene to a flashback of mass evacuation in the wake of the Cordyceps (the fungus that evolves to infect humans) outbreak foreshadowing the series’ continuing exploration of the values of family, connection and community.
The Last of Us game released in 2013 among what critics have called the “dadification” of games – a period in which many releases focused on paternal protagonists.
This “dadification” was driven partly by maturing technology that allowed more complex stories to be told. Also, developers who had grown up playing games were maturing and starting families, including The Last of Us creative director Neil Druckmann.
The kinds of stories they wanted to tell matured too, resulting in games addressing parent-child relationships, including The Walking Dead (2012) and God of War (2018).
The theme of parenthood is prevalent in The Last of Us too. While Joel and Ellie’s relationship makes this clear, this theme extends to other characters including Joel’s brother Tommy, an expectant father. HBO’s adaptation takes this a step further by also briefly exploring Ellie’s connection to her mother.
The value of parenthood in the game unfurls into the show’s focus on family. Dialogue throughout the series reflects its importance: Joel reminding Tommy of their familial bond, a scientist who just wants to be with their family, the dying teenage bandit pleading to be returned to his mother.
The value of family extends to supporting characters who are exclusive to, or expanded upon in, the series. Brothers Henry and Sam share a bond in the series compared with the game’s portrayal of a surrogate parent-child relationship that complements Joel and Ellie’s.
The series further extends the game’s exploration of family by having Henry and Sam’s story intersect with new character Kathleen. The leader of the Kansas Quarantine Zone resistance movement, Kathleen has her own motivations surrounding her brother.
While family is a core concern of the show, the theme of connection is also explored. This can be seen in its many “found” families. Joel and smuggling partner Tess’ relationship gets more screen time than in the game, as does the short-lived Joel-Tess-and-Ellie family dynamic.
This extends to the series’ other couplings, from episode-length explorations of Joel’s friends and existing game characters Bill and Frank, to Ellie’s relationship with school friend Riley, to Firefly leader Marlene’s connection to Anna – a best friend with a pivotal story role.
Even the Cordyceps is not immune to the rhetoric of connection. The spores by which the fungus spreads in the game have been changed to fungal tendrils in the show. These tendrils connect all the Infected – the series’ version of zombies.
Read more: The Last of Us: fungal infections really can kill – and they’re getting more dangerous
Step on a tendril in one place and you’ll wake a dozen Infected in another. The fungal spores in the game are an impersonal, environmental hazard. The series’ tendrils instead actively seek out new victims and in one unsettling scene, defile a fundamental act of human connection and love to achieve this.
What it means to be human in a world ravaged by a pandemic is also explored. The politics of peaceful communities is examined, from the militaristic Quarantine Zone where Joel first meets Ellie, to Tommy’s settlement – jokingly but truthfully derided as “communism” by Joel.
More important, perhaps, is the exploration of hostile communities that game players would typically shoot their way through. Kathleen’s control of the Kansas resistance group is given a two-episode arc that ends with Joel and Ellie burying Henry and Sam – a humanising end to their story the game did not afford.
The notion of burial as a human ritual is unearthed again a few episodes later when a girl asks in-game antagonist David, the leader of a group at Silver Lakes Resort, if her father can be buried – a request he denies.
The episode explores David and his group, humanising them more than in the game. This further humanisation then stands in stark contrast to a reveal that poses the ultimate question of where the tipping point is between human and monster.
These values are framed in relation to the show’s ultimate theme: love. Joel loved Sarah. Bill loved Frank. Kathleen loved her brother. David’s community loved him. This love, derived from the personal relationships found and strengthened amid chaos, breeds hope not only for the world portrayed in the show but also for our own.
A repeated motif in the series is the motto of the resistance group, the Fireflies: “When you’re lost in the darkness, look for the light.” In a world all too familiar with pandemics in 2023, this masterful adaptation of The Last of Us is something bright indeed.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
A survey commissioned in 2019 revealed the shocking result that over half of Britons did not know that at least six millions Jews had been murdered during the Holocaust.
This result was all the more surprising given the fact that the Holocaust, as a topic, has been part of the national curriculum in England and Wales since its creation in 1991. The 2014 iteration of the national curriculum has the Holocaust as a firm part of key stage 3 history – compulsory for all 11 to 14-year-olds in state schools. Additionally, many secondary school pupils may encounter the Holocaust as a topic in English or religious education lessons.
However, research into what school pupils in England know about the Holocaust shows that they lack knowledge about its context. They may know bare facts – ghettos, deportations, concentration camps – but are less clear on the ideology that led to the rise of the Nazis and the Holocaust in the first place. Pupils may not be clear what exactly it is they need to take away from those lessons and how they can be relevant to their contemporary lives.
