The Spectator’s Notes | 23 February 2017

Last month, at Policy Exchange, I met a charming, quiet American general called H.R. McMaster. In conversation, I was struck by his zeal for Nato and his concern wherever the alliance is now weakest, as in Turkey. In his speech to the thinktank, he said clearly that Russia and China are attempting to ‘collapse’ the post-1945 and post-Cold War ‘political, economic and security order’, with unconventional forces hiding behind conventional ones, subversion, disinformation, propaganda, economic actions and ‘proxies’ such as organised crime networks. The situation had echoes of 1914, and the risk of a great-power war was the highest for 70 years. He emphasised that, ‘despite public comments by our President’, the need to combat these threats by having strong alliances was ‘inescapable’. This week, Lt Gen McMaster replaced the pro-Russian Mike Flynn after his brief, turbulent stay as Trump’s national security adviser. The appointment looks like a belated outburst of sanity.