Idris Khan, ‘I Thought We Had More Time’, print created to raise funds for Ukraine
Sir Lawrence Freedman is one of the world?s foremost scholars of strategy and war. Here he answers our questions on the geopolitics around the Russian invasion of Ukraine and potential outcomes
Sir Lawrence Freedman
LUX: Was the West culpable of negligence and/or triumphalism in its policies towards the former Soviet Union/Warsaw Pact territories after the fall of the Berlin Wall, during the 90s"

Sir Lawrence Freedman: Within Europe at least, the end of the Cold War was a victory for liberal capitalism. The members of the Warsaw Pact plus the three Baltic states joined Western institutions (NATO/EU) and followed liberal democratic/ rule of law policies. This was also the case with the former Yugoslavia. In a few cases there has been backsliding into more illiberal ways, notably with Hungary and Poland, but by and large this has worked well. These countries are more prosperous and secure than they would have been outside these institutions. This is the other side of the coin to ?the NATO was wrong to push for enlargement? narrative. As someone who was engaged in these issues at the time, and was not a great fan of enlargement, it was hard to avoid the strength of feeling in former Warsaw Pact countries that they wanted to be protected against some future Russian resurgence. They now feel vindicated in this view. Without gathering all these countries together in a singl...