{"id":83135,"date":"2025-06-16T07:54:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T06:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=83135"},"modified":"2025-06-16T07:54:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T06:54:20","slug":"i-was-not-alone-in-thinking-fiona-hills-arguments-make-no-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2025\/06\/16\/i-was-not-alone-in-thinking-fiona-hills-arguments-make-no-sense\/","title":{"rendered":"I was not alone in thinking Fiona Hill’s arguments make no sense"},"content":{"rendered":"

I reproduce this letter from The Guardian<\/a> because I recently took quite a lot of flak here<\/a> for suggesting that Fiona Hill wrote some very odd arguments in The Guardian<\/a> concerning potential relations between the UK and Russia in the context of the Strategic Defence Review. It seems I was not alone in thinking this:<\/p>\n

\n

Fiona Hill\u2019s assessment of the Russian threat to Britain is a classic example of how a seemingly rational argument based on a false premise and scanty evidence can lead to a mad conclusion (Russia is at war with Britain and US is no longer a reliable ally, UK adviser says, 6 June<\/a>). It is especially alarming that this conclusion was reached by one of the three principal authors of the recent strategic defence review.<\/p>\n

The false premise is that Vladimir Putin\u2019s invasion of Ukraine is the first step to make Russia \u201ca dominant military power in all of Europe\u201d. Evidence that Britain is already under attack is provided by \u201cthe poisonings, assassinations, sabotage operations \u2026 cyber-attacks and influence operations ... sensors \u2026 around critical pipelines, efforts to butcher undersea cables\u201d. It follows that Britain\u2019s economy and society must be geared up to resist the Russian menace. Deny the premise, and the argument for a \u201cwhole society\u201d mobilisation against Russia collapses. What it reveals is the strength of the warmongering mood of official Britain.<\/p>\n

This is not to deny that we have to take precautions against the real danger of a significant US pullout, perhaps amounting to rendering Article 5 of the Nato treaty meaningless, and that the Russians can be quite ruthless in exploiting an advantage if they think they have one. But this is a far cry from proposing, as the strategic defence review does, a national mobilisation in the face of an immediate and pressing Russian threat.<\/p>\n

Robert Skidelsky<\/strong>\u00a0Emeritus<\/em>\u00a0professor<\/em>\u00a0of political economy<\/em>, Warwick University,\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Richard Balfe<\/strong>\u00a0Former\u00a0<\/em>MEP<\/em><\/p>\n

Anthony Brenton<\/strong>\u00a0British ambassador to Russia, 2004-08 <\/em><\/p>\n

Thomas Fazi<\/strong>\u00a0Author and journalist<\/em><\/p>\n

Anatol Lieven<\/strong>\u00a0Senior fellow, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statesmanship<\/em><\/p>\n

Ian Proud<\/strong>\u00a0Senior diplomat,<\/em>\u00a0British embassy, Moscow, 2014-<\/em>18 <\/em><\/p>\n

Geoffrey\u00a0Roberts<\/strong>\u00a0Professor, University College<\/em> Cork<\/em><\/p>\n

Richard Sakwa<\/strong>\u00a0Emeritus professor<\/em>\u00a0of Russian and east European studies<\/em>, University of Kent\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Brigitte\u00a0Granville<\/strong>Professor<\/em>\u00a0of international economics and economic policy<\/em>, Queen\u00a0Mary University of London<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I would have happily signed that letter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I reproduce this letter from The Guardian because I recently took quite a lot of flak here for suggesting that Fiona Hill wrote some very
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83136,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83135\/revisions\/83136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}