Man who moved abroad to avoid hundreds of millions of pounds of tax and whose business have benefited from hundreds of millions of pounds of public funds believes that, 'Britain has been "colonised" by immigrants, who are draining resources from the state.'

Back in Oxford for the first time in 13 years. Will be speaking about my book, Kingdom of Football, at St Antony’s College tomorrow.

Anyone book reviews editors want a review of @kristianulrichsen.bsky.social’s kingdom of football from me?

Extraordinary detail from 2017 (a year before Jamal Khashoggi’s murder). Wonder if the human rights community in Norway is aware of this entity and individual

Webs of positive interconnectivity present win-win solutions for the United States and Gulf states but need a predictable and reliable decision-making landscape if they are to maximize results. @kristianulrichsen.bsky.social

Mixed messaging from the Trump administration after the removal of Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela may only have amplified feelings of unease that U.S. policymakers lack a “day after” plan. @kristianulrichsen.bsky.social

While there is little affinity in Gulf capitals for the regime of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in Tehran, there is also a risk that leadership with its back to the wall might engage in a desperate last stand by abandoning all restraint. @kristianulrichsen.bsky.social

Multiple dilemmas are metastasizing in U.S.-Gulf relations as the White House has grown increasingly unpredictable and, post-Venezuela intervention, arguably more cavalier in its conduct of foreign policy. @kristianulrichsen.bsky.social

U.S.-Iranian tensions rose sharply when President Donald J. Trump pledged to help Iranian citizens in the face of violent suppression of mass protests that erupted across the country in late-December 2025. @kristianulrichsen.bsky.social

As news comes in that the Asian Winter Games will not take place in Saudi Arabia in 2029, this is my penultimate paragraph in Kingdom of Football, published in 2025

My latest analysis of regional developments agsi.org/analysis/gul...

Good backgrounder on Saudi-UAE conflict and its implications for regional security. By @kristianulrichsen.bsky.social theconversation.com/saudi-uae-bu...

Once allies, Saudi Arabia and the UAE now find themselves increasingly at odds over conflicting visions of the regional order, @kristianulrichsen.bsky.social writes.

Thank you so much for reviewing my book 🙏

Unlike the previous case in August, which I caught in peer review, this latest one is in an already-published volume. And when I googled the 'article' to see what came up, I received an 'AI Overview' of 'Key themes likely covered in this article.' Where are we going with this?

Sigh. Just came across another case of an AI-generated hallucinated reference to an interesting yet completely fictitious article I supposedly wrote. (Ulrichsen, K. C. (2018). Qatar and the Gulf crisis: Negotiating unity, resilience, and security. International Affairs, 94(5).)

This 💯

If an academic depends on a LLM hallucinated study in their work, it's embarrassing and could mean wasted time and lost prestige. If an attorney depends on a LLM hallucinated precedent or law, it's potentially career ending and already has been for some. I like my license to practice, thanks.

Speaking at the Doha Forum today, @marcowenjones.bsky.social highlights that "almost every disinformation campaign now uses AI" and observes that "it's a force multiplier." Kudos to @rusi.bsky.social for organizing and leading an excellent discussion about cyber statecraft in the Middle East.

Who is Amjad Taha? From Bahrain-era provocateur to “Emirati expert,” from front organisations to UK court rulings, this is a deep dive and long read into one of the most consistently platformed disinfluencers in Western media. #Dysinfluence marcowenjones.substack.com/p/who-is-amj...

Such a fascinating pair of episodes. I did not have the Regius Professor of History at Cambridge doing such uncanny impersonations of Donald Trump on my 2025 bingo card.

Published as Mohammed bin Salman arrives at the White House, my analysis of his first visit to the US since 2018

In October 2000, I began working at Sportpages bookshop in London, in many ways the most enjoyable job I’ve had. Exactly 25 years later, I’m thrilled to have written a book that Sportspages would have stocked (unfortunately it went the way of many small independent bookshops).

Für die @faznet.bsky.social habe ich das gerade erschienene Buch 'Kingdom of Football: Saudi Arabia and the Remaking of World Soccer' (Hurst, 2025) von @kristianulrichsen.bsky.social rezensiert. www.faz.net/aktuell/spor...

It feels real at last!

My latest article, looking at defense cooperation among GCC states after the Iranian and Israeli strikes this summer, and examining the historical record going back to the 1980s and asking whether the latest attacks will change things.

Opening paragraph

In October 2000, I began working at Sportpages bookshop in London, in many ways the most enjoyable job I’ve had. Exactly 25 years later, I’m thrilled to have written a book that Sportspages would have stocked (unfortunately it went the way of many small independent bookshops).

🇸🇦 ⚽ Kingdom of Football: Saudi Arabia and the Remaking of World Soccer by @kristianulrichsen.bsky.social is available now! 'A book of tremendous value.’ - Mehran Kamrava Get 25% off w/code ULRICHSEN25 ➡️ tinyurl.com/33j442px

Why was Infantino hanging around Trump last 24hrs? V. close re WC26 but also together in Saudi/Qatar earlier in yr & regional instability has impact on Vision30/WC34. Special ep of The Athletic FC pod inc various linked issues & @kristianulrichsen.bsky.social take. open.spotify.com/episode/2myc...

You’re welcome and so is @billlaw49.bsky.social. The arabdigest.org & especially its podcasts are my go to source for insights about the #Arab world & the #MiddleEast.

Thank you for listening 🙏

And those students then using AI to write assignments, so they never learn to research, evaluate data, & then write academic papers for themselves, and therefore have to rely on AI to write professional articles throughout their career... I've realised AI is nothing more than a pyramid scheme.

Yes, exactly.

This gets at a key problem posed by wide LLM adoption. It used to be, you had to put some *work* into plausible-sounding BS. Even AI hallucinations tend to *look right*. No “this looks like a lazy fabrication” tells. It’s not necessarily more errors than human, it’s *much better disguised* errors.

Given that I recently (for the first time) had to check a box to confirm I had not used AI in my review (for a journal I’ve reviewed for in the past, most recently in June), this may already be showing up, hence the new box.

What consequences do they get for falsifying references? It should be a professional punishment, like if an engineered were found to have faked the calculations for a building's safety. Banned from submitting to this and associated journals for a year or more, to start with.

In a book submitted to a publisher. This is a problem that goes well beyond students looking for ways to cut corners when writing a paper.

This is how LLMs work- the title of the work and the webpage URL are completely fabricated. If they did, like, 4 more seconds of validating they would be able to find the work they were looking for; the content, reference article, and even the website it based its response on are all real.

Happened to me as well. Half of the references in a submission to a top journal in my field were clearly hallucinated. The content was however plausible, even if somewhat incremental. Immediate reject.

I'd think publishers could (and should) develop detection methods for this sort of thing. It can't be all that hard to scan the bibliography and flag situations where a title can't be matched to an author. I wouldn't expect the editors to see it via manual checking. It's up to the publishers.

Since Google Scholar searches return citations, won't fabricated citations eventually turn up in them?

From a journal editor: I’m at the coalface of it here, and you wouldn’t believe some of what we see when editing. Proper academics who don’t seem to realise that they swim in what is actually a very small pond. 1/2

This is what I worry about.

AI is disrupting academic research as well (and fast)

This is insane! Generative AI goes rogue and makes things up. Plausible things, but still untrue.

Submitting an AI article with fake references to a peer reviewed journal should be a friable offence

Am reading a review copy and it is 🔥