Ukraine crisis - Cold War battle lines redrawn

It may be premature to remind ourselves of the momentum that, almost unknowingly, gathered unstoppable force and reached a catastrophic climax right across Europe just under 100 years ago — July 28, 1914 — but as Ukraine has ordered a full military mobilisation in response to Russia’s build-up of its forces in Crimea it is unfortunately pertinent to do so.

The events of recent days worryingly approach that scale, even if today’s great alliances are not immediately toe-to-toe. That they have shown no appetite to be so ensnared is an entirely rational and proper response but, just as it was a century ago, the emergence of assertive nationalist movements in Russia’s hinterlands have an almost unique capacity to provoke crushing, profoundly anti-democratic responses from the Kremlin no matter who its incumbents.

John Kerry, the US secretary of state, already made the ominous comparison when he stated that “you just don’t in the 21st Century behave in 19th Century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext”.