Sergei Skripal was the latest in a series of ‘blame Russia’ scenarios. Relations with Western Europe have deteriorated decade after decade. Certainly Russia has it’s domestic difficulties – but that is not the business of other states. It has also been in the background and benefited from the ‘invasion’ or ‘repatriation’ of satellite states like Ukraine and Crimea. In ‘retaliation’ Western Europe has imposed sanctions and frozen asserts held in the West.

But is Russia the problem it has been made out to be by the western media? How have British, French, German citizens suffered or has their national security been threatened by Russia? Probably not. The West appears to become interested when it can adopt the role of ‘moderator’ or ‘high moral ground’ or ‘defender of freedom’ or ‘not tolerating weapons of mass destruction’. It tries to go through the United Nations with complaints against Russia of this nature, only to be vetoed by, well Russia.

The Second World War did not end well. It did not end well if you perceived future world peace to depend on something more than the defeat of Fascism. At the time, it was natural to see the aim of the war was to defeat Fascism. Few had the vision of General George S Patton, who declared that the West should carry on the fight to the doors of the Kremlin. Why? Because he saw that Europe was about to be divided down the middle, East and West.

So, for no more noble a reason than ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend‘ Churchill and Roosevelt, found themselves sat at the negotiating table with one of the most evil dictators, Joseph Stalin. The resulting negotiations didn’t go well. The Soviet Union grabbed land. A lot of land, including half of Berlin, the jewel in the devil’s crown.

So the war ended in division rather than unity – and the price? The creation of the state of Israel. Why was that so important? The very influential Jewish lobby, in the States and Europe, were perhaps the only beneficiaries from the war.

The post war years have been held in a state of military limbo by technology, rather than statesmanship. That technology was the practical application of nuclear energy, as an ultimate weapon of war and a source of energy.

Beneath this culture of mutual fear and respect, the two ‘sides’ have co-existed peacefully. The Soviet Union has undergone change with the collapse of communism, because of it’s own short fuse.

On the positive side, countries that had had their infrastructure demolished, like Germany and Japan, were able to rebuild. Ironically, war is a good thing for the economy of the world. New inventions, social change, opportunities over stagnation, contribute to a ‘leap forward’ on a scale that might have taken decades without war.

If you felt that the time is ripe for more catastrophic destruction, for more ‘reinvention’ of society and technology, then you might be right. The traditional ways of the post war years, have brought about great social benefits but failed to settle national conflicts or appease petty nationalism. So real or imaginary, a more ‘united and free‘ world awaits those who survive the next world war.

With a seriously deplete world population following a nuclear, biological and chemical war, human kind will be forced to come together just to survive. What will be left of the biosphere will be regarded as far more precious, than it is now. Our survival depends on the planets survival.

So, what do these people (dubbed the ‘Deep State’) do? They have been drip drip dripping hate and disharmony amongst nations for the last fifty years. Why has the United States of America chosen to fight so many foreign wars from which it’s citizens did not benefit and when there was no threat to the national security of their country? Soldiers died because their leaders told them there was a problem that needed solving.

Why have the Palestinians been treated with Aparthied and Genocide by those who pretend to know better? 

When Sergei Skripal and his daughter are attacked with a nerve agent on the streets of a county town in the United Kingdom, ‘who done it?’

We all enjoy detective stories. We are particularly pleased when the obvious villain turns out not to be the murderer. The real murderer has remained in the background as the least likely villain. The murderer places clues to mislead the detective. Yes, we all know the format.

When we look for a motive for attempting to murder Comrade Colonel Skripal in Salisbury with a nerve agent, why do we leap to the conclusion the writer intends us to?

Why can we not see that there could be several other persons in the country house who also have a motive for murder. Perhaps Colonel Skripal had upset some members of the Russian Mafia? Perhaps Colonel Skripal was being punished by third parties for someone he killed or double crossed in the past? Perhaps Colonel Skripal was used as a pawn by the Deep State to make the Western powers blame Russia?

Great calm and benefit would be had by Western leaders to look at this and past ‘hate’ stories reported about Russia, and ask whether Russia is a real problem to the West, or not.

In 1949 it was thought not. But throughout the cold and largely phoney war, the Soviet Union and then Russia, has been portrayed as ‘the enemy’. But listen to it’s leaders and watch it’s actions. It knows that going into Afghanistan was a mistake. It knows that it does not have the material wealth of the West and is a relatively small player in world politics and in world trade. Only the weakness of the West will allow it to become a grizzly bear instead of a teddy bear. Only by demonising it relentlessly will the West persuade it’s own citizens that Russia is the problem and justify the devastating war which may happen in Northern Syria very shortly.

The Russians are Europeans, like it or not. Europe does not benefit from being divided by cultural, nationalistic, militaristic, social, economic, religious, technological and aspirational differences. Instead of falling apart, Europe needs to aim to come together, because of, not despite it’s differences however uneasy that may feel. If it does not – if there are no statesmen or women, big enough to see the world picture, then the world picture will have to emerge from the ashes of all out war, just as it did before, but far more quickly and over far larger an area.