Dictatorship is not the answer

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It seems as though Trump’s proposed ‘Peace Board’, initially mooted as part of the ‘peace plan’ for Gaza, is being given a much wider remit by its sole owner and proprietor, one Donald Trump. It looks more like an attempt to replace the UN with a handpicked core membership (to include a chair for life appointed because he’s called Donald Trump, as well as that well-known purveyor of peace, former UK PM Tony Blair, and Trump’s son-in-law, Secretary of State, and special envoy), and a wider membership to be invited to participate by the chair. This wider group includes one Vladimir Putin, a man particularly well-known for his love of peace, and that staunch defender of democracy, Lukashenko of Belarus. Those accepting membership can opt to upgrade to a premium membership in exchange for handing the chair a mere $1 billion (to be spent as decided unilaterally by the chair), whilst anybody who turns down an invitation can expect to be hit with further tariffs (such as the proposed 200% tariff on French wines and champagne which Macron has earned by politely declining. Like any good mafia don, Trump is making people offers that he thinks they can’t refuse.

That there are problems with the UN is undeniable. Reaching a consensus is a difficult and time-consuming task, especially when five permanent members of the Security Council have a veto. It’s not entirely clear exactly how Trump’s proposal overcomes that weakness, although he presumably expects all members to simply accept his ultimate authority on all decisions. Theoretically, that works, but practically it’s problematic even when he’s president of the US; if he remains as chair when (or if) he ceases to be president, by what power exactly does he impose compliance? That problem of seeking and achieving consensus, leading to painfully slow decision-making, isn’t confined to the UN, of course: the EU suffers from the same issue. The question we are faced with is whether we accept that as a cost of seeking consensus and agreement through negotiation, or whether we simply vest all power in an individual – or rather, in Trump’s case, allow an individual to vest all power in himself. For all the frustrations of dealing with a multitude of different parties with different interests and agendas, I’m sure that I’m not alone in rejecting the dictatorship which is what the alternative amounts to.

Here in the UK, another former UK PM has weighed in with his own take on the solution. It’s full of fine words, as in this paragraph: “The democracies of the world should draft a short values statement, echoing the UN charter’s starting point – “We the peoples …” – and this time showing we mean it. Its first section would assert our full support for self-determination and the mutual recognition of nation states*; for the outlawing of war and coercion; and for the primacy of law, civil rights and democratic accountability as the essential means by which human dignity is advanced. A second section would outline the rules that govern the cooperation essential to guarantee food, water and security, economic opportunity and social justice, and climate resilience and health for all, including pandemic prevention”. But it, too, is short on telling us how this can be enforced.

Both Trump and Brown have identified a real problem when it comes to taking international decisions, but only Trump has come up with a ‘solution’ – personal dictatorship by one D. Trump. The reality is that, if we reject the ‘might is right’ approach of Trump, there is no simple solution. Not electing people who are clearly deranged would help a little, but there’s no obvious way of preventing that either.

^* Obviously, Gordon Brown does not intend this to be taken as being in any way support for nations not currently regarded as states – Wales, Scotland, Catalunya etc. – having any right to self-determination. That would never do.

When is an agreement not an agreement?

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It was revealed today that Trump is unilaterally withdrawing the US from 66 international organisations and agencies on the basis that they are “contrary to the interests of the United States”. Whether that is actually true or not is an interesting question to which there is no absolute answer: it really depends on how one defines the ‘interests of the United States’ and over what timescale. The point, though, is that US membership of every one of those bodies will have been underpinned by a formal international agreement signed by the President of the day, and in some cases ratified by Congress. Other participating countries will have made assumptions about US sincerity and intentions in deciding the shape and nature of their own participation. Trump would probably argue that they were all signed by previous presidents, all of whom (in his eyes) were losers, incompetents, traitors or worse, but the bottom line is that he is simply reneging on agreements, often long-standing, to which others have assumed that the US would adhere.

It’s not the only example. Having signed an agreement with Keir Starmer just a few months ago, Trump has paused all work on the deal, demanding concessions in other areas first. It seems to be fairly typical of his approach to business as well as politics – if people give him everything he wants, he assumes that he didn’t ask for enough, banks what he’s got and then withdraws from the agreement until he gets more. All agreements are conditional and temporary until he decides he no longer likes them.

