Are we really on the cusp of a real, shooting war with Russia? If you believe some of the rhetoric, it would seem so – but does anyone really think it? The war drums are certainly beating. Last night, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, the Chief of the Defence Staff, called for ‘our defence and resilience [to be] a higher national priority for all of us. An “all-in” mentality’ because ‘the situation is more dangerous than I have known during my career’.

Armed Forces minister Al Carns warned more picturesquely that ‘the shadow of war is knocking on Europe’s door once more’. Meanwhile, Mark Rutte, the reliably alarmist secretary-general of Nato, evoked the spectacle of million-man armies clashing in apocalyptic fury, sternly instructing Europeans that they had to ‘be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured’.

It sounds like all the great and the good agree, the only question being quite when Putin’s legions will or may come storming westward. Will it be within five years, as Rutte most recently suggested? Or even tomorrow, as German Lieutenant General Alexander Sollfrank claimed last month (in fairness, referring to a ‘small, quick, regionally limited’ attack).

There is no harm in not putting temptation Putin’s way

Yet maybe it is worth looking less at top-line rhetoric and more at revealed preferences – in other words, deeds not words. Nato members have committed themselves to........

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