Between The Crisis and The Catastrophe

Peter Hitchens writes:

We are currently clattering along the top of the rollercoaster of confrontation, with our silly sanctions against Russia for simply protecting its own interests.

What moral basis we have for this action I do not know.

We are the bombers of Belgrade, the invaders of Iraq and Afghanistan, the unprotesting allies of Turkey, which still holds territory in Cyprus it seized by force 40 years ago, and whose current regime holds show trials and shoots its own people.  

We could still grow up and stop this getting worse.

 But we are now at that misleading moment when all appears calm and smooth, before we take the first wild plunge, and the sheer exhilaration of action and reaction takes our breath, and our sense, away.

Well, in the interval between the crisis and the catastrophe, let us at least think.

I would recommend to you an excellent article on Russia and the ‘West’ by Angus Roxburgh in this week’s New Statesman, but most of it is not readily available.

Instead, I would urge you to read a superb, prophetic and wise article on the problem of Russia and Western Europe, written in 1997 by Sir Rodric Braithwaite, once our Ambassador in Moscow, later a valued senior civil servant and now the author of (among other books) Afgantsy, a study of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.

Prospect magazine have very kindly brought it out from behind their paywall so that you can. Please repay this favour by studying this rare piece of properly-informed, intelligent consideration.