Over the weekend, I had breakfast with a former Downing Street official, who still lives and breathes UK politics. He asked me if I thought Russia would invade Ukraine in the next couple of weeks. I replied that I thought it distinctly possible. My friend looked stricken. “Oh, no,” he exclaimed, “a war is about the only thing that could save Boris.”
That reply captured the current mood of deep insularity in Britain. But the UK is not unique. In fact, most of the big countries in western Europe are currently in the midst of destabilising political transitions — which make them even less prepared than usual for a confrontation with Russia.
In the UK, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s grip on power is becoming steadily weaker. The main debate in Westminster seems to be whether the prime minister’s remaining time in office is better measured in weeks or months. In France, Emmanuel Macron is less than three months away from a presidential election. In Germany, Olaf Scholz has been chancellor for just a few weeks and is trying to hold together an untested coalition government. In Italy, an electoral college will begin voting for a new president of the republic on January 24. If Mario Draghi, the current prime minister, gets the job, the Italian government will have to be reconstituted and might fall.