Louis Cilia's plea for the EU to “secure its eastern borders” (April 19) is interesting but surely misguided. By pushing the EU borders ever further eastwards, the EU has consistently weakened them rather than strengthened them. Why?

History teaches us never to kick a weakened country when it is down.

The Treaty of Versailles in 1919 did just that, creating fertile ground for the rise of fascism and the outbreak of World War II.

After that war, the Americans in particular avoided repeating the mistake, contributing substantially to the reconstruction of Germany and Japan and thereby to peace and prosperity in the intervening years.

As usual, political memories are short. Not content with the disintegration of the Soviet Union itself, we have proceeded to integrate many countries from the previous Warsaw Pact in the European Union (as well as Nato), regardless of how corrupt or dictatorial those countries may be.

The purpose is to permanently weaken Russia's military power.

The result, of course, is a massive renaissance of Russian nationalism expressed in the bellicose behaviour of Vladimir Putin. And the harder we push each (with economic incentives) the weaker and more explosive our eastern border will become.

This mindless expansionism has indeed created a “fragile Eurozone” (or EU), as described by Cilia. But the threat comes from within, and not from the East.

Thanks at least in part tothe free movement of people from our vastly extended EU, xenophobia in the EU's heartlands has raised its ugly head again and will no doubt yield large dividends to Nigel Farage, Marie Le Pen, Geert Wilders and their cohorts in the upcoming European elections.

All of which could have been avoided if we had helped Russia to get back on its feet.

We really need to start viewing global politics as a matter of complex interrelationships instead of a game of geopolitical football.

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