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The cost of Russia’s collapsing empire Chaos is spreading across Eurasia

'We should aim to leave Russia chastened but not collapsed.' (YURIY DYACHYSHYN/AFP via Getty Images)

'We should aim to leave Russia chastened but not collapsed.' (YURIY DYACHYSHYN/AFP via Getty Images)


February 7, 2024   6 mins

Ukraine’s counteroffensive has stalled, and Vladimir Putin is once again blustering as if Russia were a first-rate power. The problem, paradoxically, is that it is not. The damage his country has sustained throughout the course of the Ukraine war has been substantial. Russia has lost 2,200 of its 3,500 tanks in Ukraine, and 315,000 out of 360,000 troops, forcing them to launch recruitment campaigns and raid the prison system. And even if, on full war-footing, it currently looks like it could force Ukraine into accepting that large swaths of its territory will remain under occupation for the foreseeable future, Russia itself has been substantially weakened.

Over time, a weakened Russia will likely be a harbinger of chaos across its periphery. Empires since antiquity have provided a solution to chaos. But empires, as they collapse, leave chaos in their wake. History has provided no solution to this conundrum.

The pattern is usually the same. An imperial hegemon cobbles together a domain of many ethnic groups, forcing them to lay down their arms against each other. An empire may last hundreds of years and yet build nothing except a tenuous inter-ethnic truce. This has been the story of the Russian Empire and its shadow zones in the Caucasus, the Balkans, stretches of Central and Eastern Europe, not to mention stretches of Siberia and the Far East. But as the hegemon weakens, fights for control of territory between one group and another commence.

The case of Nagorno-Karabakh in the Caucasus is the most telling. Stalin put this ethnic-Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan for the same reason he burdened other Soviet republics with large ethnic minorities: to make it impossible for any of them to secede from the Soviet Union without inter-ethnic war tearing them apart. Fighting between the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis (Azeri Turks) began following the weakening of the Soviet Union in the late-Eighties under the rule of Mikhail Gorbachev, leaving the Armenians in control of Nagorno-Karabakh. Since then, Armenia has looked to Russia as a patron who could not only keep the regional peace, but also keep their ethnic compatriots in place.

But sensing Russia’s growing weakness, the Azerbaijanis took back the enclave last year by force of arms. The President, Ilham Aliyev, provided assurances over the decades that he had no aggressive intentions. But, having built up his armed forces with money afforded by massive oil revenues, and sensing an opportunity provided by Russia’s distraction in Ukraine, he pounced. Next, Aliyev may send his soldiers across southern Armenia to link up with the ethnic-Azeri enclave of Nakhichevan, bordering Iran. Or, he will use the implicit threat of doing so to extract a corridor-of-sorts through negotiation.

Meanwhile, in the Balkans, violence flared not that long ago between masked Serbian gunmen in the north of Kosovo, home to a large Serbian minority, and Kosovar Albanian police. The Kosovars blame organised criminal elements supported by neighbouring Serbia for the attacks, while authorities in Belgrade struggled to deny their involvement.

Throughout his time in power, the Serbian President, Aleksandar Vucic, has played a delicate game, serving in turns as an ethnic arsonist and quickly thereafter offering himself up to European interlocutors as a firefighter. But while he seems to have pulled off the same trick this time, Vucic, or someone even more extreme in his government, may judge that a Nagorno-Karabakh moment could be within reach for Serbia, and that it would be in their interest to more thoroughly stoke the flames of war in the region. And, should open conflict between “breakaway” Serbs in Kosovo, Bosnia or Montenegro force the redrawing of borders once again in the Balkans, it’s not clear where that trend would stop.

All this may just be a prologue for trouble across the longitudes of the Russian empire and its shadow zones from Europe to Asia, a curtain-raiser for ugly unrest elsewhere. Just as Aliyev smelled the Kremlin’s relative weakness as he moved into Nagorno-Karabakh, others might act similarly, motivated as they are by separatist tendencies.

Indeed, small Albanian minorities are to be found in Serbia and Greece, with a much more significant number of ethnic Albanians clustered in the west and northwest of North Macedonia, bordering Albania itself. Demographically speaking, a greater Albania already exists glaringly on the map, and this is why the western Balkans are so ripe for Russian meddling, which is what declining empires do in order to throw their weight around.

A Russian attempt to further undermine the already weak state of Moldova could also ignite a few irredentist voices in Romania, who may ultimately want a union with this largely Romanian-speaking territory formerly known as Bessarabia. In Moldova, there is already measurable support for a greater Romania. At the same time, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is fixated on the massive loss of territory in all directions inflicted on the Kingdom of Hungary by the post-First World War Treaty of Trianon. The greater Balkans remain a tinder box because of the ugly combination of official borders that don’t coincide with ethnic ones and economies that in many places have not enjoyed the stabilising effects of middle-class life.

The Russians have historically been a major player in the Balkans, and Putin is broadly backing Serbian irredentist claims across the region — in Kosovo and Bosnia — even as Belgrade tries to stay in the West’s good graces. Whereas Putin lacked the economic and military capability to protect the 120,000 ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, threatened by an oil-rich Azerbaijan, it costs him little to stoke petty violence in the western Balkans as a way to keep the region on the boil and out of the arms of the European Union.

While the greater Balkans remain fragile, and therefore susceptible to Russian mischief borne of bitterness, Russia itself, as it continues to be militarily and economically preoccupied with Ukraine, could be weakened in its Siberian and Far Eastern back-of-beyonds. This is where republics such as Buryatia and Tuva which have provided troops for the Ukraine war — who have died in proportionally much greater numbers than ethnic Russians from places such as Moscow and Saint Petersburg — could experience breakaway tendencies. Remember: we are dealing with a vast swath of the map that fundamentally lacks the social and political stability of the West and has been relatively stable only on account of an imperial straitjacket.

Disorder might not just spring up from local strongmen pursuing their narrow goals in upending longstanding imperial ethnic understandings. Russia itself may be tempted to overturn things. There is an assumption that the current battlefield stalemate inherently favours Moscow. But even if it does, it continues to drain resources from the Kremlin, making the system over time more militaristic and brittle. And history, from ancient Assyria to Prussia, has been clear that militarism signals the eventual demise of imperial rule.