It’s a point which the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’ needs to bear in mind. In tiptoeing around the easily-bruised Trump ego in order to keep him engaged and signed up to a peace plan for Ukraine, they are making an implicit assumption that he will consider himself bound by whatever document he signs. It’s a foolish assumption to be making – any security guarantees to Ukraine based on commitments made by Trump are likely to be worthless. If Putin could be persuaded to believe that Trump might honour his word, the ‘guarantees’ might have some sort of deterrent effect, but all the signs are that Putin has a much better understanding of Trump than do Starmer or Macron.

Given his past statements, it seems unlikely that Putin will sign up to any peace proposal involving the stationing of troops from NATO countries in Ukraine anyway (even if Trump gives him a nod and a wink to say he’s not serious, a scenario which is far from unlikely) so perhaps it will never be tested in practice. If he does agree, it could well end up meaning that Starmer and Macron are leading their countries into a shooting war with Russia without the essential intelligence and back up from the US. It underlines again how foolish it is, under the current US administration, to regard the US as an ally rather than a hostile power.

Is there any alternative to spluttering from the sidelines?

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For a while, it looked as though Trump’s designs on Greenland had been placed on a back burner somewhere, but in need of a diversion from other stories, he’s returned to the issue today, and appointed a special envoy to Greenland, who sees his job – presumably briefed to that effect by Trump – as being “to serve you in this volunteer position to make Greenland a part of the US”. Maybe people shouldn’t read too much into it beyond diverting attention from Epstein, and the ‘volunteer’ nature of the post suggests that the governor of Louisiana – almost as far as one can get from Greenland, other than Hawaii, and still be in the US – might not be spending a lot of his time on the issue.

The government of the kingdom of Denmark is upset, or at least pretending to be to the extent that they can do so without angering His Orangeness, and has quite rightly made it clear that the future of Greenland is a matter, first and foremost for Greenlanders. Their argument that “National borders and the sovereignty of states are rooted in international law”, and “You cannot annex another country” is more than a little weak though. After all, hasn’t Putin proved, fairly conclusively, that you can indeed annex another country or part thereof, and if you have so much military might that no-one is prepared to stop you, then you can get away with it. And if you can get the leader of the biggest and most powerful country on side with what you are doing, it’s even easier.

If Trump were to decide that his need for a diversion had become so great that it was time to invade Greenland, then who or what is going to stop him? Not Denmark for sure, and even if Trump is turning against NATO, it doesn’t mean that NATO would use force to resist him. And not Russia, for whom a US annexation of Greenland would echo Putin's own rationale for invading Ukraine. We like to believe that we live in some sort of rules-based international order, but we don’t. Putin and Trump have already ripped up the rules. The question is how the rest of the world reacts to that. Denmark seems determined to join the UK in spluttering helplessly from the sidelines.

Is Russia the only enemy?

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The politicians and generals keep telling us that we must prepare for war with Russia – some are even claiming that we are already at war, in the light of Russia launching a variety of provocations including the use of drones for surveillance and cyber attacks on Western organisations. In order to justify diverting ever more resources into the profits of companies in the defence sector the purchase of armaments, some play up the danger of an actual physical attack, using armour and troops. It is, though, hard to believe that Putin doesn’t realise that such an attack would be certain to lead to a much wider war which, without resorting to nuclear weapons - in which case, everyone else also loses - he would be likely to lose.

That’s not to say that Putin doesn’t have malicious intent; just that the conquest, occupation, and Russification of countries with 500 million inhabitants by a country with only 145 million inhabitants is never going to be achievable, and Putin isn’t stupid enough to believe otherwise. He does, after all, have the experience of years of fighting over a much smaller country and all the losses Russia has incurred. It’s pretty clear, though, what his aims for any conflict would be – the breakup of NATO and the EU, regime change across Europe, replacing what pass for liberal democracies with authoritarian governments, and freedom for Russian oligarchs and kleptocrats to further enrich themselves. He doesn’t need to invade anyone to achieve that; indeed, invasion would destroy a lot of the resources which he and his pals covet. Misinformation, election interference, dirty money, cyber crime – all these are more effective weapons at his disposal. And no amount of expenditure on tanks, guns or conscription of the sort which the politicians and generals are demanding across Europe will prevent that.

