Letters: The BBC licence fee is a protection racket

Russia’s star

Sir: Wolfgang Münchau is surely right to highlight the risk posed to European peace and stability by Germany’s strategic myopia (‘In the pipeline’, 22 January). But he may be in error to assert that ‘Russia is in the ascendant’ — at least in terms of the fundamentals. Russia no longer makes it into the top ten of the world’s economies and is about to be overtaken by South Korea. Its poorly developed economy is unduly reliant on energy exports — a sort of Saudi Arabia with snow instead of sand.

A state whose star is rising has every incentive to sit tight and allow that to continue — which is what China has been doing for years. It’s when a country’s leaders perceive that the future looks less good than the present that things can unravel. Such was the case for Germany in 1914 — as the Chief of the German General Staff put it in May that year: ‘The sooner, the better.’