The Cold War is over, and we should be alive to Orthodox Russia as an ally to the West

I couldn’t agree more with Michael Sexton (“US meddling on Russia’s turf puts relationship at risk”, 9/12) about dropping the push by NATO to recruit Ukraine.

If my memory serves me, there was an understanding between George HW Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev that Ukraine would remain in effect a neutral buffer state between the West and Russia. In any event, NATO is a bureaucracy that refuses to die. It was Donald Trump who exposed it as the emperor’s new clothes.

Only France, the UK and Poland were spending more than two per cent of their budget on defence. Germany is a defence basket case.

It is only the adherence of the US that gives NATO a shred of credibility. If Russia will guarantee Ukraine’s integrity, NATO should back off. Then Europe can resume its somnolence.

Paul Everingham, Hamilton, Qld

As usual, Michael Sexton is spot on when it comes to Russia. After a seven decade-long communist aberration, Russia has returned to its Orthodox roots, and is now potentially the natural ally of the West. Modern Russia has no designs on Western Europe, but as Sexton points out, it will understandably react to Western intrusions into its contiguous areas.

The charge of a 2014 “invasion” of Crimea is nonsense. Crimea was wrested centuries ago from the Ottomans and paid for with Russian lives and treasure. Its incorporation into Ukraine in the early 1950s (before the dissolution of the Soviet Union) was merely an administrative convenience — and possibly one designed by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev solely as a sop to Ukrainian sensibilities battered by years of Stalinist oppression.

Like ageing generals forever fighting the last war, US president Joe Biden and his foreign policy establishment seem more comfortable with the Cold War of his youth.

Terry Birchley, Bundaberg, Qld

Those who propose (Letters, 6/12) that unvaccinated people should be denied hospital treatment if they catch Covid should take this horrendous idea to its logical conclusion.

Should lung cancer victims also be denied care if found to be smokers? Should ambulance crews leave car crash victims to die by the roadside when they smell alcohol?

This medical apartheid mentality needs to be stopped in its tracks. All people are entitled to medical care, or none.

It is worth noting that an unvaccinated person who is not carrying the virus is no threat whatsoever to anyone. A vaccinated person who is infected is a threat to everyone. Treating the unvaccinated like lepers is irrational and unjust.

Peter Davidson, Ashgrove, Qld

Mandatory vaccines are just like seatbelts. It’s partly nanny state protection against our own folly and partly saving hospital beds. In my area of Melbourne, pensioners needing joint replacement wait a year for a clinic appointment, before joining the waiting list. They don’t need beds blocked by unvaccinated people exercising their choice.

Brett Hunt, Rosanna, Vic

Tom Smith, Helen Derrick and Ken Dredge (Letters, 9/12) are welcome to disagree with me about anything, but they should not lose sight of the topic of debate.

Mr Smith overlooks the fact that Dr Forrest and Mr Cannon-Brookes know only too well that the cost of labour in Australia means that we cannot hope to compete with China in large-quantity manufacturing, such as assembling solar PV panels.

Ms Derrick uses the argument of “Twiggy” Forrest’s Fortescue Metals exporting iron ore to China. This has nothing to do with renewable energy. She then launches into irrelevant partisan-political arguments.

Mr Dredge assumes that Dr Forrest and Mr Cannon-Brookes are not aware of the present problems with electricity transmission by long-distance sea floor cable.

These naysayers should at least get their facts straight.

Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin, ACT

As a retired corporate PR, I think today it’s all too easy for ambitious women to complain and then blame their chosen lovers for failing them (“How to clean up Canberra: gender parity is no quick fix”, 3/12).

If they choose to enter into a relationship, then they must also realise the potential emotional problems too. Few can have it all, and like Janet, I am rather tired of the MeToo mantra, as are my fellow former women business executives.

Personally, in 25 years in my business, my experience was only one of good manners and decency from the big corporates I worked with. Forget about being victims; men face hardships too.

RE Hall, Sydney, NSW