By a curious coincidence, Putin isn’t the only one who seeks the destruction of the EU, wholesale European regime change, and more freedom for oligarchs and kleptocrats. The Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy, published last week, is remarkably explicit in calling for much the same thing, with direct interference in elections in favour of Trumpian policies and Trump-aligned parties now an official and public part of US strategy. Those who think that we are already at war with Russia because of Russian interference in European politics seem incapable of recognising that, applying similar criteria, the US could also be considered to be at war with us. European countries are caught in a pincer movement, with larger neighbours to both the east and the west intent on ripping out liberal, tolerant democracies (or semi-democracies, such as the UK) and replacing them with authoritarian white nationalist regimes which persecute and harass minorities and opponents and pay homage to Moscow / Washington.

That doesn’t mean to suggest that Russia and the US are in cahoots (although they may well be moving that way), merely that their rulers’ perceptions of their own geopolitical interests in Europe increasingly coincide in a way which is much broader than a mutual desire to carve up Ukraine. A response which consists of diverting ever more resources into armaments not only does nothing to address the problem (would we really get into a shooting war with either Russia or the US, let alone both of them at the same time?), it actively makes it worse by holding down living standards in a way which creates the discontent on which politicians pursuing the Putin-Trump agenda feed. Improving the welfare and living standards of the population would be a much better way of demonstrating European values and keeping the barbarians at bay, but our politicians seem keener on facilitating barbarianism than protecting values and civilisation.

There's nothing just about Trump's plan - or even Europe's

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In response to the ‘Trump’ plan for peace in Ukraine (which according to some was actually drawn up by Russia rather than Trump, although its precise provenance remains in some doubt), Keir Starmer has said it needs more work in order to turn it into a “just and lasting peace”. Fine words, but whether they’re any more meaningful than a standard Trump word salad is open to question. To be ‘lasting’, it has to provide cast iron guarantees of no future aggression against Ukraine, and the version published to date offers no more than wishy-washy words.

But the bigger issue is defining a “just” peace. If we’re seriously talking about ‘justice’, then any agreement has to include a return to the internationally-recognised boundaries prior to the seizure of parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea, an agreement on reparations for damage caused by an illegal invasion, a system of trials for war crimes committed, and agreement that any future changes to boundaries will be negotiated, not imposed by force. Such a ‘just’ outcome, realistically, isn’t going to be on the table – it could only ever be an option if other countries were willing to use their own military forces to impose such an outcome. What Starmer is talking about is not whether the outcome is ‘just’ or not, but whether the degree of injustice is acceptable to Ukraine and to those countries providing Kyiv with armaments and other support. He's just not honest enough to say so.

The question for the UK becomes one of deciding just how much injustice it should ask Ukraine to accept in the cause of peace. A ceasefire along the current lines of control whilst negotiations on the longer term continue (but without formally recognising the occupied territories as Russian) is a big ask for Ukraine (and utterly unjust), but without external military support it’s probably as good as it gets. But given how much ground Trump has already conceded to Putin, he may already have made even that an impossible outcome. Since Putin knows (not least because Trump appears to have told him so) that Trump will support him in asking for much more than that, it’s hard to see why Putin would back down significantly on what he thinks Trump has already agreed, namely the handover of even more of Ukraine, the formal recognition of Russian sovereignty over the occupied territory, the forgiveness of all Russian war crimes and the reintegration of Russia into a US-led global kleptocracy.

Starmer is doing his best to look like some sort of global statesman from an age where the UK’s opinion counted for something, but it really doesn’t. The truth is that, if they jointly so decide, the two dictators, Trump and Putin, have the power to impose their will. I don’t like that, but me not liking something doesn’t make it untrue. The biggest obstacle to a Trump-Putin accord is not a gang of European middle-ranking powers pleading with Trump, it is that Trump doesn’t actually know what he wants from one day to the next. He certainly loves being flattered, and it’s easy to see why so many have concluded that flattery might be the best way to influence him, but how long that influence lasts after they’ve left his presence is a different matter.

Assuming that the world order will return to what was previously regarded as ‘normal’ once Trump goes is a dangerous starting point, not least because we don’t know when he will go or what will follow him. It’s an unstated assumption, though, which seems to underpin Starmer’s stance – which means that there is no planning going on for the new world in which we may be living for some time to come.

