WARNINGS FROM HISTORY

As Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine drags into a third year and European nations dither over their national defence, two of the UK's leading military thinkers reveal why the country is more in need of Teddy Roosevelt's 'big stick' than ever

- Matt Nixson

US President Teddy Roosevelt once summed up his philosophy of international diplomacy as "speak softly and carry a big stick". By which he meant the very act of being able to deploy overwhelming force actually made it less likely you'd have to use it. Yet time and again, Western politicians have ignored such fundamental observations.

On today's second anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the conflict draining lives and resources at a terrifying rate, the lessons of history are more vital than ever, according to the former head of the British Army, General Lord Dannatt.

His recent book, Victory To Defeat, written with Army officer-turned-historian Robert Lyman, examines how the hard military lessons of the First World War were squandered, affecting our ability to prevent the second global conflagration.

They are lessons, both men insist, we must equally heed today, as an increasingly belligerent Russia threatens Europe and China flexes its muscles. Both men point to the perceived military and political fragility of the West in recent years - a shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 and costly, ineffectual interventions in Iraq, Libya and Syria, among others - as having encouraged unfriendly aggressor nations.

"Although the Russian military was decimated at the end of the Cold War, Putin began to reinvest quite significantly over the last five, 10, 15 years," says Lord Dannatt.

"A lot of things undoubtedly emboldened him, particularly in Syria in 2013, where he came to the conclusion the West was weak and didn't want to get involved.