The set-up is this: a US secretary of defence gets it into his head that a globe once owned by former president Dwight D Eisenhower and kept in the Pentagon should be brought to his own personal office and put on display there. The globe is an important historical artefact, one used frequently by Eisenhower as an army general during the second World War.

Rather than consulting the curators and military historians who are charged with the custodianship of such artefacts, the defence secretary dispatches a few members of his personal staff to take the globe and put it in his office. As they are carrying it, the globe falls to the floor, and is bashed against its own supporting structure. A large hole is smashed into the bottom of it, leaving Antarctica in pieces on the floor.

The scenario feels naggingly familiar. Is it a scene from Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, or perhaps a moment from In the Loop, Armando Iannucci’s Iraq invasion satire? No: neither. It is, in fact, a moment from the oeuvre of whatever greatly inferior (if admittedly more prolific) satirist is responsible for the black farce of current global politics.

The incident happened earlier this year, according to a detailed report in the Washington Post. Pete Hegseth, the US secretary of defence – or secretary of war, as he prefers to call himself – is known for his absurd brashness and bellicosity, and for his peculiar obsession with the outward trappings of conservative masculinity and physical prowess among military personnel. (“No fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals,” as he put it in a speech last month.)

Netflix, Prime Video, Disney , Apple TV: 10 of the best new shows to watch in November

Author Alan Carrigan: ‘I wanted disabled characters to experience the full spectrum of human emotion’

Crime fiction: Dark tales, with the worst people, for respite........

© The Irish Times