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Trump was more unpredictable whereas Biden could be read like a book, Putin’s calculus was something like: - The US and NATO had no intention placing troops in Ukraine - The US (in particular) had no appetite to even risk conflict - US and allies would be slow to support Ukraine with military...

Trump wouldn’t be siding with Russia and he put Putin on notice by flattening Russian mercenaries in Syria. Trump was bombastic and diplomatically abrasive, but it’s absolutely no coincidence that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine under two Democrat presidencies. One thing Biden has done...

To make a sweeping generalisation, there is a propensity in Russian politics to look to 'strongmen' politicians. If anything though, the way Putin utilises the Orthodox Church, he's modelling his leadership on a modern day Tsar. For sure, I'm not disputing the extremism in that region. My...

… As does Russia, why doesn’t Putin solve his own ugly far right problem before invading other nations. Unfortunately, it is a trend in ex-Eastern bloc countries.

The Cold War wasn’t driven by the West against the USSR. It was very much a mutual undertaking with both the USA and USSR proving the supremacy of their political systems. These sentiments, show more than anything, the effectiveness of Russian state disinformation and censorship campaigns...

These states absolutely have the right to break away from the Russian orbit. If Russia was a reliable and friendly nation, there wouldn’t be a need for these countries to join NATO. Georgia and Ukraine accelerated their NATO bids following 2008 and 2014 respectively and likewise, the remaining...

Well, Ukraine isn’t a NATO member and Estonia is. The West also left it too late to send personnel so now actively sending the military to Ukraine would be an act of war. Whereas, had this been done before the invasion, it would be Russia who was the aggressor against NATO. If Russia attacks...

Ukraine doesn’t need to surrender. Even if Russia succeeds its initial military objectives, they will need to maintain an occupying force that will almost certainly face a determined Ukrainian insurgency. At this point, NATO needn’t get involved. Russia has succeeded in pushing NATO members to...

It’s nonsense. I appreciate NATO expansion would put Russia on edge, but the cause and effect is not NATO. The reason the old Eastern Bloc countries joined NATO was to avoid the fate of Ukraine. A country as big as Ukraine is struggling against Russia, what chance does the Baltic states have...

Again, this happened in the early 50s in the context of McCarthyism where everyone was a communist. In the context of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine some 70 years later is ancient history.

Well, context matters. The Cold War and Post-Cold War eras are very different and therefore deserve different treatment. Conflict, geopolitics and situations all change. Cuba and Yemen Houthi rebels… two very bad examples of democracies. Iran also admitted itself it breached the nuclear deal...

What you fail to mention is that most of those examples were in the Cold War where the US and USSR were playing tit for tat in trying to expand communist and anti-communist regimes. The geopolitical context was very different and not really relevant to the 21st century anymore.

You’ve cited examples that are absolutely valid if we still lived in the Cold War era. At that point, US foreign policy was geared towards containing communism at all and any cost. At the expense of democratically elected governments and that is a stain on their history. This same behaviour...

Considering a few people have said the West are hypocrites on this suggests there is an equivalency being drawn. Two questions on this: Are we right to impose sanctions on Russia? Are we right to send weapons to Ukraine? If the answer is yes to both questions, it probably tells you what you...

Very wooly thinking. There will always conflict. It’s very disheartening to see people draw false comparisons between this invasion against Ukraine and the invasions against the Taliban, Saddam Hussein and intervention against Gaddafi. That’s without even accounting for Putin’s nuclear war bluff…

Gross hypocrisy? Say what you like about the more recent, post-Cold War interventions of the West, but we weren’t invading and occupying democratic states. The global economy deals with unsavoury characters and regimes. After all, this post was made from a phone produced in China. If that’s...

So they are to be judged equally? The West has been far from perfect, but to bring that up in the present context just lacks perspective.

I’m not a massive boxing fan, but the clear winner was clearly Catterall. He outclassed Taylor in the fight and in the boxing too. First fight watching Taylor and did not see what the hype was all about.

Of course they do, it’s no different from all major powers in global politics. That fact clearly does not justify the actions of Russia and China taking actions to antagonise their smaller neighbours. Its very obvious that China is watching developments closely given they are training for an...

What kind of response is that? The US isn’t invading democratic countries for territory…