Peter Apps

Hello! My next book "The Next World War: The New Age of Global Conflict and the Fight to Stop it" is out on January 29 from @headlinepg. Here are the top ten questions I've had about the book in recent weeks… amazon.co.uk/Next-World-War…

In a parallel universe Labour would be talking about economic growth outperforming expectations and being revised upwards this year, NHS waiting lists hitting the lowest in 3.5 years and - just now - net migration halving last year to 171,000. Instead they’re in crisis.

Hugely flattering comment – thank you John!

Speaking at Progress conference, Wes Streeting is scathing about the government he has just left. “We then had a dishonest leadership contest, followed by an overcautiousness in opposition. Interesting policy ideas couldn't be floated because we were too afraid of what the Tories might say, so we said nothing. Instead of a willingness to challenge ideas and kick the tyres, debate was viewed as division and shut down. As a result, we arrived in government underprepared in too many areas and lacking clarity of vision and direction.”

That this is a bigger deal than Europe was expecting, particularly with the apparent cancellation of an imminent deployment of US troops to Poland politico.com/news/2026/05/1…

Finally, either @louismosley or his handlers have ditched the black shirt, an unforced error (amongst several) with enormous implications for the trust in which @PalantirTech is held at a time with colossal implications…

BREAKING: Sweden's Supreme Commander Michael Claesson, in an interview with SVT, warned that Russia may test NATO sooner than the one to five year window most alliance security services have been working with. Claesson stressed the window is now while NATO is still rearming and before defenses reach their intended strength. Claesson emphasized that Russia cannot defeat NATO militarily, so the target is alliance cohesion. He warned about a potential strike on a Baltic island not to seize territory, but to test whether every NATO member would respond to an attack on one of them. He stressed that such an operation would not require troops from Ukraine. A smaller, limited move would be enough to run that test. When asked directly when Russia might be ready he answered with one word: "Now." He added: "They know the entire Western world is getting ready. Why would one wait to exploit perceived vulnerabilities?" Asked if it sounds dangerous, Claesson did not soften it. "Yes, it is clear that it is dangerous." He stressed that Sweden and its neighbors must continue rearming, training, and maintaining readiness persistently over time. On the Baltic Sea, he pointed to Russia's growing shadow fleet and tightening escorts around those vessels as a direct and growing source of escalation risk. Asked whether the situation is worse than a few years ago Claesson said yes.

NATO is not – quite – a "Paper Tiger" as @realDonaldTrump has put it. But whatever creature it might be, so much of its central nervous system in particular is US made that the alliance has a problem. My latest YouTube video youtube.com/watch?v=UVPcub…

That doesn't mean the young Kennedy wasn't right then and isn't right now: the question, as he correctly identified in 1951, is the future of Germany… And we might finally be getting a significant change on that front…

The problem with an actual "factory reset", of course, is that you end up being stuck in this speech by a young Congressman Jack F Kennedy in 1951 demanding limits to US troop contributions in an argument that has never ended since… jfklibrary.org/archives/other…

This is a sharp rhetorical twist that just about ties together what was increasingly looking like wildly mixed messaging between US commanders in Europe and Washington. The US wants to stay in charge, but is "resetting" its military commitments…

I am not totally certain that the Channel Islands story is the one that I would choose to highlight how well British public servants can cooperate with foreign counterparts…

A masterful turn of Atlantic nonsensical hyperbole. Drawing down 5,000 troops is not the end of the West. It’s a return to pre-2022 levels at a time when Germany is standing up in a big way, & those forces could well shift east, which would be a net benefit to NATO & deterrence.

China just sentenced TWO former Defense Ministers to death. Wei Fenghe & Li Shangfu, both heads of the world’s largest military, found guilty of bribery by a military court. Death with a 2-year reprieve. Effectively life in prison with no parole. Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption purge just reached its most dramatic moment yet.

