Europe can’t rely on American power alone to resist Russian aggression

SIR – The steady worldwide growth of prosperity in the 19th century was attributable in good measure to a largely stable world order, underpinned by the economic and naval dominance of a single power – Great Britain.

This stability was sufficient to keep in check lesser local conflicts such as German and Italian unification. The same was true of the period after 1945, except that the dominant power had become the United States.

The intervening period of chaos and destruction, 1914-45, arose because Britain and France had become too weak to continue as world authorities, and the United States didn’t adopt the role before 1941.

A stable world order is essential for global prosperity and growth, and is therefore of equal benefit to the dominant power as to others, as the economic disorder of the period 1918-39 showed. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the failure of countries such as China to check it, threaten this state of affairs. It is absolutely right for European countries to upgrade their defence contributions to Nato, but the United States should benefit proportionately in economic prosperity from its own contribution (“Back Kyiv to show ‘borders matter’, Lord Cameron urges”, report, April 9).

Anthony Pick

Newbury, Berkshire

SIR – The exhortation to back Ukraine “to show borders matter” is quite right. But that it comes from Lord Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, takes the breath away.

Under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, the UK, United States and Russia were the guarantors of Ukrainian sovereignty. When Russia blatantly violated that sovereignty by annexing Crimea in 2014, the response from London and Washington was nugatory. Our prime minister at the time? David Cameron.

Alastair Irvine

Grantham, Lincolnshire

SIR – I can think of nothing more likely to embolden members of the US Congress to deny further desperately needed funding for Ukraine than Lord Cameron publicly urging them to provide it. Is he incapable of the quiet diplomacy for which this country was once renowned, or is virtue-signalling now more important than maximising the likelihood of an effective outcome?

David Argent

Crondall, Hampshire

SIR – I was shocked to read the warning from former defence ministers that Britain has no strategic plan in the event of war (report, April 7).

Apparently we haven’t had one since the end of the Cold War. Successive governments have left our Armed Forces in a parlous state, which is bad enough, but having no plans for the onset of war is criminal.

How could they leave us in such a position?

Paul P James

Dunnington, North Yorkshire