In other words, an age of imperial decline is upon us. And while an era of new-found freedoms for all the peoples of the former Soviet empire may lie somewhere in the future, for the moment we are facing the greatest threat to world order since 1945. The First World War gave the 20th century its monstrous and tragic direction precisely because it went on for four long years, killing close to 20 million people. Had it ended in 1915 or 1916, Corporal Hitler would not have won his Iron Cross First Class (as he did in 1918) and the Prussian, Habsburg and Ottoman empires might not have collapsed as they did, leaving a vast and unstable void that Hitler, the war hero, was able to ultimately fill. Every month that the Ukraine War drags on, and however well Russia appears to be surviving the war, the potential for unintended consequences grows. The only thing more frightening than a Putinesque Russia is a slowly crumbling Russia with its nuclear arsenal intact.

We are truly living in times that defy simple analysis. We have to be able to imagine the unimaginable. Who could have conceived of nearly two years of trench warfare in Ukraine before it actually happened? Russia’s brutal invasion, replete with vast human rights violations, was met by a Ukrainian populace clearly unwilling to bow down before their former imperial masters. This left the United States with little choice but to come to their aid. After all, the United States may not conceive of itself as an empire, but since 1945 it has been in an imperial-like situation, given its global power.

Yet the Ukraine War, by forcing Russia to lean increasingly on China for support, has fused the conflict zones of Europe and Asia, so that there is now a single Eurasian battleground in a more claustrophobic and crowded world. For its part, China, another former empire, is facing a historic economic crisis that could at some future moment ignite a social crisis, even as Xi Jinping’s regime distracts its population by stoking imperial grievances over its determination to capture Taiwan.

For all the similarities it might have to an empire, the United States certainly cannot ultimately provide order in former imperial hinterlands. It lacks the geographical proximity and the instinctive cultural-historical knowledge to do so. And as the last few decades have bitterly shown, “liberal democracy” is not something that can be quickly and effortlessly implemented in troubled, unstable regions. At best, it’s a rough blueprint for decades of peacetime nation-building.

As a result, US policy needs to be delicately balanced. The US military and economic support of Ukraine must ultimately find a way to continue, whatever Congress does. Completely abandoning Ukraine to Russia would only further whet Russia’s imperial ambitions, even as the material basis for its empire’s continued existence continues to degrade.

At the same time, however, we should not want the war to grind on indefinitely. We should aim to leave Russia chastened but not collapsed, since that would lead to second- and third-order effects from Europe to China even more serious than those I have just laid out. Indeed, we face no choice but to manage the interlocking wars and crises afflicting the Eurasian land mass — for, ultimately, they can’t be fixed.


Robert D. Kaplan is an American author and intellectual. He holds the Robert Strausz-Hupé Chair in Geopolitics at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. The Loom of Time: Between Empire and Anarchy, from the Mediterranean to China will be published in August by Random House.


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Peter Lee
Peter Lee
7 months ago

Quote “The only thing more frightening than a Putinesque Russia is a slowly crumbling Russia with its nuclear arsenal intact.”
In the main due to a woke and frightened Biden administration.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Peter Lee

I guess the advantage of there being a “Trumpesque US” is that there could be another right wing demagogue to counterbalance Putin (although it overlooks the fact that although Trump might be “strong on China”, he would be “weak on Russia”).

Peter F. Lee
Peter F. Lee
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

History does not report that to be the case.

Alexander van de Staan
Alexander van de Staan
7 months ago

Mr. Kaplan seems to stuck in Fukuyama’s now discredited neoliberal End of History moment that was, unfortunately, squandered by the collective West. If the last few decades have bitterly shown, “liberal democracy” – a relatively recent development, is not something that the collective West can easily maintain itself, much less implement “quickly and effortlessly” in a country which never had a use for it since its founding some 1000 years ago.

George K
George K
7 months ago

Yes, feels very Fukuyama , giving a myopic perspective of a tiny blip of liberal democracy as the ultimate answer

Andrew Boughton
Andrew Boughton
7 months ago

Touche. US politics was the flip side of Sovietism, an equal and opposite extremism, which went into overdrive after 1991. And from 2000 onward it slipped right back into its old anti-Soviet mode.

Cathy Carron
Cathy Carron
7 months ago

That’s right and more funding for the Ukraine just bleeds the American taxpayer and avoids the settlement and negotiation that needs to take place. In the meantime. Europe has to pull its military together.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

Interesting article. I don’t know how prescient it is likely to be, but the idea of Russia falling into ethnic infighting is appealing from my perspective. Far better to have them fighting amongst themselves than fighting Ukraine or other States in the West. As to Serbia, I’ve always thought the EU would be stupid to let them join.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

The greatest privilege the EU could ever bestow on Russia would be to invite her to join the EU.
It would be the culmination of a Russian dream that dates at last three centuries to Peter The Great.

Flibberti Gibbet
Flibberti Gibbet
7 months ago

So many problems would be solved in an instance.
Let’s wait and see what comes out of the Tucker Carlson/President Putin interview this week.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

Could the EU be that stupid? It is bad enough that they are considering letting Serbia in!

Malcolm Beaton
Malcolm Beaton
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Interesting to watch all the usual pieces coming into play again as of yore-auld alliances being invigorated once more in Europe,Middle East and the Pacific
A European conflict with no apparent end in sight
A Middle East conflict with no apparent end in sight
A Pacific head to head in play with China versus everyone else
Unless the two autocrats -Putin and Xi Jinping-are halted a world war is very possible-again.Liberal Democracies by their nature are slow to respond.Probably things will go as per World War 2 but hopefully not
Malcolm Beaton

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Malcolm Beaton

The alternative is to let these tyrants have everything their own way, which I am not in favour of. I should say that I consider Russia to be a far greater long term problem than China.

George K
George K
7 months ago

A standard liberal narrative framework is a very limited tool.
National movements which have been forming Europe for the past 400 years are running on their last fumes. First, Russians in Russia are 85%, and the rest is a hodgepodge of small national minorities with nominal “republics”, and majority of them are entirely disconnected from their ancestral cultures , they rarely speak their respective languages and if they do , the amount of Russian words they use would make me as a Russian speaker understand a vast variety of Eurasian languages .
Tuva and Buryatia are extremely poor and docile regions, let alone that they live as the other national enclaves almost entirely with Russian money. The local barons in these regions are basically getting paid by Moscow to maintain order ( not necessarily law).
The Russian people in Siberia and in the south ( former Cossack region) are relatively less dependent on Moscow and they actively dislike Moscow but they’re not even remotely interested in separatism.
What kind of collapse does the author envisage?