For instance, it is important to understand how politicians sought to gain popular support by blaming minorities such as Jewish people for all the ills Germany experienced after the first world war. Relentless anti-Jewish propaganda was used to indoctrinate the general population.
It is for this reason that literature can be a meaningful additional teaching tool, not only in schools but also for everybody interested in the events leading up to the Holocaust. Literature can broaden horizons and deepen knowledge. It can offer different perspectives, often in the same narrative; it teaches us empathy but it can also help us to acquire facts and additional knowledge.
However, the sheer number of books on the Holocaust – survivor accounts, biographies, novels, factual books – can be overwhelming.
Sometimes, bestselling books on the Holocaust, such as John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2006) or Heather Morris’ The Tattooist of Auschwitz (2018), lack the factually correct underpinning that is necessary to make them a good way to learn about the history. It is consequently vital to find books that meaningfully introduce their readers to the topic and that provide carefully researched historical context.
One example is Judith Kerr’s When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit (1971) which is based on Kerr’s own childhood experience. It is the story of 9-year-old Jewish girl Anna who has a happy childhood in Germany until the day her father, wanted by the Nazis, has to leave the country.
Anna’s subsequent narrative outlines the repressions affecting Jewish life on a daily basis. She encounters public events such as the staged book burnings and the daily propaganda that perpetuated falsehoods about Jews. As such, it is an excellent – though hard-hitting – way to introduce a younger readership to the prejudices and reprisals Jews were increasingly subjected to in Nazi Germany.
Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl (1947) is probably the one Holocaust book most people have heard of. It charts the two years Anne and her family spent in hiding in Amsterdam.
The book is often praised for its positive and hopeful message. It is, however, vital that even young readers are made aware of the fact that the Franks were eventually discovered by the Nazis, deported to Auschwitz and from there to Bergen-Belsen, where Anne tragically died in early 1945.
Survivor accounts are generally the best way to learn about the Holocaust. Older teenagers could read Elie Wiesel’s outstanding Night (1958). It describes, in a dispassionate voice, Wiesel’s experiences of being deported from his home town of Sighet in what is now Romania, first to Auschwitz and from there to Buchenwald.
Wiesel lost his father, mother and youngest sister in the Holocaust and dedicated his life to Holocaust education. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1986. If anybody plans to read just one book on the Holocaust, it should probably be this one.
Some young readers might be reluctant to read such hard-hitting accounts by witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust. They might be persuaded to engage with the topic, though, through Art Spiegelman’s seminal graphic novel Maus.
Spiegelman’s book recounts the story of his father Vladek and mother Anja, who both survived Nazi concentration camps. He uses the imagery of an animal fable by depicting his Jewish characters as mice who are chased by the Nazi cats. While this is potentially a distancing device to soften the impact of his illustrations, it also helps Spiegelman to pass critical comments on the Nazis’ notorious attempts to classify people into strictly segregated groups.
Maus made it back into the bestseller lists in January 2022 when a County School Board in Tennessee controversially banned it from its classrooms and libraries. Censorship is not yet a thing of the past – and it is, maybe, especially the people making decisions about education who ought to read these texts.
Using literature as a tool to augment Holocaust teaching in secondary schools might be a good way to further pupils’ learning and understanding not just of the Holocaust, but of the ideologies, populism and propaganda that lay behind it – and how to identify similar narratives that are, worryingly, on the rise again in the world around them.
Christine Berberich does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
A few weeks ago, I wrote for The Conversation to try to explain why so many men get away with rape. It is now clear that one of those men was a London police officer, PC David Carrick.
Carrick has admitted to more than 40 offences of rape and false imprisonment committed against a dozen women over the past 20 years, and has now been dismissed as a police officer.
Like Wayne Couzens, the former PC who murdered Sarah Everard, Carrick was selected through a recruitment procedure meant to weed out any “bad apples” before they could poison the barrel. Both were supposedly vetted and psychologically assessed to enable them to carry deadly firearms.
There were plenty of prior indications that Carrick and Couzens were dangerous men, patently unfit to be police officers. Your mates don’t nickname you “bastard Dave” (as boasted by Carrick) or “the rapist” (Couzens) for nothing. Yet their notoriety among colleagues did not seem to warrant the attention of the Met professional standards directorate, whose job it is to monitor and improve the health of the organisation in terms of integrity and corruption.
The first line of defence against criminals like Carrick and Couzens being able to join a police force is initial recruitment vetting. There are three levels of vetting for police officers, the most advanced only being required for very senior officers or counter-terrorism posts.
