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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 important, employ heads of state and government to announce any agreement.

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.

23 February, 2015. 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 undermining the Five Eyes’ alliance itself; this embraces the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

19 February, 2025. Prenegotiations are so-called because they are procedural and therefore generally come before the first stage of substantive negotiations; unless, of course, the lead negotiator of one of the parties is a self-confessed genius, has a conception of diplomacy that is entirely theatrical and is in a hurry. Thus the publicized phone call by Trump to Putin immediately preceding the US-Russian talks about talks on Ukraine (and other matters) at foreign minister level in Riyadh on 18 February 2025.

26 January 2025. The silver lining in any prolonged episode of shocking, large-scale violence such as the one being seen in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon at the moment is that it challenges long-fixed political positions and thereby offers hope for an eventual diplomatic solution. And it should be obvious to all impartial observers of the Israel-Palestine conflict that a solution must in due course be urgently sought.