Our declaration of purpose

Western liberal democracy faces multiple imminent threats both from within and without.

Russia

Freedom House score 9 /100

While Russia has every reason to feel aggrieved by Western treatment following the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, it has become an expansionist neo-totalitarian kleptocracy and positioned itself in direct opposition to the West. It has extensive conventional and nuclear military arsenals and its stability is precarious and unpredictable.

The opportunity for rapprochement in 1991 was squandered principally by US investment banks seeking short-term profits on collateralised debt.

Extensive energy reserves cushion its porous isolation from the West and sustain its war of aggression in Ukraine.

Ostensibly to protect its strategic naval base and assets in Sevastapol, Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Emboldened by the lack of coherent response from the West, Russia invaded the neighbouring Donesk and Luhansk oblasts in 2002, nominally to protect is majority Russian-speaking populations. However, the vast hydrocarbon and other mineral resources of the Donesk Basin and provided a further buffer from European growth are more credible reasons.

Despite the unpopularity of the conflict, Russia faces few options for de-escalation in its war against Ukraine that will be credible domestically. Protracted stalemate or increasing Ukrainian resistance backed by European funding appear the most likely medium-term prospects.

Italy

These conditions, including, particularly, reaction to successive waves of extra-European and intra-European migration, have provided substantial electoral opportunities for reactionist demogogues to form or take over populist, nativist political paties which have attracted increasing electoral support.

And from within . . .

Fratelli d’Italia
Giorgia Meloni, PM