What is required to resolve the crisis is not a new international system but a new pattern in international politics. For that to occur leadership at the national and international level is required, accompanied by pressure from political associations and popular movements. This is the real revolution of our time.

The fates of electoralism and militarism are entwined. In conditions of renewed cold war, the choices on offer and the potential range of policies and programmes are constrained by national security considerations and the shifting alignments of bloc politics. The voice of constituencies who believe that peace and development should be the priority remain unrepresented.

The peace in Europe has been lost, decisively and for our generation almost certainly irrevocably, writes political scientist Richard Sakwa. As always, a peace lost here has global consequences. Equally, there was nothing predetermined about its loss. It was the result of decisions and calculations that in the end undermined the underlying rationality.