Presumably there are at least a few politicians in the great Western capitals who have some idea of how to get a grip on the current global chaos. Perhaps at some point they will let us know what it is. At the moment, all that we are getting is banalities and obfuscation, which seem to be a cover for total panic. Apart from the obvious words of condolence and horror over the shooting down of a civilian airliner, no one seems to have anything meaningful to say about an incident that could have the diplomatic significance of the sinking of the Lusitania.

Russia, which is clearly either directly or indirectly responsible for this criminal act (or criminally negligent mistake), seems to be technically hysterical. Unlike the Western leaders who were initially almost entirely lost for words, it responded instantaneously with a flood of frantic lies. First, there was the preposterous claim that it was the Ukrainian military that had fired the missile. This led to a serious and absurd discussion in the West of whether or not the government in Kiev actually possessed weaponry capable of such an act.

In fact, the question that should have been asked is: why on earth would the Ukrainians shoot down an aeroplane that, even if it was mistaken for a military transport carrier, would have to have been assumed to be their own? Then the inexhaustibly inventive Vladimir Putin insisted that the downing of this plane had to be the responsibility of the “state over which it happened”. But it is precisely the question of who has rightful ownership of that part of the state – Russia or Ukraine – that is the cause of all this turmoil. Does the Donetsk region belong to Russia except when a passenger plane is blown up over it, in which case it belongs unquestionably to Ukraine?

All this desperate prevarication at least made it appear that this had not been Russia’s positive intention. It is almost certainly safe to assume that Mr Putin did not personally order the missile launch that killed hundreds of innocent foreign civilians. What he did do was provide sophisticated missile systems and heavy artillery to a motley assortment of trigger-happy cowboys whose antics have greatly increased his popularity with the folks at home. And the West has stood by muttering threats about sanctions (and applying them so belatedly that their impact could be planned for) while hoping that the whole mess would somehow resolve itself with as little impact on their own populations as possible. What, exactly, is American-British-European policy on this? Is there any concerted plan, or even a considered perspective for dealing with the rise of a bellicose Russia with irredentist ambitions?

In the meantime, in the Middle East, which the United States used to regard as its particular bailiwick, Israel’s patience has been exhausted. Having withdrawn voluntarily from Gaza, it found itself with a huge refugee camp on its border, which the terrorist organisation Hamas could use as a military base. With the convenient cover of a helpless civilian population, Hamas could escalate its rocket attacks to target every major Israeli city, knowing that any retaliation would be likely to create a humanitarian crisis.

What does the West have to say about this? That of course Israel has a right to defend itself, but that its response to attacks must be “proportionate”. Proportionate to what? Hamas refuses offers of a ceasefire, and will not desist in its terror attacks: clearly, the Palestinian outrage it represents will have to be addressed, and not purely by Israeli bombardment. What, exactly, is America’s plan? One suspects that it is simply to manufacture enough of its own oil to make dependence on this contentious region a thing of the past. Then it can wash its hands of this problem, too.

Barack Obama’s Secretary of State, John Kerry, once talked as if he had hopes of being the man who brokered a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. That was after Obama pulled the rug out from under his sincere desire to orchestrate an intervention in Syria that might have saved thousands of Assad’s victims. Mr Kerry is back in his box and the Obama administration looks determined to stay out of international trouble at least until the mid-term elections are over – a fact that is not lost on Israel, which must know that it is pretty much on its own now, or on Hamas, which can continue to refuse ceasefires with impunity.

William Hague was much traduced in the final days of his service as foreign secretary for being a blank slate. It was thought to be largely his fault that Britain had no foreign policy worthy of the name. But Mr Hague’s limitations were those of his government. The Coalition has no foreign policy: no solutions to offer in the growing chaos of a world without moral leadership. When the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary go on their diplomatic jaunts abroad, they are scarcely more than sales reps for British industry and trade. The one remaining superpower, the United States, abandons any plausible authority by retreating from its own “red lines” and making it clear that it is domestic issues that are its concern now.

The world can go away and sort out its own problems while America cuts back on defence spending, removes missile shields from Eastern Europe (in spite of the rise of imperial Russia), and “pivots” toward Asia largely for trade purposes. Not that that direction is unproblematic either: China is becoming increasingly aggressive toward Japan. Indeed, this is the geopolitical picture as we see it now: with the wilful decline of the West’s influence, the new superpowers – Russia and China – will fill the vacuum. China will become an economic and military force that could subjugate much of Asia, with inevitable consequences for the financial security of the West. Russia will lay claim to as much of the old Soviet territory as it dares, and will deal with Islamist terrorism (because it has its own concerns about Chechnya and the Muslim minorities within its sphere of influence) in its characteristic way – and it won’t be pretty.

At his White House press conference on Friday, Mr Obama had it both ways: he made it repeatedly clear that the US regarded Russia as implicated in this “criminal outrage”. But his demands were all for a “credible international investigation”. Over and over again he insisted that we “don’t know what exactly happened yet”. When asked if this event had changed his calculus on Russia’s actions in Ukraine, he said it again: it was too soon to decide. We would have to wait for the results of the investigation. (“All of us need to take a step back and see what’s happened.”) The US would continue to support Ukraine’s integrity and independence. But we mustn’t get ahead of the facts: “We’ve got to get to the bottom of this thing.”

All right, so when we have the facts, and we’ve got to the bottom of this thing, what then?