Legitimising tyrants and wannnabes

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In talking about what concessions should be made to Putin, some commentators have referred to the need to address his ‘legitimate fears’. But what makes a fear ‘legitimate’? I can understand why Putin might not like the idea of a successful democracy – or even semi-democracy – on his doorstep; I can understand why he might not want another Nato member on his border; I can even understand why he might not be happy about Ukraine becoming part of the EU economic bloc, but what turns these aspirations and wishes into ‘legitimate’ concerns? Ukraine posed him no threat, and the ‘fears’ seem to have been more of an excuse to indulge his fantasy about recreating the Russian Empire than about being afraid of anything. We, and especially Ukraine, have no choice but to deal with him because of his military power and willingness to use it, but that doesn’t endow his wishes with one iota of legitimacy, and our use of language shouldn’t do so either. Recognising the reality of raw power and ruthlessness isn’t at all the same thing as agreeing that there is any justification for it.

Something similar applies, in a very different context and on a wholly different scale, to the ‘legitimate’ concerns of those opposing all migration. What, exactly, is the difference between blatant xenophobia and paranoia on the one hand, and ‘legitimate’ concerns on the other? And when and how does the one morph into the other? The distinction is not at all clear to me, but politicians are increasingly falling into the habit of using the word ‘legitimate’ to describe the motivations of those opposing migration, as if they are afraid to confront the much darker motives driving many of those opponents. Actually, I think that I can answer my own question: what legitimises fears or concerns is using the word legitimate to describe them. The language we use is important. Those referring to Putin’s fears as legitimate strengthen his hand, just as those who refer to legitimate concerns about migration strengthen the hand of the Farages of this world. Whether we’re dealing with the actual real world authoritarian in the Kremlin, or the wannabe authoritarian of Reform, legitimising part of what they say doesn’t make it easier to debate the matter rationally, it merely encourages them to bank the win, and expand their demands.

There’s nothing ‘legitimate’ about invading a neighbouring country or about spreading deliberate untruths to whip up hatred of migrants and foreigners. Suggesting that there is merely facilitates them.

Throwing people probably wouldn't help

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Yesterday, in advance of Trump’s meeting with Putin later this week to redraw Ukraine’s boundaries, Sir Starmer warned the world that he wouldn’t trust Vladimir Putin “as far as you can throw him”. It’s another of those rare occasions when Sir Starmer has spoken half sensibly. Only half mind, because there is also a major question about the trustworthiness of Trump. And looking at the two men, if it came to a distance throwing contest, I reckon that most of us might be able to throw Putin a millimetre or two further than Trump. It’s probably something to do with the Big Mac consumption ratio.

And that’s the problem with Sir Starmer’s statement backing Trump’s interventions over the Ukraine war: neither of the two parties can be trusted. Putin’s motivation is to get US recognition of his control over as much of Ukraine as possible; Trump’s appears to be earning himself a Nobel Peace Prize for stopping the bloodshed, at least long enough for him to get to Oslo and collect it, regardless of whether any peace is just or lasting. Most of Europe is saying that Ukraine must be part of any agreement – the country must not simply be carved up between Trump and Putin.

Sadly, the truth about the world in which we live (rather then the one in which we might prefer to live) is that two dictators, each heavily armed with the means to wipe us all out, meeting in Alaska can and will carve up Ukraine and, come to that, any other country that they choose (a side-deal on Greenland, maybe, as a quid pro quo?), and no-one can stop them. Without US support, unless the rest of the world – and particularly Europe – is willing to commit resources, including military personnel, to the defence of Ukraine, then the ultimate outcome is certain, with only the timescale in doubt. It’s not fair, it’s not right, it’s not just, it’s not the sort of world most of us would want, but Trump is surely right to say the cards are stacked against Ukraine. He should know – he’s the one who stacked them.

For decades, we have lived under the delusion that the world order is rules-based, but the US has always had a shaky commitment, at best, to that concept, and has abandoned it completely under Trump. The truth is that we live in a world where the powerful can and do impose their will on those less strong than themselves – Trump has merely shredded the pretence that things were otherwise. Might is right, in practice if not in theory. With the US having gone rogue, the choice is between telling Zelensky to fight to the last Ukrainian, or advising him to accept that some territorial loss is the price of peace, and concentrating on getting back the stolen children and rebuilding what’s left of Ukraine, with absolutely no guarantee that Putin won’t try and grab more of the country in a few years time. It’s not a pleasant choice, but not choosing the second means that Sir Starmer is effectively choosing the first. Slathered in a good dose of meaningless rhetoric about the evil Putin.

How we get to a position where the world can get back to at least the pretence of having a rules-based international order is a much bigger question, to which none of us have the answer. But we can at least start by asking the question, something which Sir Starmer seems unable to comprehend.

