Sir Bernard Jenkin
MP for Harwich and North Essex · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Despite long and historic disagreements between successive UK Governments and Israel, it has remained a steadfast ally in counter-terrorist efforts to keep our people safe in this country. We are now embarked, it seems, on a full diplomatic dispute with Israel and tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats.”
“I would very much have liked to have discussed the medical devices questions arising from the Bill. The Minister made an incredibly short speech about that important matter. It is quite clear that these provisions are part of the covert dynamic alignment with the EU and the covert rejoin agenda being pursued by the Government.”
“I am as keen as anybody to get on with discussing the Health Bill, but this topic is too serious an opportunity to miss, given that the hon. Member for Leeds Central and Headingley (Alex Sobel) has raised such important issues. I really commend his speech and his initiative. Everybody should read it.”
“The Minister shakes her head, but she is yet to give a good reason as to why this measure is in the Bill. When we had an Adjournment debate in July with the then Minister for patient safety, the hon.”
“The chief executive of the CQC is wantonly conflicted in terms of looking after the safe space, so he cannot be the one left in charge of that function. The real point here is that we are missing the opportunity to save so much money. Governments keep having public inquiries.”
“I asked the Minister, in a letter I sent her after the debate in July, to give us the information on how much the transfer of all this would cost. Nothing has arrived. I never had a reply to the letter. Of course, the Government have changed the Minister and the new Minister for patient safety, the right hon.”
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“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that there is an urgent question on Ukraine later, but I wonder whether the Government have given any indication that they intend to make a statement on our relations with China, given that China has done nothing to condemn the Ukrainian incursion. Will the Government also make a statement on what is happening in the Balkans? I understand that missiles are arriving in Serbia, ready to destabilise the Dayton agreement and create a new crisis there.”
“Further to that point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Could you clarify that it is changes in Government policy that are required to be announced to the House of Commons first? That does not muzzle the Government from making any statement about any matter, however serious, if there is no change of policy. I have read the Prime Minister’s statement, and I see no change of policy.”
“Putin and President Xi have observed years of western failure to react to Russian encroachments and Chinese anti-democratic influence. We have encouraged them to join together in thinking that, despite our bluster, Putin’s taking Ukraine and China’s expanding influence are in their mutual interests and will remain largely unchallenged. That must now change, and it is changing. Until recently, it seemed that Putin might succeed, as he did in Georgia and Crimea, but Putin has miscalculated. His bullying has mobilised Ukraine’s resistance, is galvanizing support for NATO in previously neutral nations such as Sweden and Finland, and is rekindling Washington’s concern about Russia’s threat to global peace.”
“But all of Europe must now be united. Nor is the United Kingdom beyond criticism. We have a firm understanding of the Russia problem in our analytical community, and of China, but until recently successive Prime Ministers chose to turn a blind eye to both problems. This is now changing, but the UK finds itself without the necessary tools to tackle the Russia threat and the China challenge. Our military has lost its ability to fight a peer enemy. Our legal system allows Russians and Chinese agents to exploit the vulnerabilities inherent in democracy. Our own blind reliance on spot markets to obtain cheaper gas has undermined our energy security. I have spoken before about how the UK Government lack the capacity for deep continuous strategic thinking to match the strategy and planning of our enemies, and I will return to that point.”
“There are, to be sure, specialists in the US who understand that, like China, Russia is a long-term opponent, but their voices must compete with those who are effectively advocating appeasement for Russia—resets, normalisation, and the overlooking of previous illegal incursions, overseas assassinations, cyber-attacks on NATO allies and so on. In Europe, Germany understands the existential nature of the Russian threat, but has until very recently pursued a policy of engagement with Russia. This now looks to have been deeply unwise. It has created serious vulnerability for Germany and for Europe as a whole. France, historically anti-American, must now accept that Russia presents the threat. Even this week, the French were, understandably, trying to use this to their advantage to prove their global influence and to try to secure peace.”
