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The Monocle Daily
ICE in Europe, Nato’s role in Afghanistan and the future of transatlantic co-operation
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You're listening to the Monocle Daily, first broadcast on 28th January, 2026 on Monocle Radio.
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If foreigners are less welcome in the United States, will Americans be less welcome elsewhere? Does the European Union need a sort of premier league of its biggest economies? And how the hot toy of the Chinese New Year was invented by accident. I'm Andrew Muller. The Monocle Daily starts now. Foreign. Hello and welcome to the Monocle Daily. Coming to you from our studios here at Midori House in London. I'm Andrew Muller. My guests are Sir William Patey and Tessa Shishkovitz will discuss today's big stories. And our on this Day historical series will contemplate the portion of Cuba which is forever the United States. Stay tuned. All that and more coming up right here on the Monocle Daily. This is the Monocle Daily. I'm Andrew Muller and I am joined today by Sir William Patey, former British ambassador to Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and by Tessa Shashkovitz, UK correspondent for the Austrian weekly magazine Falter and author of Echte Englander Britain and Brexit. Hello to you both.
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A
Hello. Good evening.
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C
Good to be here.
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B
Both very well dressed. I mean, not to say you both usually not, but both very well dressed tonight because you are both off to different fancy embassy receptions later this evening. But let's talk a bit about where you've been more recently. William, you are just back from Riyadh.
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C
I was, Yeah. I was there with a company called Control Risks trying to predict the future.
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B
Okay. What's going to happen?
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C
Well, it's going to be very complicated. And you have to engage companies like Control Risk to make sure you can manage it. That was a general conclusion.
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B
So it's going to be very complicated. How much are they paying you for these insights?
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C
Oh, not enough. Not enough.
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B
And more to the point, where can I I get a piece of that? But this obviously is a place in which you worked as Her Majesty's at the time. Representative. How has Riyadh or Riyadh's, perhaps more interestingly Riyadh's view of the world shifted since you were there?
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C
Well, it shifted a bit. It's less reliant on the United States as an ally, but has a comfortable relationship with the United States. They understand somebody like Trump, they can give him contracts and pay him money and they'll get the transactions they want. But they're beginning to realign themselves now. The talk of an alliance with Turkey and Pakistan is a new regional alignment. They have a sort of strategic rivalry at the moment with the uae in which they used to have a very close relationship. So we've got Saudi Arabia and the UAE at loggerheads over Yemen, over Sudan, to a lesser extent over Libya. And on strategic investment, they're both trying to attract the same group of investors to their own countries. So that's a new phenomenon.
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B
Tessie, you have been prowling the corridors of power here in London. And as the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, arrives in Beijing, you source aspects of that relationship being discussed in Parliament.
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A
Yeah, Ian Duncan Smith was making fun of Keir Starmer changing in the British Embassy in Beijing in a special tent, because they are afraid that he will be. That will sort of taking audio. Video footage of him by all the monitoring they do, even in the British Embassy. But the Westminster palace seemed rather quiet this afternoon, compared maybe to many other places in the world. But it's still sort of the big question, I mean, how the UK looks for alliances outside of the special relationship to the U.S. and so the trip of Keir Starmer to China is probably not the worst idea after all, even if Ian Duncan Smith doesn't think so.
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Well, on the subject of the transatlantic alliance, we are going to start with that, or what remains of it, after a period in which the United States has threatened to invade a European nation and the US President went out of his way to insult the European soldiers who answered America's call on the single occasion that Article 5 of the NATO treaty has ever been invoked. What with all that and recent events in Minneapolis where two citizens have been shot dead in the street by masked employees of the state, Joy has been restrained at the news that the US Plans to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE agents to Italy to help with American security arrangements during the imminent Winter Olympics. William, as a professional diplomat yourself, what do you make of the outreach of the mayor of Milan, Bepe Salah, who said, of course they're not welcome?
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C
Well, I think it's amazing that the US has to rely on ICE agents to further their diplomatic protection. I would have thought they have that already. And separately, I understand that these ICE agents will be located inside the U.S. consulate in Milan and won't be allowed out. That's good news for the people of Milan. I imagine even ICE agents realize that their ability to arrest or shoot citizens on the streets of Milan is even less than the authority to do it in Minneapolis. So it is surprising. But I believe that they are in a backroom capacity.
