Letters: Britain needs the English National Ballet

Putin’s options

Sir: I agree with Paul Wood that Vladimir Putin is on the back foot (‘Cornered’, 24 September). His actions, from partial mobilisation to nuclear threats to the rapid referenda in occupied Ukraine, indicate a psychopathic gambler who hopes that one last spin will turn Lady Fortune his way. However, there is a big gap between ‘losing’ and ‘lost’, and that is where the focus on the nuclear threat by the West is unhelpful and dangerous. As well as the partial mobilisation, Putin ordered in August a 10 per cent increase in the size of the military to more than a million combat troops. Combine this with the ‘economy of effort’ effect of withdrawing from parts of Ukraine and come next spring, Putin has the makings of a ground manoeuvre force that gives him options. How he chooses to use them is moot: a ‘coup de main’ assault on Moldova, another attempt to take Odessa, better defences in eastern Ukraine or an attack on the Baltic states – all are possible, with different levels of risk and reward. Putin is cornered and, as Paul Wood concludes, he is dangerous. But let us not be so fixated by the worst case – use of nuclear weapons – that we do not contemplate more likely cases and prepare accordingly.

Colonel (Retired) Simon Diggins OBE

Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire

Expanding threat

Sir: Jonathan Sumption is one of the most distinguished minds of this age. I am puzzled to see him concluding that the eastward expansion of Nato was ‘probably’ worth the risk (Books, 24 September). What have we gained that made the risk of war worthwhile, even ‘probably’? Russia is by no means the only European power with an aggressive past. And as the American neo-conservative Robert Kagan has put it: ‘Although it is obscene to blame the US for Putin’s inhumane attack on Ukraine, to insist that the invasion was entirely unprovoked is misleading.’