“As the dark shadow of war once again falls across our entire continent, I reflect on the adage attributed to Leon Trotsky: “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” Everyone who loathes war and wants peace should reflect on that. If other people are determined to foment war, we have to take an interest. The question in this debate is how we should now see Russia and China and the relationship between them. In the UK, we see Russia as an immediate threat, but China as perhaps the much greater long-term challenge. In the US, it is different. All US presidents since Obama have seen China as the existential threat and today’s Russia as yesterday’s problem, Europe’s problem, and a regional rather than a global threat.”
“It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), who stands out as the only Scottish Member of Parliament who voted for the renewal of Trident in 2016. That is a great credit to him and to his prescience, because, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) said, if there was ever a demonstration of the futility of nuclear disarmament, it is the position that Ukraine finds itself in now. Yet that is the policy of the SNP and of a great number of Labour MPs, and they are a threat to our national security. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely) on securing this debate.”
“We cannot begin to do so if China aligns itself with the now rogue regime in Moscow.”
“To his credit, President Xi has now backed off from his earlier strong support for Putin, as he came to realise that a full-scale invasion of Ukraine will mobilise the west and enable the west to strengthen its defences and have a more competitive stance, against not only Russia, but China. China should reflect on the questions now being asked in Washington and Europe, as raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset. Why should we not formally recognise Taiwan’s sovereignty and its right to self-determination, if China is to co-operate so easily with Putin in Ukraine? China can use this moment to build trust with the west. The west will continue to have great differences with China, but we want to work together with China for global peace and security and for a sustainable planet.”
“President Xi is very different from the usurper Putin. While Russia represents great culture and history, Putin’s rogue regime is fundamentally weak, trying to prove its power despite Russia’s internal dysfunctionality and economic failure. China, however, represents a far older, more consistent and altogether more considered philosophical tradition. Putin acts impetuously; President Xi demonstrates strategic patience. Russia is trying to distract from its failures; China is building upon its success. The task of the west is not only to deal effectively with Putin, but to give a clear message to China and to other countries that might consider endorsing or imitating Putin’s aggression.”
“What is completely clear is that President Putin has repudiated his own words and security guarantees that were given to Ukraine on its existing borders. Last night’s strikes by Russia on Ukraine’s military infrastructure and border guard units, and the incursions of military vehicles, show that there can be no compromise with Putin. We will only find peace through strength. What is there to negotiate? Putin is now seized by an irrational obsession to crush Ukraine by one means or another. His performance on Russian TV addressing his security council underlined how Putin is now acting out his emotions—his frustration, wounded pride and lust for revenge. According to him, only great powers count, and if you cannot bully your smaller neighbours into submission, you are not really a great power.”
“On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I very much regret having to do this. I apologise to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to the House and to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael), because I misconstrued his record. It was in fact my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) who was the only Scottish MP who voted for the renewal of Trident in 2016. To the right hon. Gentleman’s credit, however, he is not actually a unilateral disarmer.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement, and indeed thank the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition for his supportive and moving words. But I also reinforce the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly). Why has it come to this pass? How has the west in general and the UK in particular been so asleep at the switch for such a long time? I commend the defence and security review, but is it not now time to ask what the permanent and impartial machinery of our government does in failing to provide Ministers with consistent advice about the strategic threats that our country faces?”
“While thanking my right hon. Friend for his statement, may I ask him to reflect on the fact that President Putin has already achieved so much of what he set out to achieve? He may have no intention of launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but he has already committed the crimes that deserve the most severe punishment from the free world. What are we going to do to continue to strengthen and unify NATO, which is exactly what he did not want his policy to achieve?”
“Is it not now clear that the Northern Ireland protocol is unfit for purpose and is not delivering on what it said on the tin, which is that it would strengthen and underpin the Good Friday agreement? It needs to be scrapped and replaced by something completely different, and the EU should agree to that. The EU is the only party that has threatened to put infrastructure on the border in Northern Ireland, and we should keep reminding the EU that it is the one threatening the peace in Northern Ireland.”
“I have confidence in and admiration for my right hon. Friend, but I am somewhat disappointed that this matter is being treated as some kind of technical problem when it is actually a constitutional crisis. He says the Northern Ireland Executive should seek to resolve it but, under the Northern Ireland Act 1998, the Northern Ireland Executive resolves matters by agreeing things between the power-sharing parties. They fundamentally disagree on this matter because the Northern Ireland protocol is, in fact, incompatible with the Good Friday agreement. The protocol is also incompatible with the Act of Union, because it has been ruled that it supersedes the Act of Union. And the European Union says there are not enough checks taking place.”