@haynesdeborah Beyond the headlines about frigates and Donald Trump, the real risk profile rises from 2029 with a new US president and a China and Russia that may have solved some of the current military difficulties. Read my book for my guide to the bigger picture amazon.co.uk/Next-World-War…

@haynesdeborah In reality, though, the question is actually pretty simple – once money is unlocked, have ministers and senior officials got to the point where it can be spent quickly and effectively… x.com/haynesdeborah/…

My wildly unpopular opinion is that IF the time in the middle has been used for sensible acquisition reform rather than just complaining then this may one day be seen as an actually sensible delay…

Having spoken to a senior Saudi official about the NBC article regarding Project Freedom, I honestly think the article completely misunderstood what actually happened because it was written almost entirely from a US perspective rather than from a GCC perspective. First of all, contrary to the impression being created, the GCC were NOT blindsided by Project Freedom. They knew about it beforehand. Roughly half a day before. The airspace was opened. The facilities were available. Nobody objected. There was broad support for the idea because, at least publicly, Project Freedom was supposed to be a limited humanitarian-security operation aimed at relieving the 22,000 sailors trapped around Hormuz and allowing shipping lanes to breathe again. Nobody in the GCC had a problem with that. But here is the issue .. and this is the part the NBC article completely misses. If you are asking GCC countries to participate in such an operation, then you need to be upfront about the rules of engagement from day one! You cannot say:
“Please open your skies and bases, expose your energy infrastructure” …only for everyone to discover afterwards that the actual American policy was apparently: “Oh by the way, if Iran attacks you with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones in several waves, we still won’t retaliate because Donald Trump is busy chasing The Deal.” And this is exactly what shocked the Saudis. Not the Iranian attack itself. The UAE/GCC expected retaliation.. This is Iran. Nobody in the Gulf is naïve about that anymore. The shock came from the American reaction afterwards. You had attacks against Emirati infrastructure. Fujairah was targeted. Multiple waves involving drones, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles. And Washington’s response was basically:
“Meh. Minor incident. Let’s not escalate.” Minor incident?! For the GCC that was madness. Because what Riyadh, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi suddenly realized was that Trump’s obsession with preserving “The Deal” had apparently reached the point where Gulf energy infrastructure was now considered acceptable collateral damage in the pursuit of his precious negotiations. Everything became:
The deal.
The deal.
The beautiful deal.
The greatest deal.
The mother of all deals. The ultimate “Art of the deal” Or perhaps, more accurately:
The ultimate fart of the deal. Because from the Gulf perspective, this stopped looking like strategy and started looking like desperate political vanity mixed with deadly wishful thinking. Had the GCC been told beforehand:
“Listen, whatever Iran does to you during Project Freedom, America will not retaliate because we do not want to endanger negotiations…” …they would have almost certainly refused participation from the start. The problem was not Project Freedom itself. The problem was discovering midway through the operation that the GCC countries were apparently expected to sit there quietly as punching bags while Washington played negotiation theatrics with Tehran. So the Saudis and Kuwaitis pulled plug! Because the GCC know something US usually forgets: Iran plays the long game. You can freeze enrichment.
Pause enrichment.
Delay enrichment.
Sign ten agreements.
Twenty agreements.
Forty agreements. But if the infrastructure remains…
If the centrifuges remain…
If the IRGC remains…
If the proxy network remains… then eventually the game resumes. There will be another distraction.
Another pandemic.
Another financial crisis.
Another war somewhere else.
Another paralysis in Washington. And while the world is distracted, enrichment quietly resumes again. Ironically, much of Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile expanded during the pandemic years precisely because global attention was elsewhere. Judging by the reaction to the UAE attacks, the Saudis and Kuwaitis concluded that Trump’s version of deterrence had become: “Please absorb the missiles quietly because I’m trying to write the sequel to “The Fart of the Deal.”

For @intelligence2 I joined @pete_apps to discuss his excellent new book, The Next World War, and chew over how, when and if a new global conflict will erupt. Available to listen now, and Peter's book is highly recommended megaphone.link/NSR8668086402

“The Chinese will take seriously any request the Americans make of them.” @Reuters' @pete_apps tells #F24Spotlight Beijing may consider US pressure to help reopen the #StraitofHormuz if Washington "backs off on Taiwan" ➡️france24.com/en/tv-shows/sp…