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I agree. Biden is predictable and weak president internationally. For all his faults, Trump (as the 2020 alternative) was at least stronger in foreign policy and his abrasive and unconventional style deterred the likes of Putin. It’s no surprise Putin has intervened in Ukraine during two...

We are standing up to Putin. The past cannot be undone, but NATO countries were far too slow to aid Ukraine in the build up to the invasion and perhaps should’ve sent soldiers to prove they were serious. Two factors: 1) Frankly, there wasn’t the determination to engage in Ukraine before the...

Class! Agree with the comments that Sheaf and Hamer (and O’Hare) are a good base for the team! We only need to add a bit of class here and there and we’ll have a really solid, top half to playoff team.

The logistical issues we’ve seen from them is a bit embarrassing for a great power. It’s unlikely Putin’s entire inner circle is feeling sufficiently suicidal to start a nuclear war. For that reason, I’m confident things won’t escalate that far.

We’re not going to have a nuclear war with Russia. Even as Putin engages in nuclear blackmail, he isn’t even the only person in Russia with the launch codes and power to end the world. Threats of nuclear war is bluster on Russia’s part. There is unlikely to be a scenario where NATO needs to...

You see what’s happening in Ukraine… NATO exists in today’s world to stop Russia land grabbing parts of ex-Soviet republics and installing regimes that are pro-Russian. If Russia can dominate Ukraine, then what chance do the likes Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia have? Stop The War is a naive...

Let him crack on. Even if he’s unbalanced and feeling suicidal… His kleptocrat friends probably don’t and will probably move against him if the prospect of nuclear Armageddon became a real possibility rather than aggressive posturing. Putin’s power has always been based on the support of the...

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...