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Pigs Aren’t Flying, But They Are Trying To Hop
Contrary to absolutely everyone’s expectations, the West hasn’t discovered a spine but it has found some vaguely cartilaginous tissue
As expected, the West’s initial reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was to prevaricate, issue plenty of meaningless statements, and do as little as possible. As Putin had already seen the West hide under the bed when he sent Russian forces into Georgia in 2008, and seen the West hide under the bed again when he invaded Crimea in 2014, and seen the West hide under the bed again when he invaded the Donbass region of Ukraine later in 2014, it was perfectly understandable that he expected more of the same blatant cowardice, stupidity, and vacuous dithering this time around.
And at first, that is precisely what he got.
Marx thought that history was all about huge impersonal forces. But as everything Marx thought was wrong, we can ignore the pompous bearded fatalist and see instead that in reality history very often hinges on the character of a single person.
In the late 1930s almost every British citizen was eager to continue appeasing Hitler and had not Churchill been obdurate during the crucial meeting with George VI to determine who should lead the government after…
