Human Security Centre Human Rights and International Security Research

During the course of the next 12 months, we could easily see development in one or more of these threats: a total meltdown in Iraq and neighbouring Middle Eastern states; a nuclear Iran, toward which Israel might well lose its patience, in the absence of meaningful American support; and a renewed Russian campaign against the rest of Ukraine, or even a Baltic state or two

If recent events in Ukraine were not disturbing enough for those who might occasionally worry about the future for their children and grandchildren, one need only now look towards the Middle East, and a little further.

Last Thursday I took the metro to Belorusskaya, to get the Sheremetyevo airport train out of Moscow. Perhaps not for the last time in my life but probably the last for a while, at least. During the last six months I have met, befriended and drunk too much vodka with some warm, sensible and decent Russian people.

I may have read this wrong, but I have an increasing sense of foreboding that the long-running “Euromaidan” occupation in Kyiv is not going to end well. Yes, Yanukovych has agreed to come to the negotiating table - he has even offered a prime ministerial job to one of the opposition leaders - but I suspect that this is merely playing for time. He has not offered the job to his most capable rival, Klitschko, and his word is not exactly his bond.

Moscow, I have recently discovered, has a decent daily English-language newspaper, the Moscow Times. While its attitude to the Putin government tends to be a fairly balanced criticism rather than either cosying up it or vitriol against it, neither is it afraid to criticise, unlike a seemingly increasing number of other Russian media outlets.

There’s an odd, and slightly twisted argument doing the rounds at the moment. It goes: it’s perfectly ok to let genocide happen, yes, even on your doorstep. Let’s just restrict the discussion to that. Not regime change, not geopolitical advantage, simply the prevention of genocide. It’s ok.

When will we learn that, where Islamism is involved, we have to get involved early and not late? We may well look back in years to come and ask ourselves why it was that we managed to lose on two fronts; not only that we let thousands of civilians be massacred, but also created the ideal conditions for a new generation of terrorists to boot.

In the comfortable West we sometimes forget that, having lived 66 years without a major war, the geopolitical situation still changes in ways which directly affect us, one way or the other.

Perhaps we should stake out the case for interventionism in very simple terms: an internationalist party does not stand by and permit the slaughter of children in gas attacks.

I respect Roger Waters’ right to encourage others to boycott Israeli goods, though I disagree with it. But what is plainly foolish, not to mention an insult to that noble struggle against racism, is to talk as former the Pink Floyd bassist does about “apartheid”.