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Tessa, in further diplomatic outreach on this issue, we heard from Antonio Tajani Italy's foreign minister, who tried to reassure everybody by saying it's not like the SS are coming.
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Well, I mean, the fact that he also said that it will be only Italian police being visible during the Olympic Games at least makes sure that we will see better dressed police than the last days in Minnesota and also better behaved ones, hopefully. But, of course, it's a very uncomfortable place that Giorgio Meloni finds herself in often now in the last month, because she has to balance out the interests of the Italian one industry trying to export still to the US and not getting slashed with more tariffs. And the idea of the Europeans feeling really severely disturbed by the images of US Citizens getting shot at by their own security forces in the street while protesting peacefully. And that is something that will, beyond this almost comical, tragic announcement of sending ICE agents to the Olympic Games, that will really keep us busy.
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B
But, William, do you suspect, though, that the rift might be becoming more than just cosmetic? Would there be serious questions now being conducted among European capitals along the lines of can we actually trust the Americans? Can we trust them on intelligence sharing? Can we trust them on defense? Can we trust them on all sorts of things that we have, you know, spent 80 years taking the US for granted on?
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C
These conversations are undoubtedly ongoing. I mean, I think for Britain, it's perhaps an easier conversation for France and Germany to have. It's a very difficult conversation for British security apparatus to have because we have enmeshed ourselves, the United States, since the Second World War in a way that's been very difficult to unravel. But I think the message is clear that Europe, and we shouldn't be the first to ditch NATO. You know, Trump may be gone in three years. We may get gdv, but I think there's a trend in the United States that says Europe has to have the capacity to defend itself independent of the.
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United States, which is actually not unreasonable.
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C
Not unreasonable. Not unreasonable for the Americans to ask. It could make NATO stronger, but as a absolute matter of national security, France, Germany, Britain, Spain, the Nordics, the Poles, the wider Europe needs to be capable of defending itself against its own credible enemy, which is Russia. And they're far from able to do that at the moment. And they need to start developing the independent capacities for command and control that NATO currently relies on from the United States. And this means a massive increase in defence spending. Where the money's going to come from, I don't know, but it's a matter of national survival, I think.
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Tessa, looking at the United States more closely, do you get any sense that it is beginning to dawn on more prominent members of the Trump administration. Administration that outside the fever swamps of social media events in Minneapolis are not actually playing all that well for them. Even quite a lot of conservative Americans are extremely unhappy about what has happened. We've even had the National Rifle association saying that, you know, he was exercising his Second Amendment rights by going about in public with a legally held weapon. This of course, being the most recent shooting, that one by the Border Patrol rather than ice.
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If the National Rifle association comes to defend a demonstrator, a protest in Minneapolis and attacks the administration of having lost its way, then, you know, you're in trouble. And I think that is one of the reasons why Trump toned down his whole rhetoric and pulled back. Also the most aggressive of these ICE agents. And you have a few Republican senators and a few Republican governors who have spoken out against these tragedies, which definitely has an effect also on the wider Republican Party. You have Marjorie Taylor Greene in this sort of maga, the voice of reason that she's now known, and she's now the voice within the MAGA movement, if I might say so. But she also has called on sort of rethinking what these amendments like, the right to bear arms and not be shot for it, but also freedom of speech means and all these kind of things that have been now suddenly under this authoritarian leap, been under threat. And I think this will lead also to a bigger backlash over the next months coming. Also, you know, if we make it to the midterm elections, then you will see it at the ballot, sort of results being not necessarily positive for the Trump administration. But I think it's very clear that this has gone too far for so many people, not only for us Europeans. Also, Nigel Farage said they went over the top. So that's another one who is not completely convinced that this is going in the right direction.
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C
I'm not sure if Trump cares what the Europeans think about this. I think you're quite right. It's the voices in the Republican Party and the MAGA movement and the wider American public who have forced him to back down. He could easily have dismissed European voices. We would be expected to be shocked and horrified at those events. But wider America also, well, sticking somewhat.
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With that theme, staff at the US Embassy in Copenhagen appear determined to demonstrate the truth of the quip, usually and almost certainly inaccurately attributed to Winston Churchill, to the effect that you can always rely on Americans to do the right thing after they've tried everything else. In protest at Trump's disparagement of NATO's contributions to American wars. Demonstrators planted 44 Danish flags in the US embassy's flower beds, one for every Danish soldier killed in Afghanistan, and embassy staff removed them. The flags have now reportedly been replaced and an apologetic statement issued. But Europe generally appears a distance from laughing this off. William, this was another of your postings. I spent a small amount of time myself with European and British troops in Afghanistan. I can report from personal experience that they were not merely hunkered in their barracks, never venturing outside. Quite the opposite. But in your recollection, how, like, how would you quantify the contribution America's allies made?
