This is the Friends of History Debating Society. I am Gaius, John Bachelor, and Dramaticus

Michael Laius is here. We're sitting by the Thames, our cup of wine, looking 2,000 years ahead to the troubled 21st century. We're Romans with

Greek employees. We're very confident Londinium, we're far from Rome, and there's nothing really to worry about here.

The centurians retired and their families surround us.

It's coming late in the day, it's cooler.

So we look ahead for good news.

We've been reporting bad news for some time in the 21st century.

And we have good news for Moscow.

I welcome Germanicus to explain how it is that suddenly

Moscow, a pariah for 18 months, has turned in to somebody you want to call them back if they call you.

Michael, what happened?

Moscow was losing, Putin was a war criminal, the end of the earth, all this may have

culpa stuff going on about how we wanted to integrate Russia into

the community of nations and now how do you explain this good evening to

Germanicus good evening evening, Gaius.

You put your finger, as it were, on the most important issue in the last almost two years.

And that is, to me at least, the inability of Western elites,

Western leadership, Western high-end analysis, especially in terms of military

expertise to actually get a grip on the reality of the war.

In other words, a failure of the West across the board.

Every nation in NATO, including the U.S. and especially the U.S. the The bottom line in that assessment is understanding the nature of reality or as

Klausovitz would say you must be sure to understand the nature of the war you are entering.

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