Milton Gibbon
Milton Gibbon
7 months ago
Reply to  George K

Evidentially not true. Russians in Russia make up about 81% according to the 2021 census. This is assuming that the census is correct (it isn’t). The demographic collapse among ethnic Russians has been well documented and the census hides this officially from the Russian people. This is alongside the large-scale migration of people from former Soviet Central Asia which people call “migrant workers” (legal and illegal) whp have no intention of going home but who are often missed by a census. I agree with the docile nature of the regions outlined but you can’t say that there aren’t areas of the country that aren’t for separatism – Dagestan and Chechnya being the best examples.

Anna Bramwell
Anna Bramwell
7 months ago
Reply to  Milton Gibbon

Migrant workers from Central Asia were expelled from the capital in the 1990s, and even put in camps. They are very unpopular in Russia ( Navalny called them cockroaches ) and certainly not brought back to work, a BenJudah fantasy based on a three week visit there. . Russia has behaved in a typical post empire, ethnic cleansing fashion, like Turkey.

George K
George K
7 months ago
Reply to  Milton Gibbon

81% is still an absolute majority, plus another 10% or so are Tatars living in a landlocked territory ( zero prospect of independence). Chechnya and Dagestan are also heavily subsidized regions, but with a volatile religious element to it, which absolutely causes Russia headache from time to time but I doubt anyone there strives for independence. Everyone there strives to move to Moscow, but that’s a different story.

Milton Gibbon
Milton Gibbon
7 months ago
Reply to  George K

As I said, the 81% number is a fantasy – talk to any Muscovite (Moscow according to the census is over 90% russian ethnicity) and see if they believe that. I agree with you on Tartarstan but on Chechnya/Dagestan they fought two separatist wars in my lifetime. At the moment things are quiet but to say there is no one striving for independence is wrong.

Anna Bramwell
Anna Bramwell
7 months ago
Reply to  George K

It’s a Chatham House fantasy. Like the plan to divide Syria, a secular state, into religious enclaves.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
7 months ago
Reply to  George K

“The Russian people in Siberia and in the south ( former Cossack region) are relatively less dependent on Moscow and they actively dislike Moscow but they’re not even remotely interested in separatism.” <– Could be they should be receiving more encouragement.

George K
George K
7 months ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Go on.. State Department is listening..

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
7 months ago

The collapsing empire is the over stretched American empire.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

Yes, but they are the “good guys”, so the hope is that they will “get it together”.

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Collapsing empires are never “the good guys” no matter which empire it is..
In fact, building an empire isn’t done by good guys.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

The sole exception being the ROMANS, and at a push the British!

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

Yes. The “What have the Romans done for us?” scene in “The Life of Brian” comes to mind.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Indeed it does!
Perfects the most succinct and humorous evaluation of an Empire ever!

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
7 months ago

I imagine the Carthaginians would disagree…
As for the British Empire, many disagreed at the time, including many British people, and they were probably right.
The Empire should have been “let go” after the Great War.

Alan Osband
Alan Osband
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

Didn’t the Carthaginian wars start through competition of two competing empires in Sicily and Spain . Oh but Carthage was in Africa so to a ‘progressive’ mind must have been the good guys .

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
7 months ago
Reply to  Alan Osband

I doubt they were any better than Rome…but we don’t know because their culture was obliterated

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

The ‘survivors’ seemed to fused quite well with the Romans in succeeding centuries, judging by the evidence from Lepcis Magna, Sabratha, Tiddis etc. The career of one Lollius Urbicus being truly outstanding.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

The one thing Rome was good at was assimilating people. Cut your hair, shave your beard, wear a toga and speak Latin, and you could be a Roman too.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Exactly! The greatest secret of all.

So for example by say 400 AD Greece had been in the Roman orbit for about 600 years and they thought of themselves as Romans first and Greeks second ( if at all.)
In other words you no longer needed to be a swarthy pygmy from the Tiber valley to count as Roman.

Incidentally by the Edict of Caracalla in 212 AD all FREE inhabitants of the Empire became Roman Citizens and thus could rejoice in saying “CIVIS ROMANUS SUM”…….I am a Roman citizen.

POSTED AT 8.24 GMT and immediately Sin binned!

Peter F. Lee
Peter F. Lee
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

and you could even worship your own gods (provided that included Caesar).

Cathy Carron
Cathy Carron
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

The USA used to be great at assimilation as well until the 1960’s when liberals & progressives insisted that each immigrant’s nationality be honored equally as American citizenship. What followed was a massive build up of administration in foreign languages in the school systems. At one point California and other liberal states like Massachusetts had hired thousands of foreign language teachers to abet diminished expectations of learning English properly. When it was determined that the cost was very high and resulted in a less articulate population some states reduced such programming. Nonetheless, liberal elements in the USA have continued to tear down ‘American’ identity and allegiance but dissuading the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance and anything else that encourages patriotism and the development of an American identity.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

Rather difficult to ‘let got’ after ‘winning’ the Great War at a cost of a million dead.

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
7 months ago

So it proved…but it cost even more money to keep it…bankrupts can’t afford to keep large country mansions

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

Well we did get out of most of Ireland, but bankrupt as we were, national pride took precedence over National Debt.

Off course why we did it again in 1939 is a truly extraordinary story, worthy of a Greek tragedy, but we had better NOT go there.

Talia Perkins
Talia Perkins
7 months ago

Why you did what again in 1939?

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Talia Perkins

Declare war on Germany.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

I think it was necessary to do so. Hitler then was no more trustworthy than Putin is now.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

What?
And then NOT declare war on Stalin would also invaded Poland two weeks later?

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

That course of action would have made us complicit in the Holocaust. I dislike Russia as much as anyone, and being allied with it in WW2 was definitely unpalatable, but “your enemy’s enemy is your friend”.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Stalin killed many more than Adolph on most ‘body counts’.
The ‘Chinks’ even worse.

