‘I’ve covered 40 wars and I’ve never seen a year as worrying as 2025’

With the exception of the Cold War (1947–1991), most of the conflicts I have covered as a journalist over the years have been smaller-scale: violent and dangerous, to be sure, but not serious enough to threaten world peace. Some, such as the Vietnam War (1955-1975), the First Gulf War (1990–1991) and the Kosovo War (1998–1999), at times seemed on the verge of something much worse, but never crossed that threshold.