It's always the victim's fault

Lord Ismay was Churchill's chief of staff, NATO's first secretary-general, and the man who famously explained that the treaty's purpose was to "keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” How has that worked out?

Well, Vladimir Putin is rebuilding the Soviet Union, starting with Ukraine and making no secret that Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are next on the chopping block. The Germans try to keep their heads down, but they've been Europe's dominant economy for at least half a century. And now Donald Trump and JD Vance are doing their best to get the Americans out of there.

The Russians have always pretended that Stalin won the Second World War, and that Victory Day was May 9, though Germany surrendered to Britain and the United States the previous day. Watch for Trump and Vance to get it wrong! They've already decided that the present war is the victim's fault: "You don't start a war against somebody that's 20 times your size," as Mr Trump explained it yesterday.