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
7 months ago

The British “problem” is that the British rulers seem intent on repeating that journey with Russia and China as the “bad guys”…they all want to try on Churchill’s shoes but this time it may not be an empire that is lost but everything…

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

In short we have “Ideas above our station”, and have had for some time now, rather sadly it must be said.

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
7 months ago

It rather depends what is considered to be “our station”.
My view is that the UK should seek a peaceful, prosperous, and independent existence whilst having the military ability to comply with our obligations as a member of the UN Security Council.
The obligations under Article 5 of the NATO treaty are only to consider a response. It does not oblige military action…and none should be expected from the USA.
That does not entail being a “Great Power”. As Tizard said, the circumstances under which Britain became that were unique and will not recur.
Certainly the UK should not be the USA’s poodle..or indeed the EU’s. The UK still has an economy of consequence and likely to be better than any EU country in the near future.
However, the British rulers apparently wish to be subject to the rule of one or the other. I doubt the “people” want either.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

Russia is unarguably the “bad guy” on every level. China sort of is (they are after all Communists), but they do make a lot of “stuff” that we want.

Cathy Carron
Cathy Carron
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Last quarter, it was reported that the USA imported more from Mexico than China for the first time in years – and not just of fentanyl!

William Cameron
William Cameron
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

Why ? Has “independence” been an African Success ? If white men had inflicted the same events dictators have post independence the left would be horrified. But it’s OK for their own chaps to starve and steal from the populous.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
7 months ago

If the Western silence is seen as approval – and over time, what else can it be – then yes, it’s okay.

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
7 months ago

How other countries are run is not Britain’s business or problem. The peace and prosperity of the British people is what British governments should be looking after. They’ve done very badly over the last two or three decades..

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

Too kind Sir!
We have been simply pathetic, a ludicrous poodle barking at the behest of Kosher Nostra- USA.
How low can you get? Obviously very low indeed!

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
7 months ago

Since the Great War the USA sought to supplant the British Empire (it actually wasn’t much of an empire…more a trading system..)..no “Kosher Nostra” involved…and eventually did so.
Since then UK leaders have effectively been “America’s streetwalkers” ( hat tip Bill Haydon in the TV version of Tinker Tailor…) in the hope of benefiting the UK…or more recently (probably…guess where my money is…) personally…
The one exception was, interestingly, Harold Wilson who refused to commit UK forces to Vietnam..
And I think Thatcher wasn’t a US poodle but knew she needed Reagan’s support on the Falklands..and got it.
US policy has always supported Israel but once the USA had influence on Israel’s policy…now it has none at all whilst still giving unqualified support.

Bob Rowlands
Bob Rowlands
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

Yes Harold saved me and fellow boomers from the Vietcong. When on Scilly I always pop down to Old Town cemetery and give him a gentle nod.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Bob Rowlands

I have been to Vietnam on holidays and it is quite pleasant, but I doubt I would have enjoyed crawling around on my belly in the jungle while the VC tried to kill me,

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

However ‘we’ could have given you the choice of being shot in the steamy jungles of Borneo, beheaded ‘up country’ in Aden, or blown to smithereens in Belfast during the same period.

Happy days indeed!

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

Well, I am Australian, so I was definitely a chance for a trip to Vietnam had I been a decade older.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Well that explains everything! Thank you.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

I beg to disagree. In mid 1916 Mr Paul Warburg, a fully paid up member of ‘ Kosher Nostra’ and the first chairman of the newly created FED alerted the US Banking community and others to the simply staggering size of the UK’s debt and doubted if we could repay it.

Lord Balfour was immediately despatched to New York to discuss’ rescheduling and even increasing our loans. It soon became apparent that America would have to enter the War if only to ‘protect’ its debt and make sure ‘we’ REPAID it.

From that moment we were in perpetual bondage to the US. Astonishing to think that we had been the greatest creditor nation on earth in 1913, but had been reduced the parlous state of being a beggar at the feet of the US Banks a mere three years later. “How the mighty are fallen” indeed.

Secondly Wilson could rightly claim we were too busy to help in Vietnam. We were already involved in a nasty little war with Indonesia in Borneo, and had another small war in SouthArabia/Aden, with the potential for more in Oman. Subsequently we had another “a spot of bovver” in Northern Ireland. Additionally throughout all this we maintained 50K troops in the BAOR*as part of our NATO commitment.
We didn’t off course object to the Australians getting involved in Vietnam, and may even have allowed a minuscule number of own SAS to visit Vietnam for ‘training’!

(*British Army of the Rhine.)

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
7 months ago

Of course the debt is still unpaid…

Can you quote a source for your Warburg statement, preferably a recognised academic history work? I am not seeking to dispute what you say, just wish to read the background to the situation..

I think your phrase “Kosher Nostra” is what is seen as anti Semitic…it has a derogatory ring to it…

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

Yes I think ‘nice Mr Herbert Hoover’ let us off much of it in about 1932.

I think I heard it first from Niall Ferguson, however even today it’s difficult to get to bottom of this for very obvious reasons.

The reason we went bankrupt in 1916 was mainly because our literally ‘worthless’ allies, the French, the Russians and the Italians had got there first and WE could no longer afford to keep supporting them. The policy that had worked so well during say 1793-1814 just couldn’t cope with the stress of modern warfare as waged between 1914-1916.

KN maybe regarded as derogatory by some precious individuals, however rather surprisingIy perhaps, I come from a generation that believed in “ sticks and stones may break your bone etc……. And still do much to the chagrin of some.

Does it perhaps offend
you?

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
7 months ago

Thanks for the information…I will do some research on the point.
With regard to KN, it doesn’t offend me, also being of that generation which generally had rather more important matters to consider, such as making a living.
In fact, I suspect the phrase itself is of humorous Jewish origin, possibly the late Jackie Mason (?)…no doubt he would be “no platformed” nowadays…

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

Is that two anti-semitic comments in the same thread?

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

No.

