The current war in Ukraine didn't begin in a vacuum. If you want to understand it, you need to understand the history of NATO's expansion and the national security interests of the world's major powers. Let's go back to 1990. As the Soviet Union was collapsing and Germany was preparing for reunification, US Secretary of State James Baker told Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, that NATO's military jurisdiction would not move "one inch eastward." Other Western leaders also made assurances during those negotiations. Although no treaty was signed prohibiting NATO from admitting other Eastern European nations, the discussions left Moscow with expectations about the future security architecture of Europe. Then look at what happened. NATO expanded eastward in successive waves: ▪️ 1999: Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. ▪️ 2004: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Slovenia. ▪️ 2009: Albania and Croatia. ▪️ 2017: Montenegro. ▪️ 2020: North Macedonia. ▪️ 2023: Finland, which shares a long border with Russia. ▪️ 2024: Sweden. That's seven rounds of post-Cold War enlargement, bringing NATO to 32 members. And Ukraine? At its 2008 Bucharest Summit, NATO declared that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually become members. In 2024, the Alliance reaffirmed Ukraine's future membership aspirations. Ukraine is not a NATO member, but the possibility of its eventual membership has become one of the central security disputes between Moscow and the West. Now, understand this: great powers do not view national security the same way smaller countries do. The United States has long sought to prevent hostile powers from establishing strategic footholds in its neighbourhood. President Trump has pursued a policy of reducing Russian, Chinese and Iranian influence in the Western Hemisphere. Russia has its own strategic interests and security calculations. Putin has pursued Russia's objectives through military force, with devastating consequences for Ukraine. Explaining Russia's security concerns does not justify invading a sovereign country. And acknowledging Ukraine's right to choose its alliances does not mean we should ignore the wider geopolitical consequences of decisions made by the world's major powers. Both realities matter. I don't consider Putin a saint, nor do I automatically support everything he does. But I recognise a basic truth about international politics: Putin will pursue what he believes is best for Russia. Xi will pursue what he believes is best for China. President Trump will pursue what he believes is best for America. That's how great-power politics works. The question is why so many people expect the leaders of major powers to ignore their national interests while pretending that every geopolitical decision is driven purely by democratic ideals. Nations pursue power, security, resources and strategic advantage. They always have. The real challenge is preventing those competing interests from dragging the rest of the world into another catastrophic conflict. Stop looking at geopolitics through the simplistic lens of saints and villains. Study the history, understand the strategic interests, and question the motives of every government. Because when great powers collide, ordinary people pay the price.

There is no other material on earth that can do what a fleece does, and it grows on an animal that eats grass. It keeps a sheep alive on a Welsh hill in February, in sleet, with no shelter. It keeps a Bedouin cool in the Sahara in August. It keeps a person warm when it is soaked through, which is why mountaineers wore it to the top of Everest. It will not burn. Put a match to it and it chars and goes out, which is why it lines aircraft seats and theatre curtains. It absorbs a third of its weight in sweat and gives off heat while it does it. It blocks the sun. A wool shirt has the ultraviolet rating of a decent sunscreen. It does not smell. The surface stays too dry for the bacteria that make a shirt stink. It stretches a third of its length and springs back, so a sock holds its shape for years. It stops sound. Recording studios and classrooms line the walls with it. It stops cold in a loft as well as fibreglass does, without the itch. It soaks up oil, which is why the mats laid on spills are made of it. It dyes deeper than anything, which is why a Persian rug is still red after 300 years. It felts into a tent that a Mongolian family lives in through a minus 40 winter. And when it finally wears out, it rots into fertiliser, and the next sheep eats the grass it grew. Every one of those jobs now has a synthetic doing it worse. The sheep had all of them covered before the chemist was born, and it does it again every spring for nothing.