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C
Well, it's massive. In Denmark's case, the fallen shoulders per capita is almost the same as the United States. So that contribution alone, I mean, Britain was the next highest number of deaths and casualties after the United States, but slightly less per capita. So the Danes made a huge contribution. I mean, I used to visit Helmand and Kandahar frequently, and the Danes, the Estonians and the Brits were there on the front line. That was the toughest place. That was Sangin. That's where the Taliban were their most. Their strongest and their most effective. You know, Britain, British troops, and with their Danish and Estonian NATO allies were fighting hand to hand in places like Musa Kala. There's no American soldier who served in Afghanistan who would share President Trump's views of this. They know they were there on the front line with their comrades, and they will be as horrified. And I've heard comments by a number of American service who are horrified by the President's statements, which he has rode back to some extent following the outcry.
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Not a huge extent. He did make some sort of glowing reference to the contribution of British troops in Afghanistan, but he certainly hasn't actually said anything like the word. I'm sorry, but this applies. I think it's also worth recalling while we have you here, William, because you served there as well. This applies just as much, if not more to Iraq as well, right?
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C
Well, Iraq wasn't a NATO exercise, but you can count Britain as a NATO ally. I mean, famously, Britain has been side by side with America at every war it's ever fought, except Vietnam. And even in Vietnam, we sent Special Forces and we had intelligence sharing with them. So there's not a war in which they've been involved in that we haven't been part and parcel. So it's particularly galling for us. I can see why it's galling for the Danes, but it's fairly typical of President Trump opening his mouth without thinking and not listening, asking his advisers what the facts are before he makes these sorts of statements.
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B
He was, of course, we should remind ourselves, Tessa deprived himself of the opportunity to serve in uniform by the, the terrible and imaginary ailment of bone spurs. But there is often a theatrical quality to diplomacy, people pretending to be more upset than they actually are because they think it will be to their advantage. But in this particular instance, it struck me at least that a lot of the response from European leadership was, was quite genuine. I, I think the upset and the outrage was not confected.
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A
No, I think you're right. But still, I think some part of it was because you are supposed to be upset now. You're supposed to tell Trump off for talking so disrespectfully about people who actually gave their lives in this service. But you cannot really do that because all our defense and security system is, is totally dependent on the US and that's something that goes very much so for Britain, that can't even sort of activate. You can't activate your own nuclear bombs without.
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C
Not exactly true.
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But there's a very.
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Very dependency on that. I mean, I'm saying that as an Austrian citizen, we don't have any nuclear weapons at all. So we are even more, by far more dependent on this old world order and def. The security protection umbrella of the US over Europe. And that makes it so hard that you realize he can just say these things. We can be outraged, but we have to really put up something else than outrage. We have to, as you said, spend more on defense, unfortunately, but really get our own independent systems and more autonomy over the next decade, at least until then, we will have to sort of, you know, be outraged without any against the US President or who comes after him.
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I mean, just as a practical, real world question here, William, when there is a situation at which you are serving as an ambassador and there is a dispute among friends, as I hope we can still call this, what role does an ambassador play? I mean, in this particular instance, what would be the thing for them to do?
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Well, if we had an ambassador there, which we previously done, but our deputy ambassador will be there and the embassy staff will be going round Congress, they'll be going around media outlets, influencers if you like, they'll be going around people who carry some weight and just explaining to them the outrage and hurt that this has caused. And the most effective tool will be showing them videos of the mothers and fathers of fallen comrades who. I mean, I felt this deeply because when I was ambassador, I Used to have to, not have to. I did write to every mother and father of a fallen soldier and explain to them that their death wasn't in vain and that they had died, you know, serving their country. And to have that undermined by the President of the United States. Those, those testimonies from the, from the mothers were very effective. And if I was the ambassador, I'd be having collection of YouTube and be making sure that every congressman and every senator saw them. That would be, be the most effective thing you could do there.
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B
And bringing this back before we move off this one. Tessa, two practicalities. Kaya Kallas, the EU's foreign policy chief, former prime minister of Estonia, has said for this and other reasons that she wants to see a more European NATO. Does that mean anything beyond a better defended Europe? Is she trying to sort of nudge America off the top of the heap?