Anna Bramwell
Anna Bramwell
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

As Forster and his fellow Little Englanders’ thought.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

The Punic Wars (namely those between the Romans and the Carthaginians) were fought when Rome was a Republic, so the results of those wars cannot be said to have been inflicted by the “Roman Empire”.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

That’s a bit pedantic and I doubt very much if any Roman would have agreed with you.
Centuries before Octavian/Augustus reorganised things, Rome had been an ‘Imperial Power’ with a very considerable Mediterranean Empire.
Even after Augustus’s reorganisation the Republic and the Senate lived on it with Augustus rather modestly calling himself
“primus inter pares” or ‘first amongst equals’.
Modern historians of course don’t like this and due to the astonishing longevity of Rome like to cut it up into bite size pieces to suit their careers. Hence the other slight controversy over Byzantine.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

I don’t think it is pedantic at all. The Roman Republic controlled lots of territory, but pretty much every Roman would have chafed at the use of the word “Imperium”.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Every Republican Magistrate exercised ‘imperium’!

I don’t wish to be unkind, but your ignorance on this subject is so profound as to make further discussion absolutely pointless.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

The US doesn’t have an “empire” in the traditional sense. It is more of a “hegemony”. By “the good guys”, I meant in comparison to anything that could arise to replace it.

R Wright
R Wright
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

If you have hundreds of military bases around the world, you are an empire.

Alan Osband
Alan Osband
7 months ago
Reply to  R Wright

Not necessarily , you might have the bases at the invitation of the governments of those territories to secure those territories against rivals . Think Russia and China . Or perhaps they are the good guys .

Peter F. Lee
Peter F. Lee
7 months ago
Reply to  R Wright

Are you talking about suicide drone targets

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Starting in Jamestown in 1607, and then gradually overrunning 3 million square of territory in a series of genocidal ‘smash & grab raids’ over three centuries does like rather look like an Empire.
Albeit an Empire rather like the late Genghis Khan’s where most of the indigenous population are exterminated!
The Romans for one would have found this rather puzzling.

Tricia Wine
Tricia Wine
7 months ago

Have you forgotten that the Jamestown settlers were British? From 1607 to July 4, 1776, you Brits were involved.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Tricia Wine

Of course not!
Look what we did again in Australia and particularly Tasmania for example.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Off course Australia is an ‘Empire’ but is far too coy and woke to admit it.

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

Yes, both economically and militarily, but they are not occupying Countries.
Withdrawal is simple as in Afghanistan and Vietnam

A D Kent
A D Kent
7 months ago

They are occupying a third of Syria right now. Fun fact in the 2010s Germany requested the US return it’s gold that they allegedly keep in it’s vaults. They refused. Seems like the kind of thing an Empire might do.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  A D Kent

Vae Victis in that particular case is it not?

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

The bigger danger is the European empire whose soldiers are armed with broomsticks.

John Riordan
John Riordan
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

As the article above states, America is not an empire. It has some imperial characteristics and behaviours, yes, but just because it happens to fulfil the role of world’s policeman at present does not mean that it is an empire. Nor does the fact that it possesses the world’s reserve currency, or that it sometimes uses its economic might to arrange world affairs to suit itself. These are the actions of a powerful nation, yes, but not an imperial nexus.

Nor is it collapsing. It is certain that the undisputed global hegemony of the USA will come to an end very soon, but this will not make the USA itself collapse. The USA will remain a superpower, it will remain wealthy, it will retain its geopolitical heft, and it will remain a nation that no other would dare to confront in direct military terms. The end of America as the unipolar superpower will happen, yes, (it might even lose reserve currency status at some point) but it will not be like the collapse of the USSR. It will not even be as bad as Britain’s experience of losing its empire, after the days when every potential dispute was settled by sending in a gunboat: the UK was a small country at the nexus of an Empire and became that small country once again when the empire was gone. America is a huge country with a huge economy and will remain both of those things no matter what China does or how badly Russia copes with squandering 40% of its GDP on trench warfare in Ukraine.

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
7 months ago
Reply to  John Riordan

I have never suggested the USA itself will collapse. But it will become isolationist and do very well as such.

Cathy Carron
Cathy Carron
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

The American public is exhausted paying for European defense and others. It’s time to come home.

Peter F. Lee
Peter F. Lee
7 months ago
Reply to  Cathy Carron

Especially when they appear so unsuccessful.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

The USA has spent a lot of time being isolationist. However, events seem to occur that draw it back onto the world stage.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

‘Events’ that shouldn’t really concern it if the truth be known.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

I think most Americans were concerned about the events of 7 December 1941.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

They shouldn’t be, ‘they’ set the whole thing up after all, and the Japanese were stupid enough to allow themselves to be goaded into war.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

I’d heard the theory that the British had advanced warning of the attack on Peral Harbour, and didn’t tell the Americans in the hope of getting them into the war. That at least is superficially plausible. I have never heard the suggestion that it was all a “cunning plan” by the Americans to dupe the hapless Japanese into sinking their ships and killing their people.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

The British (Churchill) certainly knew it was coming, thanks to signals intercepts and decryption, based on the ‘listening station’ in Hong Kong. Whether he (WSC) deliberately kept ‘silent’ is debatable.

The US was certainly up to speed with its own decryption etc, and had been doing their very best to goad the naive Japanese since at least 1930 if not 1922.

It’s all slightly reminiscent of the USS Maine in 1898, and perhaps even 9/11 in 2001.

Either way you have days of happy research ahead of you.

Carl Valentine
Carl Valentine
7 months ago

Lol, a welcome return to your finest wit Charles!

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

Perhaps all these nations/empiresare collapsing or about to ? Maybe the future is built on corporations and bitcoin makes the nation state obsolete as people navigate away from government monies. Not saying this would be for the best but this looks likely or at least possible to me. In a benign scenario the nation state survives to manage security/nukes etc but the government gets increasingly irrelevant as regards day to day life as the populations become more prosperous due to appreciating currency.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Bitcoin? Seriously? You think “magic beans” have a role to play in the future of the world?

David B
David B
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

To be fair, fiat currencies controlled by central banks are also magic beans.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  David B

….except that they are backed by something, and we know who set them up.

David B
David B
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

What exactly are all our pounds backed by?

Daniel Patrick
Daniel Patrick
7 months ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

you took the words out of my mouth

Skink
Skink
7 months ago

Amusing. Not credible.

Sandes Ashe
Sandes Ashe
7 months ago

What could possibly go wrong?
On an average day I would not expect to see Kaplan compared to Fukushima. The End of History seems to me to be in stark contrast with The Coming Anarchy but I am a surely naive. Kaplan has a more tragic mind.

