By Janet Treloar
So it was a heartening response and one which I think has changed, or at least put into question, most of the assumptions in the room — and from a very authoritative source.
Last night at the Caledonian Club I attended a University of Buckingham lecture, the seventh in a series on Military History, the guest speaker being General Sir Mike Jackson on The New Cold War; a Russian Perspective. I went with some trepidation, not least remembering his actions in the Kosovo campaign. To my surprise and relief his talk consisted of 45 minutes of a far more nuanced and conciliatory attitude to Russia and to Putin than I had anticipated.
Indeed I had the impression (no more than that I should say) that for at least 2/3rds of the eighteen men present (plus one woman, myself) it came as rather an unpleasant surprise. Sir Mike prefaced almost every remark with “from the Russian point of view”, as for instance (1) the Crimea having been historically part of Russia. Four topics were discussed. (2) Georgia, where Russia’s involvement had been no greater, and was maybe less, than the West’s involvement in former Yugoslavia.
On the Baltic States (3), if we take Putin to be a rational and highly intelligent statesman, there is nothing in Russia’s interests in the area to promote the idea of annexation. (4) The importance of President Trump’s “normalisation” of the American – Russian relationship. There were other examples which came out in pretty close questioning afterwards and over dinner, but Sir Mike stuck to his guns and refused to be drawn into some inflammatory rhetoric over Latvia, etc.
So it was a heartening response and one which I think has changed, or at least put into question, most of the assumptions in the room — and from a very authoritative source.
