Attention deficit and disorder in the backyards

The dog days of August have yet again brought a dog-fight. Czechoslovakia 1968, the Soviet Union 1991 and Georgia 2008: it is foolhardy to underestimate the capacity that Muscovite conservatives have for violence. So, as they watched history repeating itself as tragedy, it is little wonder that Poland signed a missile-defence deal with the US and Ukraine offered the West the use of its missile warning systems.