Competition with China does not mean war

In the last week of June and on the last day of his holiday in Greece, I met George Mitchell at Costa Navarino, in the Peloponnese. The American politician, diplomat, lawyer and former Democratic senator served as the majority leader of the United States Senate from 1989 to 1995. He 89 years old today and has had leukemia for a few years.

The interview with him - the man who was instrumental in achieving the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland, where he spent five years as President Bill Clinton's special envoy before becoming President Barack Obama's special envoy in the Middle East - was one of the rare occasions that, although it lasted more than an hour, I found it wasn't enough.

One of the first topics we discussed was the war in Ukraine. "I do not believe that the invasion by Russia was justified," says Mitchell. "I think it was a...