Politicians' egos is definitely one of the weaknesses of democracy. You have to be fairly egotistical to put yourself forward into the popularity contest to get elected to start. Then the ego gets even bigger when they make you in charge.

Sometimes ego and the interests of the people interest align well -when the politician seeks to be the hero of his country. When he takes it too far, he can destroy his country.

Sometimes the interest of a people throws them against the interest of another people and its not about ego. In a time of great prosperity, there is enough for all and the interest of one group over another can be called selfish and egotistical. When prosperity wanes, good leaders seek to give their people safety and prosperity. Deserts are not famed as places to find unarmed tribesmen who are pacifists. This is because there are scant resources.

The world's population has grown enormously due to the boom in resources made available by harnessing oil. Never has there been greater prosperity than in recent years. But the corner has turned recently. We must expect wars.

@Lionsmane8 I agree that it is best to be as kind as possible. I think that what I am trying to say with the dog eat dog talk is that sometimes a top dog has little option but to bite and some people will hold grudges whatever. I entirely agree that its best to do as little harm as possible and I have heard the reputation of your people for not forgetting feuds.

When it comes to Ukraine, what I feel is that neither Russia nor the west had much other option unless they wanted to back down. Both these dogs had to fight or lose rank. They had put each other in a corner. Russia had been on the back foot since the fall of the USSR. Either it stayed in retreat as more and more of its former empire defected to the west in return for the Eu's money or it turned and attacked. At that point the west would be shown to be toothless cucks or had to fight.

Countless men will die for political problem and maybe with the power of hindsight, we could go back and do it better another time but as it is, its one of those inevitabilities of power. Someone will end up being shown to be the loser or they will agree a bitter peace that is a sort of draw and is better than a money pit meat grinder war but if they had not fought for real, one side would have lost anyway and been seen to the the weak one, so there had to be a fight.

@Lionsmane8 I don't call it criminal. Its the reality of being top dog. You make unpopular decisions and sometimes they are wrong. You sometimes have to fight for something. Its the real world. When you are not top dog you wake up and think "what shall I say or complain about today?" When you are you wake up and say "what do I have to do today?"

I agree that China doesn't historically do empire and it will be interesting to see how this plays out. One thing we know already is that it is very keen to enlarge its border -just by moving border posts, pushing other nations' solider back by marching forward en masse and by creating islands. They are certainly on the path to enlargement and the fate of the Uyghurs is not encouraging.

They may well also take the stance that there is no point owning labour when you can get it cheaper than owning it, just by giving out "free" hospitals and then demanding mining concessions and air port contracts in return when the loan for the "free" hospital is not repaid by the next group in power.

I would love to revisit this one in 20 years and see if the chinese turn out to be great humanitarians.

I happen to agree with you on the lecturing African countries thing. Forget that nonsense. Stop all aid too. Trade with them if you want on the terms you and they agree. Why complicate a thing with patronising kindness? They don't appreciate it and its actually costing you money and opportunity. If they want to use child labour, for example, just buy the stuff or don't buy it.