Starmer is playing with fire

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The new submarines announced by Sir Starmer yesterday are obviously a new form of stealth weapon, since no-one will be able to see them for a decade or two. Although the announcement covered 12, it turns out that seven of those are replacements for existing obsolete boats, so only five are additional. They will start rolling off the production line in the late 2030s (let’s say 2038 for the sake of argument), and will be launched at the rate of one every eighteen months. So, by about 2056, the Royal Navy will have a whole five additional submarines, built to a 30 year old specification, in its fleet.

Sir Starmer says this will ‘send a message’ to Putin. Leaving aside the huge cost of that ‘message’, the thing about messages is that the ones received may not precisely match the ones sent. In this case, telling Putin we’ll be just about ready to come for him in 30 years’ time, assuming that the schedule doesn’t get delayed and that the boats actually work when delivered (two caveats which past military procurement exercises suggest might be ‘challenging’) is more likely to lead to laughing-into-cornflakes than quaking-in-boots.

The submarines were only part of the announcement, of course. There were also the announcements about wanting to fit nuclear weapons to aircraft and resurrecting some sort of citizen’s army. But the theme running through seemed to have two main elements: how much the UK is going to strengthen its armed forces, and how slowly it’s all actually going to happen. And that matters in terms of Putin’s potential motivation (for it is surely only Putin and Russia who are the targets of all this). If one imagines Putin as some sort of Bond villain, sitting in the Kremlin stroking his cat, then all bets are off. No-one can plan to deal with insanity on that scale, although fiction might suggest that all it takes is one man with a licence to kill. If, however, we treat Putin as being a rational actor – and even if the premises of his rationality don’t always match our own, they can still be identified and planned for – then there is one, and only one, plausible reason for his wanting to start an all-out war with NATO. At its simplest, that reason is a belief (whether right or wrong doesn’t matter: he only needs to believe it) that NATO is gearing up to attack Russia, and that his best chance is to attack first, before NATO has reached full readiness.

All the talk among UK politicians and military types about being in a ‘pre-war’ stage, and needing to be ready to fight an all-out European war within the next few years might be intended to send a message of deterrence, but it’s easy to see how, from a different perspective, it might look like preparing the population and economies of ‘the west’ for an invasion of Russia. And the closer any army is to a state of readiness to fight a war, the more likely it is that that war can start by accident, or by a simple misjudgement. Reducing the time available to make a rational assessment by positioning troops and weapons close to a border increases the probability of a ‘use it or lose it’ mentality taking hold. We might indeed be in dangerous times, but Sir Starmer seems intent on increasing, rather than decreasing, the level of danger.

Perhaps I misjudge Sir Starmer. Maybe his announcement really has nothing to do with war at all, but is really about trying to sound strong, play the patriotic card for reasons of internal UK politics, and impose his own militaristic definition of Britishness on the population. After all, everything else he does is calculated and calibrated in terms of its expected impact on voting behaviour. But expecting Putin to read between the lines and understand that Sir Starmer doesn’t really mean what he’s saying at all is a big ask of someone who is more than a little paranoid to start with. Sir Starmer is playing a very dangerous game, either way.

Imposing sanctions in baby steps

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The UK and EU are seriously discussing further packages of sanctions against Russia over the invasion of Ukraine, and trying to pressurise Trump into implementing further US sanctions as well. There does seem to be a feeling that the US Congress might be willing to impose further sanctions, although there is considerable doubt as to whether Trump will support it. Sir Starmer is doing his best to sound tough as he talks about ‘ramping up’ (one of his favourite phrases) economic sanctions against Putin and Russia. But hold on a minute. Over three years into a disastrous war in which hundreds of thousands have died, and there are still more sanctions which haven’t been applied yet? When he says ‘we will apply more sanctions unless you…’, what I hear is ‘we haven’t yet done everything we could’.

How effective sanctions have been – indeed, how effective they can ever be – is a question which people who can’t think of anything else to do don’t really want to discuss. The reasons for that are entirely understandable: if countries are unwilling to move to direct military aid of Ukraine, and if sanctions don’t force Russia to back down, then all that is left is a negotiation which will inevitably make concessions to Russia. It represents neither fairness nor justice, but if all that we can think of are sanctions, then we should seriously have been applying them to the maximum already. Tough talk without tough action simply condemns more Ukrainians to fight and die.