“I will be as brief as I possibly can. First, I would like to thank the Chair of the Committee, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), for the manner in which he chairs the Committee, for the way he presented the report, and for his diligence and the work he puts in to this Committee. It is a very arduous Committee, and it has a very heavy workload.”
“They are taught these things. The problem we have in this House is that, culturally, we consider ourselves to be Members of a sovereign Parliament and to be beyond regulation and beyond question. Article 9 states that everything else is subsidiary to us. If anybody dares question us, well, we are elected, nobody dares gainsay us, and it is up to our voters. I am afraid no other profession in the country operates on that basis.”
“The compromise between handing the whole thing over to some independent judicial panel and leaving things as they are is to have an appeal akin to the independent expert panel that we have for the ICGS, but even that would have to be advised by a Member especially appointed for the purpose in serious and contested cases, to advise on how Parliament works and on the moral hazards of being a Member of Parliament. I was mocked last week for suggesting that Members of Parliament need to learn more about this, but every profession in the world has training programmes to educate lawyers, doctors and other professional people on the moral hazards they will encounter in their career and how they should think about them. The General Medical Council website has a section on how to be a good doctor, and it sets out the principles.”
“The sad thing is that, if we just look at the Chamber today, we see there are a couple of handfuls of hon. Members here who are engaged with this debate. It has always been the biggest problem, in my view, that people only start engaging with the code when they are accused of something, they are worried about being accused of something or they are trying to steer clear of falling foul of the rules. There is not nearly enough discussion, reflection and understanding of why the code exists, of the principles and values behind the code, or indeed of how we should learn to talk about how we aspire to those principles. I have always believed that the adjudication process is wanting.”
“Being a senior barrister, for example, may take a Member away for weeks on end on very important cases, but having such people in this House means that we have such resources at our disposal much more readily than if these people felt they were squeezed out and were not welcome here. So I agree with him about the time point, and I agree with him about respectfulness. I actually joined this Committee because I wanted to be involved in the revision of the code. This is ongoing work, and it has been going on for a very long time—since the previous commissioner first started work on the revision of the code. It is meant to happen every three years, but it has been delayed and delayed. So the report we are discussing actually incorporates the results of a great number of hours of work and thought.”
“It is meant to be light duties, and I thought I could combine it with other things, but I have given up other things to stay on this Committee, because I think the work we are now doing on the revision of the code is so important. I could touch on some of the points the hon. Gentleman made. I think he is right about the key being the transparency of conflicts of interests. We should not be denigrating people in this House who have outside interests. Some of them are unavoidable and some of them are by choice, but I firmly believe that this House is enriched by having people who stay on in Parliament, particularly later in their career, while involved with other interests.”
“Dr Foster-Gilbert points out: “For MPs, faced with difficult choices on a daily basis, the task is to learn how to retain their integrity and behave selflessly, even while making those choices”— about power, about competition with others, and about competition of ideas. I will wind up now, but I really recommend that people read this particular piece of evidence, because our next inquiry will be much more about training and promotion of the code. People bridle against training, but we need to engage people in the conversation about what the code is for much more than we do.”
“She was addressing the first question, “What values, attitudes and behaviours should the Code of Conduct for MPs seek to encourage or discourage?” She notes that the code reads as a document that first began as a response to financial misconduct. She said: “It is cast as a regulatory instrument, which implies it is a set of rules which can be kept or broken.” It is now a mixture of rules, guidance and principles. She points out that no one can perfectly embody those principles; that would be impossible. Let us take, for example, selflessness, to which the hon. Member for Rhondda referred. Nobody can be totally selfless, least of all in politics. Our efforts in that regard can never be completely successful.”
