Swimwatch was established to discuss swimming. On occasions we have strayed into subjects affecting sport in general. Only once or twice have we gone even further. Occasionally there are affairs of such importance, they should not pass without comment, even on a sport’s blog.

I don’t know how many readers have done much pig hunting. I’ve done quite a bit. In fact, I paid for two swimming trips to Australia by selling the meat of wild pigs, including the head, to a local Wairoa butcher. At one shilling (ten cents) a pound that’s quite a few dead pigs.

Four pig dogs helped me find and trap the pigs. As the dogs closed in you could see the pig’s first reaction was to run away. Then as the dogs closed in the motivation to run shifted. Escape changed to fear and finally into fight. The pig would charge and fight for its life. Eventually every trapped animal will fight for its life. I do wonder how much of that emotion is behind Russia’s involvement in the current war in Ukraine.

It is not difficult to imagine how America’s support for the expansion of NATO eastwards could be seen by Russia as anything but dangerous. And yet American President after American President pushed for their dogs to close in. Clinton called for Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary to join NATO. The Americans knew they had their prey trapped. Clinton’s secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, said that “Yeltsin and his countrymen were strongly opposed to enlargement, leaving them isolated.”

But America’s lust for blood was in full flow. The dogs were called in ever closer. Three Baltic republics were added to NATO. The NATO pack was now snarling on the border of the Russian Federation. The pig was trapped. Fear was changing to fight. In March 2007, Putin said, “NATO has put its frontline forces on our borders. NATO expansion “represents a serious provocation that reduces the level of mutual trust. And we have the right to ask: against whom is this expansion intended?”

But America was not about to be denied. Their prey was surrounded. A few more steps, a swift stroke of the knife through Russia’s heart and it would all be over. America would rule. Russia’s pipeline to Germany would be stopped. American wheat would replace that cheap Russian stuff. A shilling a pound would be theirs. The Obama administration acted next. In an American sanctioned coup Obama replaced Ukraine’s elected, pro‐​Russia president with a puppet of his own. The prey decided all it had left was to fight. Moscow seized Crimea, and a new cold/hot war was underway with a vengeance.

Russia strengthened its position with a massive military build-up on Ukraine’s borders. The Ukraine dog had to be neutralised. President Biden is no back-country hunter. He dithered while the pig fought back. And this was not just any old pig. This one had nuclear tusks and was threatening to use them. Who knows, on this occasion the prey may indeed live to fight another day.

History will show that America’s hunt to trap the Russian prey was an unnecessary blunder of epic proportions. It was entirely predictable that NATO’s expansion would ultimately lead to violence. Every hunter knew the likely consequences, but those warnings went unheeded. Republican or Democrat – it didn’t make any difference. America had blood and money in its sights. It was not going to be denied. Three times America has hunted. In Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, America has trudged home defeated. The hunter has failed to return with its prey. Ukraine could well be number four. Certainly, Ukraine is now paying the price for US foreign policy bigotry and conceit.