The Russo-Ukrainian War and the end of the West’s global hegemony

Writing in 1963, General Andre Beaufre said: “In war, the loser deserves to lose because his defeat must result from errors of thinking, made either before or during the conflict.”1Beaufre, A. An Introduction to Strategy, tr. Richard Barry (London, 1963, p.133). I agree. So does history. If accepted, though, this principle must cause us to think long and hard about why, since the turn of the century, the West in general, and Britain in particular, have pursued failed interventions that have led to us being defeated not once, but four times, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. And why we are…