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
7 months ago

Interesting analysis .. the possibilities going forward are endless

El Uro
El Uro
7 months ago

Indeed, we face no choice but to manage the interlocking wars and crises afflicting the Eurasian land mass — for, ultimately, they can’t be fixed
You did that in Afghanistan and Iraq. Want to try again?

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  El Uro

The most recent period of the “Afghan Conflict” was badly managed. The earlier period of the “Afghan Conflict” (when the Afghans were killing Russians) was well managed.

R S Foster
R S Foster
7 months ago

The one very clear lesson for us that we need to reduce our economic dependence on unstable regions…and rebuild our armed forces, concentrating on the Royal Navy and RAF…and the expeditionary components of the Army. We are looking at a rerun of the C16th/C17th…we need to organize on that basis…

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  R S Foster

An excellent suggestion! Western Europe would do well to increase its military spending as well!

Peter B
Peter B
7 months ago

Finally a sensible article on these subjects. What took UnHerd so long ?

Peter B
Peter B
7 months ago
Reply to  Peter B

Curious isn’t it ? The better the article, the more moronic and deranged (and in some shameful cases here nakely anti-Semitic) the comments are. And vice versa.

Flibberti Gibbet
Flibberti Gibbet
7 months ago
Reply to  Peter B

There is another rational explanation, you might be wrong.
I got three downvotes today for simply explaining that big pharma salesmen bring free donuts to GP Practices when invited to give a lunchtime presentation. Go figure.

Peter F. Lee
Peter F. Lee
7 months ago
Reply to  Peter B

If you are happy with the Article, Peter, then that is all that needs to be said. There is no need to demonize other comments. Just be careful not to be a lone voice in the wilderness.

A D Kent
A D Kent
7 months ago

 Another day, another Neoconservative essay at Unherd. In a congested field this is probably the most preposterous yet – something that shouldn’t be too surprising given that it comes from one of the key figures in that pathologically wrong, disastrously malign movement.

Kaplans analysis is the utmost drivel. The Russia-Ukraine war is not a stalemate, the Russian offensive has not stalled – something even his chums at the Kagan family think-tank The Institute for the Study (Starting) of Wars are even coming to realise. The IMF’s figures show just who has been weakened in the aftermath of the Ukraine war – and it isn’t the Russians.

Every single one of his statements could be applied to the US right now.

Kaplan gravely states “But as the hegemon weakens, fights for control of territory between one group and another commence.” That he can only support this assertion with the case of Nagorno-Karabakh is telling. That single, complex, relentlessly dabbled-with conflict is hardly proof of a general collapse. Otherwise he trots out some speculation about the Balkans – which stopped being part of Russia’s empire 30 years ago.

He finishes with this dire bit of sagery “Indeed, we face no choice but to manage the interlocking wars and crises afflicting the Eurasian land mass — for, ultimately, they can’t be fixed.”. Actually Bob – they can.

Back in the 2000s there was a disastrous war taking place slap-bang in the middle of that landmass – in Chechnya – many people were killed, massive areas were destroyed – but I’d suggest that right now even Kaplan would find Grozny a safer and more pleasant environment than any of the capitals that his monstrous creed have destroyed in the last three decades. What Chechnya had, and what Baghdad, Kabul, Mogadishu and Tripoli did not, was a lot less US ‘management’ and a lot more Russian investment.. The same could be true for Ukraine if the recommendations of the likes of Kaplan were treated with the contempt their track-records deserve.

Unherd – you really are going to have to do some thing with your mission statement if you keep publishing this nonsense.  

Chris Van Schoor
Chris Van Schoor
7 months ago
Reply to  A D Kent

Spot on. Couldn’t have said it better..

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  A D Kent

For Christ’s sake Kaplan is a JEW! Just like BLINKEN and so many other ‘neocon nutters’!
Need I say more?,

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

You don’t like Jews? There is a word for that, I think.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Neocons NOT Jews. QED?

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

So you don’t dislike Jews? Fair enough. My mistake.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

To be a Neocon is a choice, to be a Jew isn’t.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

It’s interesting how many atrociously bigoted statements about Russians are freely published or stated in the West

But make similar statements about Jews and suddenly you are done for.

The numbers of Russians killed in WW2 = 3-4x the number of Jews.

Flibberti Gibbet
Flibberti Gibbet
7 months ago
Reply to  A D Kent

An absolutely phenomenal deconstruction of the nonsense written by Kaplan.

Ron Kean
Ron Kean
7 months ago

My grandparents came to America from Bessarabia in 1905. I asked where it was and they said Romania but the towns were in Moldova. I asked about the discrepancy and they told me borders changed all the time in that part of the world.

Anna Bramwell
Anna Bramwell
7 months ago
Reply to  Ron Kean

I am tempted to write sarcastically that even people without Bessaeabian ancesters know that. But the fact is that most people dont know. . As is seen by most comnents on Ukraine and Russia in the msm.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Anna Bramwell

Borders have changed all the time historically. After all, a reasonable portion of the South West of the US was once part of Mexico, and Alaska was once part of Russia. However, if Mexico or Russia sought to regain those territories by armed means, not many people would be saying “borders change all the time”.

Xaven Taner
Xaven Taner
7 months ago

Honestly can’t see the sparsely populated and still semi-nomadic Steppe republics of Buryatia and Tuva trying to secede from Russia. If they didn’t try after how they were treated under Stalin, why now?

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Xaven Taner

Putin is an amateur compared to Stalin.

Mr Sketerzen Bhoto
Mr Sketerzen Bhoto
7 months ago

> Meanwhile, in the Balkans, violence flared not that long ago between masked Serbian gunmen in the north of Kosovo, home to a large Serbian minority, and Kosovar Albanian police.

Literally nowhere near Russia. Serbia is applying for the EU and has a visa free right to travel agreement. This kind of article works in America where all the places are the same place.

I think we can take with a grain of salt the other figures about Russian deaths as well. It looks like a stalemate. And Ukraine has probably lost as many men proportionally.

These are the guys that assured us the sanctions on Russia would destroy Russia and not harm Europe. Russia is growing at 5.5%. Germany is not.

In any case Russia has a schrodingers economy and army. Fighting the Ukrainians it’s on its last legs, but is a big threat to NATO to the extent that we have to conscript everybody in Europe up until the age of 60.

