JAMES WALSH is moved by a provocative and original take on the relationship between ecology and architecture, and a plea to work with, not against, the materials and minerals of our world
The Spoils of War: Power, Profit and the American War Machine
by Andrew Cockburn
Verso £15.96
WHEN the Financial Times recently reported that China had successfully launched an untraceable, nuclear-capable “hypersonic” missile, the news spread across Western media like a virus.
It was great timing for the US Air Force, coming as the Biden administration undertakes the Nuclear Posture Review, which will now almost certainly slosh even more arms dollars on modernising their bloated ballistic arsenal.
But the timing was also great for Andrew Cockburn, who devotes an entire chapter of this book to the largely spurious hypersonic “threat.”
Expanding Britain’s nuclear capability increases the risk of nuclear confrontation. It does not keep us safe – it makes us a target, argues CAROL TURNER
Tehran retaliates with attacks on Israel, the Gulf Arab states and crude oil flows
A US air strike in north-west Nigeria, publicly framed as a Christmas act of counterterrorism, reveals a deeper shift in how power is exercised in Africa, argues RAIS NEZA BONEZA