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Well, I mean, we are also following Trump in this. I mean, he said get your own act together. Try it to take over the Ukrainian war as your own thing while he's busy with other things like snatching dictators that he doesn't like from Latin American countries. And so although this is also just one statement of Trump, but it's a fundamental, clear thing that Europe needs to have not necessarily split up NATO, but as we can see now already, the thinking in Brussels, if it's NATO or the European Union, has changed fundamentally in the last year in the sense that people now know that you need to find all sorts of different formats. It doesn't matter. Exactly. It's not as it was that the European Union had to be all sit together, 27 heads of government for something now that the UK is outside and we need the UK in Europe for defence and security. So people are meeting if it's the coalition of the willing or if it's now this latest idea to bring together. This afternoon they had this call also with six leaders from those countries who are very clearly invested in the Ukraine effort. Poland, Italy, Germany, France. It is something that is happening more and more and it will also lead to results. But as you all know, it takes a long time to sway public opinion, which in any case is running in big numbers to far right parties who are pro Russian, for example, to make it clear that we need to have a clearer voice on defence and security in Europe. And that is something that we'll see in the next years if something comes out of it. I would hope so.
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C
I mean, I think in practical terms what that Estonian Carla Carlos is saying is that a Britain has to be part of the European architecture. Britain should join and the EU should accept Britain into the sort of the common purchasing, because we actually need to start building our own capabilities and be less dependent on US capabilities because if you want to be able to defend yourself independently, you have to have your own armaments manufacturer. So we need to start sharing things. We probably need to start thinking of building the next generation of fighter aircraft now so that we've not got Rafale competing with typhoon competing with F35s. We probably need to be building the next generation. We collaborated very well over Airbus, a civilian airliner. We can collaborate over defense systems and we need to do a bit of that. I think the Norwegians, you know, and we're going to have to have an asymmetric Europe because Britain is not going to rejoin the eu, Norway's not going to join the eu. So I think Britain should join the single single market. We should have an econ. We need to increase our economic resilience and that will mean Britain joining the single market. And we need to have this broader coalition of European countries capable of acting as a collective at the moment within NATO, but if necessary, independent of NATO.
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A
Please tell this to Downing Street. Also have a little detour this evening.
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C
Before you go to Downing Street's under a lot of pressure to join the single market. I know, I don't think, I don't think they need much pressure on the broader European cooperation. But it's not easy in the short term to cut ourselves off from the Americans. We're going to have to balance these two things for quite a while.
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B
Well, on that subject, it is not an original observation that whatever the virtues of the European Union in preserving the general peace, upholding trade rules, maintaining industry standards, etc. It is not known for swift decision making. For perspective on getting 27 countries to agree on stuff, recall the last time you tried to organize lunch for six people. Today ministers from six EU countries, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and the Netherlands have conferred with a view to establishing some sort of two speed system which will allow Europe's six biggest economies to take the lead. Tessa, is. Is this just how sick everybody is of Hungary and Slovakia?
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A
It's certainly part of it. And it's not only Hungary and Slovakia. There are all sorts of people who are often not on the same line of thought. You know, you have also a new prime in the Czech Republic who is joining the Hungarian Slovakian axis of non pro EU leaders. But I think in general this is what we will see much more now in the next Years until. Because what the EU really needs, of course, is a new treaty where this principle of unanimity is being shelved and that would need years of negotiations. And so we will not see this so quickly because now nobody has the political will to do this. And so we will need to have these different meetings between different people who want to bring something forward. Having said all this, I mean, if you look at what the EU Commission has achieved in the last years, it's quite amazing how many things Oslo von der Leyen could pull together. And you know, just the latest was the India trade deal. But also before, of course, to all these financial instruments to get aid to the Ukraine and even to use, not to use the frozen Russian assets. Unfortunately now, although some people say that's a good thing, not to use them, but to still give 90 billion in loans to the Ukraine means that the Ukraine can get financed for this war a little longer. But if Russia in the end doesn't pay for this, for rebuilding the Ukraine, then this is what the money will be used for. And this is quite a clever, complicated, clever construct, but it actually works so that in the end the European Union can move on. And I think sometimes people forget that complicated doesn't necessarily mean that nothing happens.