For most regular officers, the only vetting takes place when they are recruited. It mainly relies on the applicant filling in an extensive form, giving details about family members, financial affairs, criminal convictions, previous addresses and employment history. The force recruiting department then checks various databases for any criminal convictions or police intelligence entries (such as arrests or allegations where no action was taken). Having minor convictions will not necessarily bar someone from becoming a police officer.
Following Carrick, the Home Office has now instructed police forces to check their existing staff against these national databases.
The vetting process is rather passive – much reliance is placed on self-declaration, rather than proactive work to establish how an individual acts and thinks in their private life. There is no deep background check, no interviewing friends, colleagues and family, no visiting the applicant at home, or conducting an invasive social media screen.
Once an applicant has been accepted into the police, it is entirely possible that they could continue for their whole service (perhaps 35 years) with no further vetting.
Some forces require mandatory updates every ten years or when the officer moves to a different post. Carrick reportedly went through further vetting to become a firearms officer, and it is likely this would focus mainly on psychological profiling. Knowing now that he was in fact a violent sexual predator suggests there are limitations to this extra vetting.
In each of the UK’s 45 police forces, a professional standards department (PSD) is the front line against breaches of integrity that fall short of criminal behaviour. They should maintain an intelligence database which includes details of every complaint or allegation of misconduct made against officers and other police staff. The Met police are now investigating 1,000 sexual and domestic abuse claims involving its officers. The force PSD will examine these for evidence to dismiss officers for gross misconduct in proven cases.
Since a 1999 report on police integrity, PSDs have been urged to conduct robust investigations into allegations of officer misconduct. This is the case even if the evidence falls short of being able to charge an officer with a crime (such as a rape victim withdrawing their statement).
And, since 2004, the independent police oversight body in England and Wales, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), has had investigatory powers under the law. The IOPC (and similar bodies in Scotland and Northern Ireland) investigates the most serious allegations against police officers, providing it becomes aware of the case. The Charing Cross scandal – where officers used misogynistic slurs, rape jokes, insults and racist comments in a WhatsApp group – is an example of their work. The IOPC also maintains a confidential whistleblowing hotline for officers and staff to report concerns of misconduct or a criminal offence.
In the Carrick case, it appears that there was ample intelligence available to warrant a robust, proactive investigation by the force PSD into potential misconduct, even if women who initially complained of rape withdrew from the investigation. The IOPC is now reviewing why the Met failed to sack Carrick despite him being reported to police for sexual or domestic violence on no fewer than nine occasions. Their findings will hopefully tell us whether all possible steps were taken by the Met to thoroughly investigate this criminal.
Asked to comment on the PSD’s role in monitoring Carrick over the years, the Met pointed The Conversation to a public statement by Met Commissioner Mark Rowley. The commissioner said: “We failed as investigators where we should have been more intrusive and joined the dots on this repeated misogyny over a couple of decades.”
Carrick was able to avoid a criminal conviction for years despite multiple allegations and complaints. But getting rid of a bad police officer does not require them to be convicted in court.
Officers in England and Wales are meant to uphold standards of professional behaviour, including honesty and integrity, not acting in discreditable conduct, and challenging and reporting improper behaviour by colleagues.
Carrick’s behaviour was clearly in breach of those first two standards. Arguably, his colleagues who suspected that he was bad may have been in breach of the third.
Officers who breach these standards could be subject to dismissal by a misconduct tribunal. Here, the standard of proof is held at the civil, rather than criminal, standard. That means the panel must decide “on the balance of probabilities it is more likely than not” that the officer is guilty of misconduct.
It is hard to understand why the Met PSD did not gather enough evidence to put Carrick before a misconduct tribunal. The force lead for professional standards, Assistant Commissioner Barbara Gray, accepts the police were deficient and missed investigative opportunities. A contrast perhaps with a smaller police force who, as soon as a whistleblowing officer alerted their PSD to colleagues making racist and homophobic comments, set up a complex covert investigation using listening devices to gather the necessary evidence to root out and dismiss those guilty of misconduct.
Part of the challenge may be the Met’s size. It is four times larger than any other UK police force and perhaps the deep-rooted culture of misogyny is just impossible for senior leaders to eradicate. It is time to seriously ask why the Met should not be broken up into a few manageable forces, mirroring every other English force in terms of size and governance structure.
The concept of “policing by consent” is what holds the whole system of police and public trust together. If the public loses faith in the integrity of officers, then they will not assist the police when it matters.
John Fox does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
When he appeared before the UK’s House of Commons Defence Committee in November 2021 to defend his government’s cuts to the armed forces, the then prime minister, Boris Johnson, declared that “the old concepts of fighting big tank battles on European land mass are over”. Committee chairman Tobias Elwood noted that it was tanks that were massing on Russia’s border with Ukraine, while the UK was cutting back its own fleet.