John Tyler
John Tyler
7 months ago

A side point:
USA coming to Ukraine’s aid was neither sel-interested nor generous; it fulfilled security guarantees made by the West when Ukraine rid itself of its nuclear weaponry. (Of course, the West promptly ignored Russia’s 2014 invasion, but that’s typical when the appeasers are in charge.)

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  John Tyler

If Ukraine had kept its nukes, none of this would have happened.

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
7 months ago

Demographically speaking, a greater Albania already exists glaringly on the map, and this is why the western Balkans are so ripe for Russian meddling, which is what declining empires do in order to throw their weight around.
Change the highlighted word to, say, Ukraine or the Middle East and we’re talking about an altogether different declining empire.

B N
B N
7 months ago

>>I don’t see an option to delete comment<<

Peter F. Lee
Peter F. Lee
7 months ago
Reply to  B N

Edit and erase comment.

Anna Bramwell
Anna Bramwell
7 months ago

All empires are different. The one possible communal thread is that collapsed empires revert to their earliest forms abd revert to nation states again. Turkey and Austria are examples.

D Walsh
D Walsh
7 months ago

The article blames the situation in Armenia on Russian weakness and distraction in The Ukraine

The Armenians decided to move closer to the US, why should the Russians help them

Walter Lantz
Walter Lantz
7 months ago

“Sooner or later, Putin’s Russia will fall apart” or variations of the theme seem popular these days. Grand strategy or wishful thinking? Neither inspires confidence. Perhaps the better question is “when will support for Ukraine fall apart?”
“Who could have conceived of nearly two years of trench warfare in Ukraine before it actually happened?” Well, how about the people that get paid lots of money to know these things. Either they are incompetent, or they figured from the start that we’d be where we are today.
Ukraine has, as Zelenskyy feared, dropped from the news cycle aside from repeated spasms of American political horse-trading over continuing financial support. The “just give us the weapons and we’ll win” sales pitch isn’t really working. It could be a couple of years before the US and the EU can ramp up monthly production of 155MM shells to the required 200,000 needed to carry-on the slug-fest.
The US justice system hasn’t been able to sideline their nemesis so Biden and the Dems have a real battle on their hands. Aside from confirming that Trump could win in November, the polls show that neither Ukraine nor Gaza are high on the list of concerns for Americans. On the other hand:  Japan wants everyone to know: Taylor Swift will make it in time for the Super Bowl.  
Funding both adventures is fast becoming a political non-starter and if Biden has to choose one it likely won’t be Ukraine.  
In the EU the Net Zero pushback is gathering steam.  In Canada , the opposition Conservatives, riding a rising tide of “what about Canadians?”, are not supporting a Ukraine funding commitment that the fading Trudeau Liberals thought they could hide in an innocuous-looking Canada-Ukraine trade bill. If you believe some pundits there’s no guarantee that Zelneskyy will be around if and when this conflict is over.
Sure, Putin was looking for a quick victory in Ukraine but now he’s playing the long game and given the state of Western social and political discord, that may very well be a game he can win. (depending on what “win” means in Ukraine these days). He certainly knows that the West is in a tight spot as far as any kind of negotiated agreement is concerned.  Any deal that gets tongues wagging “We could have done this two years ago” will be bad political optics. 

Sylvia Volk
Sylvia Volk
7 months ago
Reply to  Walter Lantz

“Sooner or later, Putin’s Russia will fall apart” – little is certain, except it is sure that Putin himself will be dead in a few years. It will no longer be his Russia then. What happens after that? No one else of his ilk seems likely to step into Russian rule and continue his grand troublesome plans.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Sylvia Volk

Putin will die one day, and I for my part look forward to that day. However, what will follow remains to be seen. I would like to think the next leader won’t be as bad as Putin (or that they will at least be less of a war-monger), but there are no guarantees of that. I am more confident that when Xi Jinping dies, China will to an extent “go back to normal”.

Sylvia Volk
Sylvia Volk
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Yes. I’m sure Ukraine also looks forward to news of Putin’s death.
It also seems to me that even if someone as bad replaces Putin (or Xi), that successor will have to put in some decades building up his position. So a few years or decades of ebbing tension for the new Putin’s neighbors? At the very least? That’s no bad thing.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Sylvia Volk

Exactly. Maybe the next Russian leader will content himself with being a tyrant at home, and not invading anybody else.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

What an extraordinary comment from such a blatantly obvious war monger as your good self.

Perhaps you should seek counselling before it is too late?

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

I favour making war on Putin, for sure. I’m sure I would have favoured making war on Hitler or Napoleon had I been around at the relevant time. However, wars are made with an end in mind, and I am hopeful the death of Putin will remove that need vis -a-vis Russia. I don’t think I will ever trust Russia, but I am hopeful that we will get to a situation where there is an “uneasy peace”.

Studio Largo
Studio Largo
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

What would ‘normal’ look like? Xi didn’t create the present situation out of thin air. Like Mao before him, he’s the logical end product of Communist authoritarianism. The difference over the last thirty years is that with the eager participation of Western corporatists and their lackeys, they’ve become capitalists as well. The combination of all-pervasive social control and massive profits is every corporatist’s wet dream, especially the tech sector, who have tools at their disposal that Hitler and Stalin could have only dreamed of.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Walter Lantz

Perhaps the better question is “when will support for Ukraine fall apart?”
Well, there is a pretty fair chance that will happen if Trump regains the Presidency. He is after all “Putin’s poodle”.

Peter F. Lee
Peter F. Lee
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

and your evidence is? As opposed to Obama’s video evidence.

Samuel Ross
Samuel Ross
7 months ago

Well said!

Dick Barrett
Dick Barrett
7 months ago

There has been more than enough of this neocon rubbish, including items like this one which pretend not to be. It is time for a negotiated peace with Russia and an end to Nato expansion.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Dick Barrett

The whole point of NATO is to keep Russia in check. It is needed now more than ever.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

NATO would be more useful if it could keep Israel in check.
It is a far greater menace to world peace than Russia is.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

NATO was never designed to keep Israel in check.

