First, welcome to new readers who’ve signed up over the past week - more than 1,200 of you. We’re now past 34,500, in 159 countries, which makes us one of the most popular substacks based outside the US.
You can find out more about what we do, and who we are, on our about page. But the quick version is that this is a father and son substack. Lawrence is Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College, London, and author of many books on strategy and military history. He focuses on conflicts around the world and particularly Ukraine.
Sam is a senior fellow at the Institute for Government, and former government adviser. He writes about UK policy and politics. We tend to alternate, though when a big story breaks in either field, as over the past weekend, one of us may write more than the other for a bit.
Paying subscribers get 4-6 paywalled posts a month, usually including a guest post from people like former UK ambassador to Russia Roderic Lyne. Or this one covering artificial intelligence by former Head of Global Policy at DeepMind, Verity Harding. You can move to a paid subscription by clicking this link:
Over the last eighteeen months since we started we’ve tried various ways to hold Q+As with readers. This time we’re going to try a mailbag approach. If you are a paid subscriber you can ask us questions to either (or both) of us in the comments - on any topic. We’ll pick our favourite ones (or at least ones we can answer) and publish a post with responses next week.
As ever, huge thanks to those of you who have signed up, and particularly those who’ve taken out a paid sub, without which we wouldn’t be able to do this.
Hi both
For Sam - more an article suggestion than a question but I would be interested to see your thoughts on how a Labour Government might succeed/fail. Specifically if you assume they have won next year's election with a workable majority (say 40 odd), two descriptions of how events might unfold over the subsequent four/five years - one where things go mostly right and they cruise to re-election, and one where things don't go so well and they end up as a one term government.
For Lawrence - if, as we hope, Russia loses the war in Ukraine, what impact/ramifications (if any) might this have for all the countries around the world that have tacitly or explicitly taken their side in this conflict?
Thanks
Alex
I just wanted to thank you for one of the most thought provoking blogs. I always look forward to the excellent analysis of both the father and the son.