Collective security and NATO
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky and NATO secretary general Jens Stoltenberg There is a saying that generals are always ready to fight the last war. The same may be said of political leaders. The difference is that they are ready to stop the last war, and have learned the lessons of what caused it. In the 1930s, when Japan, Italy and Germany began to menace neighbouring countries, a consensus began to emerge in the democracies — and in the Soviet Union — that only collective security could prevent another world war. But collective security proved to be unachievable, and by the end of...