Russia's war against Ukraine will have serious consequences in a number of political categories. These include, first, a reassessment of the school of 'political realism', one of whose proponents claims to have reliably predicted the war. Was the West in fact partly 'responsible' for the war? Second, to what extent does the war of aggression, as an undeniable violation of law, do serious damage to the status of international law and justice? Thirdly, the war is embedded in political developments that stretch back a century. It is examined in its place within American foreign policy since the Wilsonian peace programme, framed by the dangerous reluctance of the EU to pursue a decisive geopolitical policy towards Russia, and interpreted in the light of Stalinist echoes within Russian politics.