A Better World

This analysis only works if you think Putin would stop at Ukraine and Belarus and call it a day. European countries cannot rely on NATO security guarantees anymore, so can we really say Putin's expansionist goals stop somewhere? I don't think so. As bad of a situation Europe is in now, it would be far worse if we just capitulated and said, "Well, they've got nukes. Nothing we can do, guys," and let him take over some EU territory before acting.

It has been 210 years since the Battle of New Orleans, 9th of Jan 1815...we lost...

'I urge you to watch Adam Curtis’s TraumaZone on BBC iPlayer, which relates the extraordinary chaos unleashed in Russia by the American-led imposition of a market economy in the 1990s.' My sense is that this assertion is only too true. For a brief interval during the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the demolition of the 'wall' in Berlin and the consequent disintegration of Russian dominance over eastern Europe, there seemed to me to be a brief opportunity to forge a genuine 'new world order' between east and west: something that was symbolized by a news clip that I recall from that time which showed Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin clasping each other in mutual bonhomie, rather reminiscent of the 'chuckle brothers' McGuinness and Paisley at roughly the same time in Northern Ireland. The reality, I think, is that that proved to be a chimera: instead we witnessed, from across the pond, the clout of 'the Project for the New American Century', which vigorously and effectively peddled the line to which Mr Wildsmith refers when he points to 'TraumaZone' on BBC i-Player. And in the face of that clout Europe was pretty supine, and any potential opportunity for a new east-west world order was effectively frittered away. So that opportunity, such as it might have been, was lost, and now we are where we are. With authoritarian Trump to the west and authoritarian Putin to the east, the immediate future for those of us who - as the 'in-betweeners! - live in Europe seems to me to be possibly and potentially rather bleak. I was born in 1945, so I'm getting on a bit by now. It's quite possible that I'll miss the worst of how things all too ominously look as if they could pan out in the next decade or so, but I seriously worry about what younger generations might have to face in the coming years.

You've clearly not paid heed to Putin's repeated assertions during the last decade and more. I accept totally that he doesn't aspire to attempting to restore Russian hegemony over the tracts of eastern Europe to which Stalin successfully laid claim at the Yalta conference in February 1945. Whatever he once might have thought in his younger days, Putin now shows no sign of nostalgia either for communism or for a wholesale restoration of the old 'Soviet bloc'. Those days are gone beyond recall, and Putin has given no indication of any desire to restore them. But what he has on numerous occasions made absolutely clear in his speeches and his writings is that he's an old-fashioned Russian nationalist. He aspires not to re-establish the entire Warsaw Pact, but rather to recreate the Russian empire of the Czarist era. His heroes are Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great and the empress Catherine the Great - in whose time Russia expanded its borders significantly, into Crimea, into the Baltic states and into Finland. Those are the territories which he aspires to restore to Russia - lands which he views as Russia's natural historic patrimony. And I think that if he ultimately succeeds in reabsorbing Ukraine into Russia, his next step will be to invade the Baltics and Finland - now all NATO member states. And possibly a part of Poland too - given the history, in which Russia took four bites out of that nation a different points over the years since the late 18th century. But he's not - at least as far as I've heard - expressed any direct aspiration as to that.

... Which he is pursuing by invading sovereign countries, making those goals de facto expansionist, at which point we have to look at all the meddling he's done abroad and wonder how much he means to follow up on that.

Here is an interesting read, nato is not the issue here. This article makes more sense, all the pieces are there. Putin will Putin. 47 will 47. I am far gladder that Starmer is there and not Johnson, Truss or Sunak. The picture yesterday of all the EU leaders, Starmer and Zalenski but no 47. Let that sink in where the US has gone, especially when Putin lauds the Whitehouse ambush. Roll over on Ukraine and Russia will follow form from days gone by. https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/03/02/russia-russia-russia/

A lot of the WW2 deaths in Russia were caused by Stalin. A forgotten genocide with mass rapes is the estimated 14 million eastern Germans killed by the Russians before they could flee west. That was aggravated by Hitler’s refusal to authorise their evacuation ultimately overridden by Dönitz.

Rubbish. Read Eight Pieces of Empire by Lawrence Sheets. He plans to restore the USSR.

So... 35 years ago the US stole Russia's sweeties, and we have to let the Russians beat up Ukraine because the 2 big bullies have kissed & made up, is this really where we are at? I think not... Yes the way Russia wats treated 35 years ago was disgraceful, but at the same time some PPL seem to have forgotten what they did in Afghanistan, Chechenia, & Georgia... The idea that we must consent to a totalitarian state taking over independent nations because some other independent nations did something wrong 35 years ago is just ridiculous, perhaps France has a right to take over England by bombing it flat because of Agincourt, seriously... And as for nuclear war, I grew up in the 1980's, the current situation is nothing like as dangerous in terms of nuclear escalation, never mind the Cuban/Turkish missile crisis...

Virtue signalling is a sign of impotence and is also not a strategy. Europe is impotent without USA and has no strategy.

It's very clear that Starmer sees the war as a chance to unite the country against Putin (and, by extension, against anyone in Britain who fails to condemn those who fail to condemn those who fail to condemn Putin). To him, the fact that the war is unwinnable is a point in its favour; it can be made to last as long as it's necessary to distract us from how wretched everything else is. I don't think it's going to work. Most of us have nothing but sympathy for the people of Ukraine. We can also agree that overthrowing Putin would be an excellent thing, if there was any way of doing it without risking a holocaust. That doesn't mean we'll be willing to keep pouring money – and if that fails, men – into a futile and highly dangerous war, just so we can signal our anger at Russia. You need to have spent a very long time in the political class before you can achieve that level of infantile thinking.

Lots of "this happened earlier" and a bit of whataboutery. But misses the two key points - Ukraine is an entirely innocent party, and the right of nations to self-determination is an essential right in a free society, and Every time support for Ukraine has been ramped up, Putin has rattled his rusty sabre and blustered. And that's been it. He has nothing left with which to start a war with the rest of Europe. Unless Ukraine loses of course. Mind you, there are those who might argue that we are already engaged in a kind of war with Russia...

I can tell you that you don't watch BBC,ITV, SKY News and CNN as you know what you are talking about.

Quote: I find it hard to believe that Welsh Nationalists are supportive of Starmer when Plaid Cymru itself has always been seen as a Pacifist party It depends on the type of pacifist. If it means an illegal invasion like Iraq or Afghanistan, or aiding Israel in their genocide of Gaza then all pacifists would object to that in the most strongest terms, as they oppose any kind of war, aggression or violence. But when it comes to the defense of your own country from an invasion then most rationally minded pacifists would consider that an exception. Those who are 'absolute pacifists' and don't tolerate any kind of fighting even in self-defense are not living in the real world. They have no idea what its like to have someone threatening to harm your wife or children, or have your house broken into at the dead of night. Sometimes we have no choice but to fight. Since Welsh nationalists want Wales to be a sovereign country, it would be more hypocritical for them not to support Ukrainian sovereignty.

Excellent article. Starmer and co are deluded. A war across Europe is the last thing we need. The UK should work to bring Russia and Ukraine into the fold, it's the only way. 'Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer'

26 million Soviet citizens died in WWII not 26 million Russians. Putin would love you to forget the dIfference. Please don’t. Ukraine was of course among the parts of the Soviet Union that bore the brunt of the Nazi invasion snd Soviet fight back.