The celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the second world war are likely to be the most verbose, the least reflective and the last. In Moscow, politicians will be lining up to extract their pound of kudos from the main victory celebrations on offer. The host, President Putin, will say Soviet forces played the prime role in defeating Nazi Germany. This will be one of the few tenable claims to be made. The British and the Americans will talk as usual about “the common struggle against evil” and “the triumph of freedom, justice and democracy”. But...
