Excellent piece James Ward.

I believe you are right that this will not end with Ukraine. And that the U.S. Europe and NATO have to be prepared for a drawn out, exhausting, expensive and distracting ordeal. Things that Americans generally have little patience or stomach for.

Two factors may determine a lot. The resistance of the Ukraine people to Putin's assault and the behavior of the other world leader (also with too few checks and balance), Xi Jinping.

We need to get that relationship with China right. I believe we are on a dangerous path. We should be moving uncomfortably close to China and not comfortably further away. I wrote a short piece "A wall Between Us and China Is Just Not the Answer".

Fiona Hill's "There's Nothing For You Here" describes a picture of post soviet Russia of shocking upheaval in the transition to a market economy where the ordinary folk found themselves out of the equation. A multi times event similar to what happened under Thatcher in the UK and Reagan in the U.S. (culminating in Trump) I mention this because the Russian trauma may have produced or fashioned Putin?

Many thanks