Okay, can anyone come up with a plausible theory for what Putin's aim is with Ukraine? He can take the country - he has the soldiers and the weapons. It might take him a bit longer than anticipated to do it, but there is little doubt that he has the capability. But... what then?
I recall that Russia took Afghanistan fairly easily. Invading a country and putting your man in charge is fairly straightforward. But then the difficult bit starts: how do you keep it? If the people don't want you there, the country you have just invaded can only be a drain on your resources. How long can Putin afford to keep his military tied up in Ukraine?
One thing the Ukrainians need to do right now is to hide everything of value. When Putin decides the time has come to withdraw, history suggests that he will steal as much as he can to take back with him. But, however much he steals, I doubt that it will come anywhere near covering what this seemingly pointless war will have cost him.
So why did he invade in the first place? We, the West, pushed him into it. Partly through expanding NATO to the East, and partly through failing to treat him - and, through him, Russia - with the respect he believes they deserve. The UK used to be pretty good at international politics, at making other countries and their leaders feel they have been listened to and are being respected.
This is not just a failure by the UK, but we used to be good at this, so our failure is more significant. The war is entirely of Putin's making, but we helped to push him into it.
As a postscript: the UK is denouncing Russia for invading a sovereign nation on the grounds of false claims which were purely fabricated for the purpose of justifying military action. We might have more moral authority if, less than 20 years ago, we had not invaded a sovereign nation on the grounds of false claims which were purely fabricated for the purpose of justifying military action.
And, before anyone says that we were justified in invading Iraq because our leaders claimed to believe that it really posed a threat to our nation: Putin claims to believe that Russians were already being harmed and killed in Ukraine. If you want to start comparing the fake news, then Putin has a better story than we did.
The UK is not responsible for Putin's war on Ukraine, but we are certainly responsible for helping to create a world in which Putin can claim his actions are justified.
[See also Ukraine]
Comments
You often hear people say that truth is the first casualty of war. But I think that nuance could trump that, or is at least a close second.
So actions, decisions, good and bad, tend to catch up with us. Few are blameless.
Interestingly, the only criticism of this piece on Facebook came from someone who said that I contradict myself with "The war is entirely of Putin's making, but we helped to push him into it." I thought this was quite clear, but for anyone else who was confused, this is what I was saying.
"The war is entirely of Putin’s making" - the two countries are at war purely because Putin chose to invade. Nobody made him do it.
"we helped push him into it" - Putin has justified complaints about things we have done, and sees himself as responding to our aggressive behaviour. He probably would not have invaded Ukraine if we had adopted a different (and, I would argue, more ethical) foreign policy. From his perspective, we pushed him into the war. However, as I noted in the article, there were other factors behind the war, so our actions were not the only relevant factors: we helped to push him, but we didn't do it on our own.
I agree with most if not all of this, however we do have to acknowledge that the people of Ukraine should surely have a (large) say in their future alliances and allegiances? If the people of a sovereign country want to align themselves with western values and western trading partners, who are we or the US to stop them from doing so?
I agree we should have honoured our agreements made when the nuclear weapons formerly hosted in Ukraine were removed to Russia in 1994, but there again so should Russia. The annexation of Crimea was in direct contravention of this agreement, as too is their invasion now.
Most of this could perhaps be put down to incompetent statesmanship and the lack of really intelligent and experienced people in the offices of state in the US and UK - much was left to Germany. Angela Merkel (now accused of being too friendly with Putin of course - I believe she speaks Russian) tried a different tack. The UK of course just wanted Russian money and was blinded to Putin's greater goal. With the UK now outside of the EU and looking weak, inward looking and downright mean in terms of our international outlook - we will certainly not be viewed as an honest or intelligent broker by anyone.
Of course the Iraq war was a terrible mistake, as someone said to me at the time Iraq could be compared to a sealed glass jar containing angry wasps. The war simply broke the glass and has not resulted in improving the tensions in the middle east at all, just ruined hundreds of thousands of lives.
Until we approach international affairs with a double pronged aim, not just British interests but also to protect global citizens from war and poverty, we have little or no moral ground to make higher minded arguments.
We have also demonstrated a complete lack of pragmatism too.
I certainly don't disagree with you: the people of Ukraine should have a large say in their future alliances and allegiances. But what should happen and what can happen - at least, in the immediate future - are two different things. Sadly, for countries bordering Russia, their choices are limited by the very real threat of Russian intervention. This is not the way the world should be, but that is why we need to work to make the world a different place. Changing this will not be quick or easy, but unless we work at it, the changes we want will just not happen.
I'm not advocating pacivity on this, but is there a sense that human behaviour is cyclic, we have wars, we have peace. We have progress, we have regression. I feel sometimes that trying to be a 'force for good' is really like an ant trying to shift a sleeping hippopotamus - the societal (evolutionary?) forces are just so enormous that it's just pissing in the wind.
One thing Gerald Coates used to say (most of his teachings I've jettisoned), but this one was perhaps apposite. We can't change everyone's world everywhere but we can change someone's world somewhere. And of course I'm talking about practical actions rather than proselitising or 'sending thoughts and prayers'. Rather as I was saying last night; what can we practically do? Just something, however small. A miniscule difference for the situation but a huge difference, I hope, for an individual or two.