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Ian Proud

Ian Proud was a member of HM Diplomatic Service from 1999 to 2023. From July 2014 to February 2019 Ian was posted to the British Embassy in Moscow. He was also Director of the Diplomatic Academy for Eastern Europe and Central Asia and Vice-Chairman of the Board of the Anglo-American School of Moscow.
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More people, fewer Germans, less agency and no growth is the toxic cocktail that J D Vance has laid bare.


The war in Ukraine has prompted Eurocrats in Brussels to force a binary choice on Serbia – ‘you’re either with us or with Russia’.


In 1997, veteran U.S. diplomat George Kennan stated that ‘expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American foreign policy in the entire post-Cold War era’.


European and British leaders need to get behind real negotiations, Ian Proud writes.


L’Unione Europea non esisterà nel 2040 se continuerà a centralizzare i poteri a scapito degli Stati Membri sovrani.


Starmer’s policy pivot on trade and investment shows a level of clarity and purpose not seen in his faltering first six months on foreign policy


The European Union won’t exist in 2040 if it continues to centralise powers at the expense of sovereign Member States.


The idea that NATO has clear and immutable values that are embraced with equal vigour by every Member State is a fantasy.


America, with all its well-meaning missionary intent, is making the world less safe through its misplaced and ill-thought through interventions.


The best way to prevent future conflict with Russia is to exact a price, remove blank cheques, close all doors while leaving them open to a possible reconciliation at some future point in the past.