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C
It's the tragedy of Britain leaving the EU because we were well on the way to having two track Europe, we were well on the way to having a big economic area and Britain was perfectly comfortable with other European countries having ever closer union in a United States. I think that's where Europe will probably have to end up abroad. A single market customs union includes the Turks, it includes the Norwegians, the Swiss and the Brits. But we're not part of the closer one. And you know, and you could easily kick the Czechs and the Hungarians out of the closer one and leave them in the. Leave them in the wider, in the wider set.
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I disagree because I think it's good if there is a general community of these European nations and the Czech Republic, you know, they misvoted for a second time not to get pais into office again. And the Hungarians are about to maybe get rid of Viktor Orban and get some kind of more liberal person into the seat.
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C
But when you get another, when you get Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Moldova, all those other countries joining the principle of unanimity and of them all moving together. No, I'm totally with you all having the same fiduciary central commitments to a central bank and interest rate. It won't be appropriate for all these times.
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A
Oh, absolutely.
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C
I just bite the bullet and do what I tell them.
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I just wanted to stop you from tossing all the checks out.
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C
Well, no. They could be part if they want to, but they wouldn't have to be.
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B
Well, we're going to move along to our last discussion item for the panel with one of Chris Chermack's thematic musical interludes. Here we go.
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C
Wild horses couldn't drag me away.
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B
Always preferred the Flying Burrito Brothers version myself, but still not a bad tune. Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones, which is moving us along to China and to an inadvertent triumph in marketing. Ahead of the looming Chinese New Year, which will be the year of the horse. Some or other manufacturer of whimsical schlock commissioned a range of small, plush red horses adorned with a gold collar and a guileless smell smile. However, due to a manufacturing mishap, said items emerged from the factory with their smile literally upside down, endowing these stuffed equines with a somewhat mournful and anxious demeanour, if you will. Unstable. Thanks, I'm here all week. Anyway, the Wobegon Novelty has become an enormous hit because, suggested its proprietor, rather Zhang Huaqing of Yiwu Emporium, Happy Sister, the crying Horse really fits the reality of modern working people and. Well, that's, That's. Yes, the. The red dawn of socialism is the sun in the heart of every worker, etc. Tessa, do you. Do you want a sad horse?
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I think ugly toys are in general a good idea because it's. Everything is better than a Barbie. And so I think having this cuddly, ugly thing is. The only thing I would concern about is that you have to have every trend and every of these plasticky toys. They're often made from plastic. I think these horses are actually not plastic, so we should make.
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B
I think they may have plastic accessories. I haven't gone into it in any great detail.
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A
I mean, it's a little bit of a. It's a difficult issue in China with toys. But so in short, I think, yes, I want a set horse.
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C
I found the slightly melancholy horse much more charming than the other one. I can see why it appealed to the Chinese thinking. Oh, yeah, that's just how I feel most days. But I thought it was quite cute myself.
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B
Yeah, I mean, it's not a happy accident. It's. It's. It's clearly a quite unhappy accident. But I just. There's a charm to things like this. I. I was reminded of one recently visiting Canberra, the capital of Australia, and there was a. There was a clanger during a Covid briefing in Canberra in, in 2020. And the subtitles were on the screen as a government official was speaking. And what he said was I, I would like to thank can be Barons for doing the right thing. And this was rendered on the screen as Ken Barrons K E N B E H R E N S which instantly spawned a range of merchandise. You know, we, we are all Ken Barons. I'm Ken Barrons. And when you go to the, the little museum of Canberran history in downtown Canberra now, there's actually the, the modern section is called we are All Ken Barons.
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C
Well, sometimes, sometimes the mistakes can be very close to the truth about you. Remember when Jeremy, Jeremy Hunt's name was mispronoun.
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Said.
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C
Oh yes, that's absolutely spot on.
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A
That has nothing to do with toys. Now if I may say.
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C
No, we're talking about mystiques that have a resonance.
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B
We've moved on. Tessa, do you have a favorite cuddly toy, whether accidental or not still?
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A
I do because my children left a few of those behind and they're still there and they are being used as little sort of, you know, couch accessories. And I have a little piglet from, I think from a Swedish furniture company that was left behind.
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B
William, did you travel from posting to posting with a, I don't know, a stuffed rendition of the haggis which I know you like to wind up tourists by talking of the animal with short legs on one side, long legs on the other so it can run round hills.
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C
I have to say I've never been sentiment about tough story soft toys. My go to comfort is a nice bottle of red wine.