Just over a year later, the ferocious armoured battles in Ukraine during 11 months of conflict appear to confirm Elwood’s concerns. For some time Ukraine has been begging allies for more and better weapons systems such as long-range artillery and aircraft.
But high on that list have been main battle tanks (MBTs). Tanks, with their big guns, speed and heavy armour, provide the sheer punch and momentum to take ground. Until now, apart from some gifts from Poland and the Czech Republic of Soviet-designed but modified (by Czech and Polish engineers respeictively) T72 tanks, none had been forthcoming from Nato countries.
But on January 16 this changed, with an announcement by the UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, of the transfer of 12 of Britain’s 227 Challenger 2 tanks.
These are highly effective and superior to most of what Russia can field. But thus far there will be too few to make a significant difference.
Ukraine’s stock of MBTs is likely to be boosted if Germany, as is thought likely, gives the go-ahead for Polish and Finnish-owned, but German-made Leopard tanks to go to Ukraine. This will lead the way for several other countries to follow suit.
The relatively old Leopard 2 A4 variants which the Ukrainians will be receiving are not war-winners, especially in the numbers likely to be transferred. But, more importantly for Ukraine’s security, they represent a step-change in western support and a move towards equipping Ukraine with ever-more sophisticated Nato gear.
Germany and the US recently announced they would be sending Marder and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) to Ukraine. IFVs carry infantry troops into battle. While there is no doubt that these are effective in themselves, they are not designed to work alone.
This is where tanks come in. Early in the war, Russia lost hundreds of them to anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) fired by infantry, including the iconic Javelin and NLAW. Tank crews, encased as they are in a very heavy steel box, often find it difficult to see these troops, which puts them at a huge disadvantage.
So the best way to protect tanks from infantry with ATGMs is to bring your own infantry with you. You do that in IFVs such as the Bradley and Marder. These are equipped with automatic cannons and machine guns to provide covering fire for the infantry when they dismount.
In turn these more lightly-armoured IFVs are vulnerable to tanks. So IFVs and tanks, working closely together and liaising with artillery are essential for effective “combined arms warfare” – the key to success in land battles.
The idea appears to be that several Nato countries will pool their gifts to create a brigade including 100 2A4s as well as the 100 or so Bradleys and Marders.
The Leopard 2A4s were built from 1986 to 1992 (although they have been extensively upgraded since) – they are old, but will be effective against Russia’s tank fleet. But unless modified with additional armour these tanks are likely to be vulnerable to ATGMs, as Turkey found out to its cost in Syria.
Nato tanks are heavier and better protected than the Russian designs operated by both sides in this war such as the many variants of T64 T72 and T90. This reflects a traditional Nato focus on quality over quantity.
Reliable estimates say that Russia has lost about two-thirds of the tanks it has used in Ukraine, either destroyed or captured. But Russia’s newer tanks will be a threat, such as the T90M a design first publicly revealed in 2017 (and which is said to [be used by the Wagner mercenary group]. In any event, tank-on-tank battles are rare – the biggest killer of tanks in this war is likely to be artillery.
This is a significant moment. The importance of Ukraine’s new tanks lies not in their more than adequate combat effectiveness. Rather the Leopard 2A4s, alongside the Bradley and Marder IFVs represent a commitment from the west to reform and rearm the Ukrainian army in the medium and long-term, moving on from an understandingly ad-hoc approach to weapons transfer and supply early in the war to a more carefully devised battle plan incorporating the new military hardware.
The Ukrainians have asked for 300 western tanks and 500 IFVs as well as no fewer than 700 new artillery systems. They believe that this will give them the combat power to liberate their occupied lands. It is more likely now that they will get them.
Over the next year or two, regardless of what form the war takes, Ukraine will need to rearm with Nato-standard weapons systems. These will include – but not be limited to – newer versions of the Leopard or other Nato tanks in ever larger numbers. This will assure not only the quantity but also the quality of the equipment available to them and allow Ukraine to be incorporated more efficiently into Nato and other western logistics and maintenance systems. While Ukraine is unlikely to join Nato as a political member for many years (if ever), its army will look very much like a Nato force.
In addition to this, the key will be continuing high-quality training in the use of this new gear. Ukraine will not only have the capability to defeat the increasingly outfought Russian army this year and next – but its armed forces will be a deterrent to any further attack by a rearmed, revanchist Russia in the future.
It will ensure Ukraine’s – and therefore Europe’s – security well into the next decade.
Frank Ledwidge is a visiting fellow at the Kyiv Transatlantic Dialogue Center
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