The Debatable Land #2: A Game of Chicken

Welcome to the second edition of The Debatable Land, a more or less weekly newsletter of thoughts and things what have caught my eye. Thanks very much for being here. As ever, if you felt like sharing this with friends and family or on the social media platform of your choice then, well, that would be lovely.

From Russia With Malice

I do not wish to alarm you unduly but the prospect of a war in europe soon seems significantly under-priced. Or, rather, to be more strictly accurate, the prospect of an existing small and dirty conflict becoming a much larger conflagration is one that, for understandable reasons, many people prefer to avoid contemplating.

But the Russian build-up of forces on its border with Ukraine is not happening for no reason and the risks it could easily end in a “proper” war wholly distinct in kind from the (comparatively) minor, half-acknowledged, fighting that continues in Eastern Ukraine where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces for eigh…