We’ve been saying it a while but we live in interesting times.

And much of that interest has been sparked by the current President of the United States who has taken an aggressive stance to long-standing problems.

He is taking aim at many of the organisations that have been part of the world’s normal for many decades now. First, it was the Paris Climate Accord and the TPP trade agreement but then he’s gone on to attack some longer-standing frameworks.

Donald Trump has threated to dismantle the World Trade Organisation and more recently NATO has been in his fire. Both organisations were born out of war and conflict.

The World trade Organisation started out as GATT, the General Agreement on Tariff and Trade back in 1948. It was after World war 2 and it was created along with the IMF and the World Bank to reduce economic difficulties arising that so often escalated into military actions. In 1994 it was refashioned and renamed the World Trade Organisation.

It is fair to say that at it’s most basic level the WTO has worked, as we have not had a worldwide conflict for 70 years. But it is also fair to say that globalisation and the differing relativities between emerging and mature markets means that the organisation is creaking at the seams.

Meanwhile, NATO is also receiving not so friendly fire from the President. It’s a collective defence alliance between 29 countries that started in 1949. Again after the last pan European war. It gained more prominence during the Cold War between Western Europe and the States and Russia. Again you have to say it has worked with no major conflict, with the exception of the Bosnian conflict, for the past 70 years.

But again it’s starting to creak as America complains it pays more than it’s fair share, which is true and has been mentioned by a number of administrations. But if there is one thing Donald Trump hates more than Hilary Clinton it’s an unfair deal and so he’s going at it hard.

Now 16 former Foreign Ministers, including our own Don MacKinnon, who is also a former Commonwealth Secretary-General, have written him a letter urging Trump shows some support for NATO before next week's Nato summit in Brussels and Trump’s meeting with Putin. These are not snowflakes or idiots and between them, they have centuries of experience. They know that Russia is dangerous. After all name any other nation who recently annexed and subsumed neighbouring nations.

I understand Trump’s concerns, they are America’s concerns and they’re not new. America allowed itself to over contribute which also gave them more influence. I think I understand Trump’s tactics which is to blow everything up and start again. But as Britain is finding with Brexit fixing everything up after blowing them up takes time and while you’re rebuilding you’re weak. If NATO is blown up I’d love to see Putin’s grinning face afterwards.

There is something to be said for the iron hand in a velvet glove and I think the world would feel more secure if Donald Trump learned the technique