“I can think of cases—I will say no more than that—where if the individuals concerned had been taken aside by the right person and given the right advice, and if they had not run for their lawyers, got into a conflict with the commissioner and then questioned the whole system, their life would have turned out very different. Somehow, we need an independent system of support and advice—it cannot be the Whips—to make sure Members have the right advice. On closing, I wish to draw attention to a particular piece of evidence that the Committee received. It has not had much attention, but I feel that it is by far the most useful thing that we have received. It is a response to our original issues and questions paper from Dr Claire Foster-Gilbert of the Westminster Abbey Institute.”
“I have very little time and there is much I could say, but I will not address all the proposals. Members complain about the code of conduct and about the commissioner, but this House voted for the code and the commissioner. This House is to blame for the system we have. If Members do not engage with the system at a moment like this, they have nobody to blame but themselves if they fall foul of it. To cry foul and say how it is all a fix and all a conspiracy does nobody any good. On that point, because engagement tends to be low, the Committee will have to think much more about how we support those who are accused of falling foul of the code.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. The problem is that, when we sit in the Tea Room, we talk about rules; we do not talk about values and principles. People wonder what the rules mean and how to stay within them—“That is allowed, but this is not allowed.” We see it in financial regulation. When banks and financial services operate on the basis of what the rules are, they get around the rules. The rules are gamed, so they constantly have to adapt. There is no discussion about whether something is a good and honourable thing to do, or whether it is something about which we should feel uncomfortable. The rules are meant to be a fallback. Actually, we should be talking to each other about why we are in politics, what our personal priorities are, what our personal morality is and how we navigate it.”
“Given that it is just a fact that people do not come to debates such as these, what is the alternative? Do we need to have a proactive engagement policy, rather like the way we introduce new Members to the House now?”
“The Leader of the House has not been in opposition, but if he was the Opposition spokesman, he would have the same obligation to attend the same event, but would be subject to the House of Commons rules rather than the ministerial ones. What is the difference?”
“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Is there a means by which you could draw to the attention of the SNP spokesman, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart), that Mr Speaker made a statement in which he explained “there are means by which accusations of lying may be brought before the House”? —[ Official Report , 2 February 2022; Vol. 708, c. 266.] I do not think the SNP spokesman has read that statement or understood it.”
“Will my right hon. Friend first of all remind the Leader of the Opposition and the Labour party that the Back Benchers of the Conservative party need no reminders about how to dispose of a failing leader? Will he also, when he is restructuring No. 10, concentrate on the fact that the country wants results? We cannot see the point of such a large No. 10 superstructure; it needs to be slimmed down and streamlined. May I commend his determination to restore Cabinet government? It is on results, over the next few months, that he will be judged.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement, which puts the United Kingdom at the forefront of the response to President Putin’s monstrous military intimidation. Will my right hon. Friend personally pledge himself to the defence of the new democracies of eastern Europe, who suffered under the Soviet yoke for so long and still want to be free? Will he acknowledge that this change must happen anyway, whether or not the invasion takes place? We must make sure that we are prepared in a new cold war against this kind of intimidation until the Russian regime is removed.”
“He has been candid in discussing with the Committee his own mental health issues. We recommend that my hon. Friend is suspended for just one day, but we point out that there would have been a much longer period of suspension if it had not been for those mitigating circumstances. We have also required him to apologise for his conduct both orally in the House and in writing to those he has offended. As I said, this is the first such referral to the Committee. It is an opportunity not just for my hon. Friend but for the whole House to learn that deriding or undermining the ICGS is a serious breach of the Commons code of conduct and is morally wrong. Any future such breach is likely to be met with a more significant period of suspension. With regret, I urge the House to support the motion.”
“In this case, however, the Committee considered that there were significant mitigating factors. Once my hon. Friend was confronted by what he had done, he co-operated fully with the commissioner and the Committee. He apologised to the Committee and apologised unreservedly for his conduct on 14 June 2021, as he did earlier today. We accept that he may have been triggered, as the term suggests, into that conduct by a prior leak of information about his case on the internet on 14 June. We accept that my hon. Friend has been sincerely attempting to understand the causes of his poor attitude and behaviour and is seeking to address them. The Committee felt that he has made progress in self-understanding but that he has more work to do in cultivating empathy and a real ability to understand how bullying affects its victims.”
