I READ Alyn Smith and David Pratt fairly regularly and generally find myself a kindred spirit in the message, but, like Gordon Gallacher (Letters, Dec 17), I was disappointed by Alyn’s somewhat one-sided attack on Vladimir Putin.

Near the end of his comprehensive damnation, Alyn writes: “Some, however, may say we should give Putin a fair hearing. I agree, it grieves me that a country with such wonderful people and many friends of mine is led by an oppressive personality-cult regime that so clearly wishes us harm.”

However he doesn’t offer any kind of fair hearing, but goes on: “Fundamentally we must stand with the people of Ukraine and the rule-based international order. Without rules there is anarchy, the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.”

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One wonders what Alyn means by some kind of unconstitutional “rules-based international order”. Does he look back at its enactment over a bloody trail of destruction and chaos from Korea through Vietnam, Iraq and Libya to Afghanistan?

Gordon Gallacher offers a much more carefully measured and objective statement of the Russian position on Ukraine. I trust Alyn will read it.

We must consider many new problems independence will pose us, but the thing is we don’t want independence itself to depend on pre-conditions of any kind. Discussion certainly, but no condition attaches to a nation’s right to self-determination.

David Pratt, too, surprised me in advocating a more positive expression of Uncle Sam’s “big stick” diplomacy, seemingly concerned that Biden’s administration is “certainly dozing in the face of threats from adversaries.”

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Diplomacy is king, David maintains, “but there is also much to be said for the age-old adage of speak softly and carry a big stick.”

However, things have changed since President Theodore Roosevelt’s day, and the big stick he meant has long been consigned to the cave along with the blunt spear and the rusty sword. So many countries now have big sticks, none of which can actually be employed without bringing down on humanity the apocalypse any thinking person may foresee.

I read recently that the Hiroshima nuclear bomb that ended WW2 in 1945 had the equivalent blast of 13,000 tons of TNT and killed 100,000 people, but now the stick is even bigger, for back in 1954 the Bikini Atoll thermo-nuclear test bomb produced a blast equal to that of 15 million tons of TNT. Based on the Hiroshima figures this in full-scale nuclear war could kill 100 billion people.

The planet so desperately needs the energy and dynamism of the US, and also its imagination (think on all these wonderful films) and the confidence it has to get things done. Perseverance in rapprochement is surely the sane answer to planetary tensions.

We must ditch the big stick of confrontation, forget delusions of exceptionalism, speak softly and, in the interest of the entire human species, remember our common brotherhood.

John Melrose
Peebles

I HAVE been reading the comments in The National anent the USA, Russia and Nato, the pros and antis. My views are that Russia is an imminent danger to Europe. Russia is controlled by a dangerous unreformed KGB colonel, and has already seized the territory of others. Russia is currently posing a very serious threat to Ukraine. Russia nothing more than a rogue state sending out assassins to kill in other countries.

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So much for Russia. The USA, however, is just another rogue state, running the world’s largest terrorist organisation, the CIA. The CIA tortures and murders worldwide, largely with impunity due to the supine reaction of other Western states. The USA wanders into other countries uninvited, USA interferes in the internal politics of other states and tries to implement regime change. It seems that in the USA, control lies with chancers, wide boys and spivs where anything goes for a fast buck – similar, sad to say, to the current English government. American legislators show themselves time and again to be stupid and dishonest, with the the values of the gutter.

Nato remains necessary for so long as Russia stays under the control of a KGB colonel.

Who to choose? Reluctantly I conclude it has to be the USA. Let it be said, though: whan ye sup wi the Diel, ye mun hae a lang spoon.

R Mill Irving
Gifford, East Lothian

THANKS Mike Small! You say it so clearly (Celebrity chefs’ whining ignores the real curbs to our freedom, Dec 19). Forget the incompetent captain who’s wrecked the ship. Get in the lifeboat and head for safety! Now I can see that on a poster.

Indeed it won’t be business as usual. That’s what we’re escaping from – the lies, deceit, lack of moral compass, disregard for the law. But it is our chance to rebuild the Scotland we want but never had. It’ll will be forward looking and challenging but it will be worth it.

Catriona Grigg
Embo