| If I was the right kind of historian, I would write something lengthy and turgid about the tendency of generals to fight the last war rather than the current one - at least, at the outset. But I'm not any kind of historian, so I won't. I am struck, though, by this last weekend's conjunction of pictures showing Russian tanks manoeuvring around the border with Ukraine, with anxious editorials about the falling price of oil. From a Russian perspective, there is a case for securing access to Ukraine, and tanks would seem to be a tried and tested, if old-fashioned, way to make that happen. It's not exactly a new idea that the oil price might in this instance be a weapon of war - counter-attack by economic means against incursions by tanks - but if it's working, and if this world is as networked as it's widely supposed to be, that would be good news for the future. History books would be less interesting, though. And armchair generals would need to get a grip on applied economics. | 
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