A D Kent
A D Kent
7 months ago

 Anyone interested in a right-up-to-date piece on the situation in Armenia could do a lot worse than read this at the (most excellent) NakedCapitalism. There are all sorts of games being played there – yes by Russia, but also the Germans, US and, wait for it, the French. If you are not doing so already, I highly recommend you check out their daily ‘Links’ digest of interesting material – they very often link to Unherd pieces.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/02/troubling-trends-in-armenia-mirror-pre-war-ukraine.html

Flibberti Gibbet
Flibberti Gibbet
7 months ago

The US and UK think tanks operating within the orbits of the CIA and MI5 need to spend more time coordinating their messages.
Within the space of a week the head of the British Army has warned that massed tank divisions of Imperial Russian forces will roll right over the last 150 antiquated main battle tanks the UK can send to Europe and yet in this article we are led to believe Ukraine is littered with the burnt out shells of 2200 Russian tanks.
I suspect the 77th Brigade of the UK has finally returned from an extended Christmas skiing holiday in Aspen and right now the 1st Company of the Assault Information Re-engineering Battalion has been deployed in chaotic order.
The problem is they forgot to synchronize their truth watches before leaving Verify HQ.

Paul Thompson
Paul Thompson
7 months ago

Serbia was forced to accept Kosovo by a completely illegitimate bombing of Beograd by NATO in 1999. This acceptance of the baseless claims of a minority in a region set a terrible precedent. What is to stop NATO from bombing Madrid to allow the Basque region to separate, or Paris to allow the Catalan region to separate. Every state in the world has ethnic minorities usually concentrated in a region.
Kosovo’s claim to legitimacy of statehood is extremely weak.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Paul Thompson

The answer to your question is that Spain and France are in NATO.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

And CATALONIA is in SPAIN.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

My point is that members of NATO are unlikely to bomb other members of NATO.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Greece would certainly like to bomb Turkey and vice versa.

Dougie Undersub
Dougie Undersub
7 months ago

Can we stop discussing this trivia? The important thing to note is that Kier Starmer is fully across the women/p***s thing.

Sensible Citizen
Sensible Citizen
7 months ago

The author has bought into every CIA talking point with regard to Russia. It seems to me that the Americans miscalculated, as usual, and Putin has as a result turned on his war production machine and is now the only country in the world (except possibly China) with 24/7 munitions manufacturing. A recent video tour of Moscow shows restaurants full, public works projects underway, and no indication the country is even at war.
Why does the US have 600 military bases abroad, and no healthcare for their taxpayers? And why is Russia even a concern of the US? Victoria Nuland intentionally engineered the war in Ukraine, with the help of Merkel and Johnson, and the DC ghouls have killed another half-million proxies.
The Putin bashing and trust in the media narrative baffles me.

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

A recent video tour of Moscow shows restaurants full, public works projects underway, and no indication the country is even at war“.
That is because Ukraine hasn’t been given missiles with enough range to hit Moscow. Were it up to me, they would get them.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Were it up to you the World would probably have been vaporised by now.
Such gung-ho talk from such an obvious armchair general is really rather demeaning.

May I ask if you have ever picked up more than a ‘feather duster’ in anger?

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago

So, let me see if I understand your position. It is ok for the Russians to bomb Kiev, but not for the Ukrainians to bomb Moscow? Seems a little unfair. In answer to your other question, I appreciate hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I think that the West could have taken rather more vigorous action against Russia and China in their early “Communist” days (although I appreciate why they didn’t have the stomach for it).

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Don’t be daft!
‘WE’ needed a Golden Goose to lay the Cold War Egg(s).

Sensible Citizen
Sensible Citizen
7 months ago
Reply to  Martin M

Why bomb Moscow? It’s a beautiful city. I wish the US still had beautiful cities. If Russia had done in Mexico what the US did in Ukraine, the neocons would flatten that narco state and make the bones bounce. Putin isn’t the bad actor here.

john d rockemella
john d rockemella
7 months ago

Russia is winning against the globalist cabal! Their economy is the fastest growing and their people are more united! I would say the west is dying and everyone hates the elitist globalist corporates and politicians.

Christopher Chantrill
Christopher Chantrill
7 months ago

Well, I’d say that the problem was not that WWI ended two years too late, but that brilliant former-college president Wilson imposed a Carthaginian peace on the Germans at Versailles, and broke up Eastern Europe into a bunch of mini-countries that were too small to defend themselves against Russia and Germany.
Odd that machine politician President Truman figured out the right way to set up the Germans. I mean, “experts agree” that it takes a college president to really understand the world,
Why not get the Germans to sit down to breakfast with the Poles and get them to form an alliance against Russia? Frederick the Great did a decent job dealing with Russia a couple hundred years ago. Why couldn’t the Germans do it again?

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
7 months ago

Frederick the Great did NOT do “a decent job dealing with the Russians “. They thrashed him, captured Berlin and had it not been for the death of the Tsarina it would have been ‘game over’.

James Love
James Love
7 months ago

Why should “we” manage Russia’s collapse? The West needs to focus its energies on making itself prosperous and strong. Let that barbarous imperium implode, Just as the USA did in the Cold War.

Daniel Patrick
Daniel Patrick
7 months ago

I have also heard that Putin is hiding weapons of mass destruction. Just sayin’

Martin M
Martin M
7 months ago
Reply to  Daniel Patrick

I wonder how many of them still work.

Andrew Boughton
Andrew Boughton
7 months ago

Ah, dear. Robert Kaplan, who helped chase the last crisp Protestant professional “Arabists” out of the State Department, and even ambushed one in his retirement, solid life-long public servant that he was, but ‘suspect’ on Israel, under the guise of a sincere interview. What a guy. And here now, replete with the same nonsense, giving no hint of why we really supported a radical pan-Islamist in the Balkans, whose Mein Kampf style publication had him jailed by Tito for inciting racial hatred, not because he was a Muslim, as Kaplan would have it. And buddying up with Croats of deeply curious WWII pedigree, illegally bringing arms and fighters from Iran, Afghanistan and North Africa, undermining the UN peace keepers and arms embargo via Peter Galbraith and Paul Nitze in Zagreb. Now we face a Greater Albania rather than a Greater Serbia. But it’s those Serb irredentists who fought the Turks and then the Nazis and helped resettle Albanians in Yugoslavia who are the real fascists, right? And he speaks of “chaos” and Russian “bitterness” as he pursued the Cold War unilaterally while they were down, after its falsely declared end. Right. Anything to get at Russia. Anything at all.