The military is not a social services operation or a testing ground for gender wars. It is a fighting machine. Women are not as strong as men. Their instincts and reactions in crises are markedly different.

I describe in 'Chimpanzee Politics' how the alpha male needs broad support to reach the top spot. He needs some close allies and he needs many group members to be on his side.

Trump has been donating big money and influencing politics for years. In fact, while conservative Tea Party groups were working extremely hard to defeat ObamaCare before it passed in 2010, Trump was sending checks to Reid and Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leaders who eventually passed ObamaCare without a single Republican vote.

Trump's election was dispiriting and confounding to most traditional political players - perhaps nobody more so than Murdoch. Still, Murdoch did what he has always done: made sure he had maximum influence with the new president.

I was in government for 13 years and in that time only once met the head of the German security services, and that was because he was an old friend. Otherwise, I carefully avoided having anything to do with these people. They are unavoidable but not really necessary.