Emeritus professor of international politics
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12 July, 2026. All main British political parties have said they’re not wasting their time in supporting the Reform UK stunt by its leader Nigel Farage to see off ‘the Establishment’ by re-running for his seat at Clacton-on-Sea. But Count Binface is mounting a real challenge. The post Count Binface: Today Clacton, tomorrow the US State Department? appeared first on G. R. Berridge .
2 June, 2026. As in Trump’s first term as US president, so even more so in his second, the Department of State has been shorn of offices that were politically out of favour, bypassed elsewhere, and generally demoralised and run down. But it is not alone among foreign ministries, especially those of so-called ‘strongman’ states. The post Pity the Foreign Ministry appeared first on G. R. Berridge .
1 April, 2026. An unreliable ally, which the USA under Trump's deranged, amoral, Putin-friendly, fascist-leaning leadership obviously has been for a long time, is worse than useless. The post Trump thinking of leaving NATO? Good riddance. appeared first on G. R. Berridge .
25 March, 2026. Jonathan Powell is UK prime minister Sir Keir Starmer’s ‘National Security Adviser’, in practice more accurately described as his foreign policy adviser. He is well qualified to help get Trump out of the mess into which he has got himself over Iran, and it is quite possible that his services will be called upon, even if only indirectly. The post The importance of Jonathan Powell to…
31 January, 2026. My latest publication, called Ambassadors, Journalists and Spies: From ancient Greece to the present day, is now available from DiploFoundation. All earnings from its sales will go to this non-profit organization, created in 2002 by the governments of Malta and Switzerland, as an expression of my gratitude for its support for this website over many years. The simplest way for me…
27 January, 2026. I heard this phrase for the first time way back in the late 1960s in a report from a friend about a fiery seminar debate between political sociologists in which a visiting speaker accused someone who attacked him of having this disposition. Since then I have often had occasion to observe it, particularly on the part of politicians at extreme ends of the political spectrum. But…
23 January, 2026. Since rightly being denied the Nobel Peace Prize, President Trump has childishly avowed a greater interest in the exciting use of military power, most recently and idiotically in regard to the proposed annexation of Ice … sorry, Greenland, where the USA already has treaty rights to create bases. Perhaps thinking he might need to re-balance and simultaneously come up with another…
Zeki Kuneralp, Diplomatic Notebooks III, 1964–1966, The First London Years, ed. Sinan Kuneralp (The Isis Press: Istanbul, 2020); and Diplomatic Notebooks V, 1969–1972, The Second London Years, ed. Sinan Kuneralp (The Isis Press: Istanbul, 2025) Zeki Kuneralp, a career diplomat, was a major figure in the Turkish foreign service, whose most important postings other [...] The post Diplomatic…
10 December, 2025. As a long time supporter of the Arsenal, I’d been toying with this idea for some time. It became a firm decision after reading in The Guardian that football is on a rising tide of popularity in the USA and that the electrifying Zohran Mamdani, democratic socialist mayor-elect of New York, is a fellow supporter of the Gunners. The post Why I’ve put the Arsenal’s logo on the…
7 December, 2015. Release of the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, November 2025, confirms that it’s the huge American Embassy in London that the Labour Government in the UK should be more worried about than the planned new Chinese Embassy. The post It’s not the Chinese but the US Embassy in London the UK should be worried about appeared first on G. R. Berridge .
4 November, 2025. There has been so much going wrong in international diplomacy since Trump2.0 was inaugurated that I have been driven into silence for want of knowing where to start commenting. However, having learned what happened at a recent IMO meeting I can maintain this Trappist posture no longer. The post US bullying at IMO meeting appeared first on G. R. Berridge .
Jovan Kurbalija: History of Diplomacy and Technology: From smoke signals to artificial intelligence, 2nd edition (DiploFoundation: Geneva, 2025) Methodologically inspired by the French Annales School of historiography and determinedly reaching beyond Europe, the author of this book has nevertheless produced a work that has rarely sacrificed important detail to breadth of focus. Its general thesis…
17 September, 2025 Britain should not be betting its prosperity and national security on payments to an extortionist. The post Rafael Behr on the UK and Donald Trump appeared first on G. R. Berridge .
25 May, 2025. Obviously, Trump should leave Ukraine and Gaza diplomacy to the experts. The post Good advice for Trump from Simon Tisdall appeared first on G. R. Berridge .
17 April, 2025. Trump’s America is a hostile environment for foreign students. Those wishing to study for a degree in an English-speaking country should look at universities in the UK, Canada or Australia. The post Foreign students shouldn’t take risks with Trump’s America appeared first on G. R. Berridge .
14 April, 2025. The survival of ‘British Steel’ at Scunthorpe – Chinese-owned, thanks to Boris Johnson – is on a knife-edge. For the future of the town and national security, everything possible should be done to keep its blast furnaces going. The post Up the Iron! appeared first on G. R. Berridge .
30 March, 2025. With US-South Africa relations already at a low ebb, on 26 March 2025 the Trump administration announced the appointment of a ridiculously unsuited individual as the new American ambassador to Pretoria. It was widely assumed in the press that this merely needed Senate confirmation, but it might not be as straightforward as that, and certainly should not be. The post New American…
1 March, 2025. On 28 February, the televised ambush of President Zelenskyy in the White House by President Trump and his attack dog, J. D. Vance, vividly illustrates three fundamental lessons of diplomacy. First, leave negotiations to the professionals. Second, conduct these negotiations in private in order to minimise the risk of sabotage by interested outside parties. Third, if sufficiently…
27 February, 2025. The spin coming out of Moscow that Trump is 'restoring' diplomatic contacts with Russia is rubbish. They might be expanding in personnel terms but they were never broken off. The post US and Russia restoring diplomatic ties? appeared first on G. R. Berridge .
23 February, 2025. In the chapter on secret intelligence in my Diplomacy: Theory and Practice I endorse the common assumption that international ‘liaisons’ and especially formal ‘alliances’ between intelligence agencies have the added value of discreetly supporting diplomatic relationships when these become strained. Unfortunately for NATO, the seismic political changes in Washington are probably…