Bergerie1 thank you, I’ve just listened to Margaret MacMillan’s excellent podcast. It emphasises the importance for decision makers of studying history when confronted with a modern repeat. Also that wars generally don’t end cleanly and decisively.
With this in mind I wonder again about the outcome for the Ukraine war in terms of their hopes for NATO membership. Whether Ukraine defeats Russia on the battlefield, or there is regime change in the Kremlin, or a stalemate or ceasefire, presumably NATO has to feel confident that the war is over in all respects. But it seems to me unlikely that Russia would ever give the assurances they need; in fact the opposite is more likely, with perhaps continuing border skirmishes just to ‘keep the pot boiling’. Furthermore, as Margaret MacMillan points out about earlier wars, personalities of the time are (were) so important and can influence the course of history – Hitler and Churchill obviously come to mind.. Putin has already done so, and who’s to say that in a notionally ‘defeated’ and humiliated Russia he (or a successor) couldn’t again raise the standard, pile all the blame on the West and NATO, and lead his nation back into war.
Maybe Ukraine NATO membership is just a bridge too far, and has to be sacrificed for some sort of peaceful outcome.