The West must stop playing Mr Nice Guy

Iwas intrigued to learn from our Defence Secretary, Grant Shapps, that we are now in a ‘pre-war’ phase and that there is an almost inevitability of eventual conflict with one or two of the world’s superpowers. I read his comments on the same day that the German newspaper Das Bild reported that Russia was planning to invade western Europe within 18 months.

This is all very worrying, not least because Grant Shapps is our Defence Secretary. I don’t think I’d trust Grant to provide military back-up for a whelk stall, but then I suspect that his likely successor, John Healey, will be no more effective. The problem both men have is the problem which afflicts the West – we are incapable of being properly aggressive and can only really manage passive aggression.

As I mentioned two weeks ago, our behaviour over Ukraine has been the very definition of passive aggression, much as is inviting the Swedes and Finland into Nato.