“Friend had failed to comply with the IEP sanction, which was that he should unequivocally apologise. She also found that he had breached other undertakings and concluded that he had therefore brought the House into disrepute. The Standards Committee has upheld the commissioner’s findings. Our report made it clear that we consider it to be a very serious breach of the rules. By endorsing our report, the House sends a clear message in this first case, not just that bullying and harassment will not be tolerated, but that legitimate complainants will be supported and that anyone who seeks to undermine the ICGS will be sanctioned. The Committee decided that the appropriate sanction for the breach of the Commons code would be a suspension from the House for a significant period.”
“He further challenged the legitimacy of the system and indirectly identified the original complainants, despite having been warned not to do so. That was in direct breach of undertakings that he had previously given to the IEP. What my hon. Friend did was equivalent to showing contempt of court. It was a very serious attempt to subvert the system that the House so recently established. It was an attempt to not only undermine the credibility of the original complainants, but, if left unaddressed, discourage anyone who might be contemplating making a future complaint about bullying. The IEP chair rightly referred the matter to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards as a serious breach of the Commons code. The commissioner investigated the report and reported to the Standards Committee, finding that my hon.”
“Friend—was found by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards to have breached the ICGS rules for having bullied two members of Commons staff. The hon. Member did not appeal against that finding. A sub-panel of the IEP imposed the sanction that he should apologise in the House. He appealed against the sanction, but a separate sub-panel upheld it. The hon. Member—my hon. Friend—accordingly made the apology on 14 June 2021. Unfortunately, on the same day, before the publication of the report, he broke the embargo by giving a radio interview and by speaking to a newspaper. He made comments suggesting that he was only apologising because he was being forced to apologise, and which suggested that his apology was not sincere.”
“This is chaired by a very distinguished former Appeal Court judge, Sir Stephen Irwin, and he is supported by other experienced jurists. The House has also approved Standing Orders, which means that the House votes on any motion to suspend a Member without debate. This is the system that led the hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) to be required to apologise in the original case. However, the Standards Committee and the House still have our role overseeing the House of Commons code of conduct. It is a breach of the Commons code if it appears that an ICGS sanction has not been complied with, and that is what the present case was about. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham—my hon.”
“and right hon. Members will wish to understand these issues. The first is that the House has committed itself to supporting the new independent system for dealing with bullying and harassment—the independent complaints and grievance system. The ICGS has only recently been set up. Independent is the key word. Dame Laura Cox, in her 2018 report on bullying and harassment of House staff, recommended that Members of Parliament should not be involved in adjudicating on their own colleagues accused of these very serious offences. The House agreed, and we now have a system of independent helplines, investigation and ultimately adjudication. The Committee on Standards, and MPs in general, quite rightly no longer have a role in deciding on bullying and harassment cases. ICGS cases are heard by the independent expert panel, known as the IEP.”
“I hope the House will forgive me if I detain the House for a few moments while I explain a bit about this report, because it is the first time that a case of this nature has come before the Committee and been adjudicated upon. Normally it would be the Chairman of the Committee who would be speaking in this debate on behalf of the Committee, but the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is on a Select Committee visit with the Foreign Affairs Committee and therefore cannot be here. I am speaking in his stead. The House, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, always finds these occasions somewhat uncomfortable and there is an understandable wish to dispose of this motion without undue fuss and move on as quickly as possible. However, there are some important points surrounding this case which must be made, and I hope all hon.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. It is hard to fathom the seriousness of the situation as it is developing. Can he shed any light on unconfirmed reports that Russia is now moving armed forces into Belarus—on to the road to Kiev in Belarus, and now threatening from the north of the country? If those reports are confirmed, will the Secretary of State undertake to return to the House to make a further statement?”
“I thank the Foreign Secretary for her statement, which will inform the debate that we are having later about Russia’s grand strategy. We keep saying that Russia’s aggression must not be rewarded, but the past decade and a half has seen Russia’s aggression effectively rewarded and go unpunished again and again. To that extent, how can she ensure that the meetings taking place on 9 and 10 January in Geneva will actually mark a significant departure in past practice from the west so that from now on we will act much more decisively and be completely united? We cannot succumb to the divisive way in which Russia is attempting to separate the United States from its NATO allies.”
