And while Russia may have engaged in minor covert attempts to influence the US electoral process, there is no Russian plan to lead worldwide revolution.

Moreover, there is a strong element of theatre about the supposed risk of war between Russia and the West – even after the latest alarming twist by the Trump administration in its threat to withdraw from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. After all the promises from Washington, the USA did not go to war to defend Georgia in 2008 or Ukraine in 2014. On the other hand, as President Putin has pointed out, Russia did not invade and occupy large areas of Ukraine when there was almost nothing to oppose it militarily. Nor did Russia march into Tbilisi in 2008. Both sides therefore have been much more cautious than either the propaganda of the other side or their own rhetoric might suggest.

One could almost say that an unstated rule has been established, whereby the West will not defend anywhere that Russia might actually attack, and Russia will not attack anywhere that the West might conceivably defend. Certainly NATO military spending and deployments do not remotely match what would be happening if NATO governments seriously expected a Russian attack. Certain Western statements might indeed be described not just as theatre but as theatre of the absurd – like the Swedish government’s messages to its people to prepare for resistance in the event of a Russian invasion. Of one thing we can be sure given Swedish history over the past century: If the Swedes were seriously afraid of Russian attack, they would be talking in – shall we be polite and say more accommodating terms?

Finally, if one were looking for a global peer competitor of the USA, economically and ideologically as well as strategically, China is a vastly more formidable one than Russia. As to Russian attempts to influence the US elections, a glance at the figures involved demonstrates beyond doubt that this was on a very limited scale compared to the immense volume of material on the internet related to the election campaign.

Why then the current Western hysteria? Of course, as with all national hostilities, this builds to some extent on older foundations: the Cold War, around which western security institutions and western ideological propaganda were organised for two generations, and which created NATO itself; and the much older national hatred for Russia (sometimes of course justified) on the part of Poles, Balts, Jews and some Ukrainians.