So it turns out that being at a turning point in history is nauseatingly dizzying, even here, in a quiet English suburb, a continent away from the horror and destruction that Vladimir Putin has only just begun to rain down upon the people of Ukraine.
Prognostications are cheap, but as the news came through in the early hours of the morning of air attacks by Russian forces along with reports of Putin’s deranged speech and his thinly veiled nuclear threat, it was clear that 24 February 2022 will be far more of a hinge moment than even 9/11.
The entire global calculus has changed. Anyone with the slightest sense of history will now be frenziedly recalculating their world view, and considering that what was until yesterday unimaginable, never mind impossible, may indeed come to pass. As we busily familiarise ourselves with the flashpoints, the question is what other parts of the globe might now be up for grabs by naked, criminal aggression.
From the Baltic states - where Lithuania has declared a state of emergency - to Taiwan to the Gulf, who can confidently say that anything is off the table? The United Nations may effectively be considered over, finally buried at the UN Security Council session chaired by Russia at the very moment that its forces had begun an unprovoked and insanely needless war upon a sovereign state.