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B
Sir William Pat, Tessa Shashkovitz, thank you both for joining us. And finally on today's show, our on this Day historical series reflects on a pivotal moment in the life of one of the world's weirder geopolitical anomalies. Who, and this is entirely a rhetorical question, does not love a great geopolitical anomaly. Humpst among us is not beguiled by Ceuta and Melilla, Spanish cities in Morocco. Or Gibraltar, a chunk of United Kingdom attached to the great coast of Spain. Or Kaliningrad, an exclave of Russia squeezed between Poland and Lithuania. Or Bale, Hurtog and Balenassau, those mad bits of Belgium and or the Netherlands so interlocked and intertwined that it's barely possible to tell which country you're even in from one footstep to the next. There are few if any geostrategic anomaly stranger, however, than the one which might be found on the southwest coast of the Cuba, a US military base on the territory of one of the United States most persistent and pestilential antagonists, officially known as Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, colloquially known as Gitmo, the mesmerizing weirdness of which has been brought into focus on several dates. One of them, January 28, 1909. This was the end of the second occupation of Cuba by the United States. The first, from 1898 to 1902, had followed the United States defeat of Spain in the brief Spanish American War of 1898. Among the prizes were Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. An instant empire for a country which had always claimed it didn't want one. In Cuba, the US had installed a military government under Major General Leonard Wood, pending the delivery of democracy, which duly arrived. On the last day of 1901, Cuban voters awarded the pro independence Cuban National Party the largest chunk of seats in the nascent House of Representatives and elected to the presidency Thomas Estrada Palme, who'd briefly had a go at the job during a previous attempt to establish an independent Cuba. Estrada Palme held it together for a bit, but it didn't really take, especially not his fairly transparent rigging of the 1905 election, in which he was awarded a second term. In 1906, with affairs in Cuba in escalating disposition array, US President Theodore Roosevelt ordered American forces back in US Secretary of War. Later, US President William Taft declared himself Cuba's provisional governor before handing it off to Charles Edward Magoon, who'd previously done something similar in Panama. By 1908, things seemed under control sufficiently that another Cuban presidential election could be held. It was won by Joseph A. Miguel Gomez, who had impeccable revolutionary credentials. Yay. But was a massive crook. Boo. Nevertheless, on this day, 117 years ago, the US military furled its flags, folded its tents, and sailed home. Except to the extent that it didn't. The US had established a naval facility at Guantanamo Bay during the dust up with Spain in 1898, and the US was, and remains to the day, disinclined to forsake such a sensational strategic asset, whoever was running the country surrounding it. Even if, as has been the case since Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution of 1959, that whoever has been one of America's most implacable foes. So all through the decades that the US connived, with notably little success to undermine, overthrow, or even assassinate Castro, there were thousands of US troops encamped on his island. When CIA proxies tried and failed to seize a bridgehead at the Bay of pigs in 1961, on the heels of.
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C
The air raids, landings were affected by rebels at several places on the gate. The Cuban coast and the rebellion against the red tinged dictator was on.
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B
The US already had one for which it was and is still paying the Cuban government the annual rent of $4,085 agreed in 1934, even if Cuba has generally refused to cash the checks. As the US and the USSR eyeballed each other over Cuba to the brink of mutual assured destruction in 1962, at its beginning this day, they looked as though it might be one of armed conflict between Soviet vessels and American warships.
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C
On the sea lanes leading to Cuba.
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B
Both had forces already ashore. The Soviet missileers at San Cristobal, the US Marine Corps at Guantanamo huddled behind their fortifications known colloquially as the Cactus Curtain. And when in the early 21st century it was convenient for the US to park prisoners of the War on Terror in a legal netherworld, Guantanamo Bay was repurposed as a Caribbean gulag. There are 15 such detainees there still who arrived between 2002 and 2008. Guantanamo Bay survives as an exception to several rules, geography, common sense, and by some readings, the Geneva Conventions, as has been known since at least this day, 118 years ago. Go. Gray zones have their uses. And that's all for this edition of the Monocle Daily. Thanks to our panelists today, Tessa and Sir William Patey. Today's show was produced by Chris Chermack and researched by Anneliese Maynard. Our sound engineer was Lily Austin, with editing assistance from Elliot Greenfield. I'm Andrew Muller here in London. The Daily is back at the same time tomorrow. Thanks for listening, Sam.