[3dbrows]

Quite, and the reality of the Russian invasion of Ukraine certainly trumps armchair rhetoric on this topic. I would only add that (until recently) many Europeans would have questioned whether their aggression exists in a vacuum (“are we provoking them?”). But that sort of navel gazing vanishes when artillery is fired in your direction.

There was a deep-seated aversion to rearmament owing to the memory of the Second World War, which is fading away, cajoled by events in Ukraine.