“There is nothing to negotiate; they just have to accept everything as a whole. Russian media are already triumphant, proclaiming: “The world before, and the world after, December 17, 2021 are completely different worlds… If until now the United States held the whole world at gunpoint, now it finds itself under the threat of Russian military forces. A new era is opening”.”
“The ultimatum is premised on a fundamental lie, which Putin has promulgated since he attended the Bucharest NATO summit in 2008 as an invited guest. That lie is that NATO represents a threat to Russian national security. As Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov explained: “The two texts are not written according to the principle of a menu, where you can choose one or the other, they complement each other and should be considered as a whole.” He described the NATO-Russia text as a kind of parallel guarantee, because “the Russian Foreign Ministry is fully aware that the White House may not meet its obligations, and therefore there is a separate draft treaty for NATO countries.” Putin’s intention is to bind NATO through the United States, and bind the United States through NATO.”
“Moscow’s purported objective is to obtain “legal security guarantees from the United States and NATO”. Moscow has requested that the United States and its NATO allies meet the Russian demands without delay. This is, in fact, a Russian ultimatum. Putin is demanding that the US and NATO should agree that NATO will never again admit new members, even such neutral countries as Sweden, Finland and Austria, which have always been in the western zone of influence; that NATO should be forbidden from having any military presence in the former Warsaw pact countries that have already joined NATO; and that the US should withdraw all its nuclear forces from Europe, meaning that the only missiles threatening European cities would be Russian ones.”
“Putin’s goal is nothing less than to demonstrate the end of US global hegemony and establish Russia on an equal footing with the US; to change Russia’s status within Europe and become the pre-eminent power; to put Russia in a position to permanently influence Europe and drive a wedge between Europe and the USA; and to re-establish Russia’s de facto control over as much of the former Soviet Union and its sphere of influence as possible. As the strategy succeeds, Putin also intends to leverage China’s power and influence in Russia’s own interests. China, incidentally, will be watching how we defend Ukraine as it considers its options for Taiwan. On 17 December, the Russian Foreign Ministry unveiled the texts of two proposed new treaties: a US-Russia treaty and a NATO-Russia treaty.”
“Most are despotic regimes that are constantly challenging the rules-based international order on which western security and the global trading system depend. The most immediately threatening of such powers is, undoubtedly, Russia. Today’s Russia has inherited an admirably precise and uniformly understood meaning of the term “strategy”. “Politika”, meaning policy, stands at the top of a hierarchy of terms and describes the goal to be achieved; “strategiya” describes how the goal is to be achieved. Military strategy is merely a subset of global, national or grand strategy. So what is the goal behind Russia’s grand strategy?”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered Russia’s grand strategy. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for safeguarding a touch more than the three hours that we were promised for this most important debate. I am very grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for providing time for it at this most crucial moment, with developments in Ukraine and elsewhere. The term “grand strategy” may seem something of a relic from previous centuries, and one that became irrelevant with the end of the cold war, but to think so would be to ignore what is happening in today’s world. There are many Governments around the world today who practise grand strategy, but sadly very few are allies of the west.”
“In 2014 he illegally annexed the Crimea. His aggression was rewarded, because we have tolerated these illegal invasions. Many western leaders, and the bulk of the western public, have failed to understand that Ukraine is merely a component of a long-running hybrid warfare campaign against the west. They fail to appreciate the extent and nature of Russia’s campaign or the range of weapons used.”
“Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the west has too easily dismissed today’s Russia as a mere shadow of the former Soviet Union. Yes, it has an economy no greater than Italy’s; it has no ideological equivalent of communism, which so dominated left-wing thinking throughout most of the 20th century; it has very few if any real allies; and much of the rhetoric that emerges is bluster, reflecting weakness rather than strength. Nevertheless, we should not dismiss what Russia has done since 2008 and what Russia is capable of doing with its vast arsenal of new weaponry, and nor should we take a complacent view of Russia’s future intentions. After all, just months after the Bucharest summit in 2008, where he was welcomed as a guest, Putin seized Georgian sovereign territory in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.”