It's hard to take this "looming war" with Russia seriously when WWIII didn't happen during the USSR times when Russia was much stronger. It's hard to believe that Russia would want to start WWIII now when they didn't then and when they have shown that they were highly struggling in Ukraine (and they struggled in Chechnya, too).

Along the same line, during the Cold War Sweden was literally facing the Warsaw Pact and yet stayed out of NATO. Now it is surrounded with friends and needs to join NATO.

I am just old enough to remember the end of the Cold War and the fall of it all. To me it is very difficult to consider that the situation now is riskier than then.

A reasonable conclusion is that we are being led up the garden path...

Russia has a stockpile of nukes for defense because they are worried of invasion (history has shown this is warranted). But they know that the military might of the US and NATO would obliterate their conventional forces.

My theory is that there has always been push-back against an EU power-grab to full "statehood" and involvement in military matters, and that this is a pretext to "manufacture consent" in European public opinion.

Now, specifically for the UK, again I think this is largely pandering to the US to attract favours (tariffs, etc)