At a time when we’re constantly told America is mired in “tribal hatred”, says Andrew Sullivan on Substack, what a joy the World Cup is proving. You don’t have to care about football to get a lump in your throat watching Colombian fans going quiet so that a lone Congo supporter can sing his national anthem, then erupting into applause at the end. Or to marvel at the Norwegians performing their collective Viking “row” on the New York subway, or the giant party thrown in Seattle by fans of Bosnia-Herzegovina and, yes, Qatar. Best of all were the Scots in Boston. The kilts wowed the locals, the beer flowed “pathologically”, and throngs of blootered Scotsmen “somehow never turned violent for the first time in recorded history”.

Then there have been the scenes from America’s heartlands. The small-town sheriff in Texas who rescued Swedes stranded in a busted RV. The 300 Americans in Kansas who waited for hours in the rain to cheer the arrival of the Algerian team. European visitors cannot stop gushing about how nice everyone is: one Frenchman at Costco marvelled that 20 strangers had said “Hi” to him. “If you did that in France,” he said, “you would get shot.” Visiting fans are falling for barbecue chicken and ranch dressing, for gigantic Walmarts and endless Taco Bells, for giant flags everywhere. This is “arguably the biggest PR victory for America since Obama’s first election”. And no wonder. The US, like the World Cup, is a “stupendous achievement of multicultural energy and fun”. And co-hosting the tournament is providing a timely reminder that the deepening of our tribal divides isn’t inevitable – that the human spirit, given the right moment, can instead rise above them. “Spectacularly.”

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In Britain’s political and commentating classes, says Simon Jenkins in The Guardian, views on the correct level of defence spending range from “more” to “far more”. This is nonsense. If anything, we should spend less on defence, and more on domestic matters like boosting employment and growth. Yes, Russia is fighting in Ukraine and Europe’s generals are trying to sell the idea that Vladimir Putin’s army is preparing to march across the continent “by 2029”. Even taking this absurd suggestion at face value, the idea that we in Britain should respond with a hefty boost to general defence spending is laughable.

There is simply no evidence Russia has evil designs on Britain, nor that a large deployment of troops and kit would be a good way to discourage the mischief Putin is making. Our borders need to be properly secured, as do our airwaves and other electronic communications. But against the pesky counterintelligence agencies of China and Russia, large-scale military spending is “no deterrent”. It was as far back as 1961 that President Eisenhower warned of the dangers of letting the Military Industrial Complex set the terms of defence politics. We’ve learnt nothing. When David Cameron tried to can the second of two vastly over-expensive aircraft carriers, he was told it would cost more to scrap than to finish. The 600 clearly defective Ajax tanks we’ve ordered are years overdue and easily destroyed by drones. Speaking at a defence conference in London last week, Nato’s deputy allied commander, Air Chief ‌Marshal Sir Johnny Stringer, said what was needed were mass-produced, low-cost drones and interceptors, not “high-end, expensive platforms that can take years to produce”. He’s spot on. Now, will anyone listen?

“The longer I live, the more convinced am I that this planet is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum.”
George Bernard Shaw

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