Finances are the sinews of war was a Roman aphorism for good reason, as was Thucydides timeless warning about what happens when you reduce national power:

"...since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."

Putin claimed in his speech yesterday that the West was in terminal decline, which could be physically dangerous should we prove him right by not doing the most basic function of government: budgeting.

On the other hand, that is the opportunity in Putin's speech to his foreign ministers, which is to do budget deals here and as the Europeans have managed to date, and then deal with Russian interests as practical people, cold, inhumane at times, but practical.

finis