But here is the truth that they can’t or won’t admit: sanctions aren’t forcing Russia into backing down and probably never will. Telling members of the Russian regime that they can’t come to London (one form of sanctions which has been applied) isn’t actually the sort of punishment which makes them quake in their boots, and they are still obtaining most of the goods they require by other routes. There are three main reasons why sanctions are probably doomed to failure.

The first is that Russia is big. It has an abundance of natural resources, and is able to produce much of what it needs; maybe not in the cheapest or most efficient way, maybe not always to the same standards, but a big country will always be more resilient in the face of sanctions than a smaller one.

The second is that they are not being universally applied. There are still plenty of countries (including, of course, China) willing and able to supply Russia with the goods it needs. That actually reflects a deeper problem, which remains unaddressed: not all countries see the Russia-Ukraine conflict in the same simple terms as the EU / UK, namely an unprovoked invasion of one country by another. That’s not to say that they’re right in coming to a different interpretation, but whether they’re right or wrong is irrelevant to the ground fact that they are continuing to both buy and supply goods which are subject to sanctions by others. Many of us might regret that the world does not have an effective means of disciplining a rogue state, but regret doesn’t change the facts.

The third reason is that sanctions hurt the economies of those applying them, so companies are finding ways around sanctions. As trade with Russia has dropped, demand from countries aligned with Russia for the same goods has miraculously increased. Some of those countries are landlocked and the goods can only reach them by traversing Russia. The idea that they all get to their planned destination, or even that they all stay there when they arrive, is for the birds. Western companies are supplying sanctioned goods to Russia and pretending not to know, and their governments are pretending not to notice. And the capitalists make their sales and take their profits.

That sanctions will not, and probably cannot, achieve their aim is a dismal conclusion to draw, but if it’s what we are going to depend on, then implementing them in packages over a period of years and turning a blind eye to alternative supply routes doesn’t cut it. Sir Starmer’s projected strength is actually a cover for weakness.

People are more important than land

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If Donald Trump were to content himself with annexing the southern part of Ontario Province rather than the whole of Canada (initially at least, always reserving the option to return for more at some future date), he would probably see that as being a major concession to Canada. From such a perspective, Putin only seizing 20% of Ukrainian territory also looks like a huge concession. It may look like a strange definition of ‘concession’ to most of us, but it’s easy enough to see how it would look different to someone who believes that the strong and powerful should be free to exercise their strength to get whatever they want. A bully who settles for less than he could take will always see himself as being generous.

That doesn’t alter the fact that the reality remains that, unless other states are willing to commit their own armed forces on the side of Ukraine (and I really hope that they’re not), sooner or later the country will either be swallowed up by Russia or else a negotiated peace settlement will involve the de facto, if not the de jure, surrender of lands, leaving the world with another of those long term frozen territorial disputes around borders. It’s neither fair nor just, but in the absence of any means of compelling the surrender of conquered territory, it’s a hard fact. Encouraging Ukraine to fight on merely adds to the terrible death toll which has already occurred – one of the few things on which I agree with what Trump says.

It's still somewhat depressing that, even recognising that harsh reality, the debate and negotiation all seems to revolve around what land and territory should be ceded to whom, with little consideration for the people living, whether currently or formerly, in those areas. One of Putin’s demands is for Ukraine to respect the rights of Russian-speakers living in Ukraine. (Being a native Russian speaker in Ukraine doesn’t make someone a Russian of course, any more than being a native English speaker in Wales makes someone English, although it's a distinction lost on Putin.) But what about the equivalent rights of Ukrainian speakers in the occupied territories? Or even those living in those territories whose native tongue is Russian but who nevertheless consider themselves Ukrainian? What about the citizens of those territories who have been forcibly removed to remote regions of Russia – to say nothing of the children who have been abducted, adopted, and who Russia has attempted to indoctrinate into hating their own families and nation?

Land and territory are tangible; people can swap maps with different proposals as to where lines should be drawn. But land and territory have always been moved between states, usually by the exercise of force. They are ultimately less important, however, than the lives and wellbeing of people, and the right of those people to choose their own nationality and identity. I’m far from convinced that that relative importance is receiving due attention in any negotiation process, but then neither Trump nor Putin are individuals who particularly care about people.

Minds don't need to be particularly great to think alike

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Apologists for Britain’s colonial past invariably point to what they see as the ‘good’ outcomes of imperial conquest for the conquered, usually expressed in terms of systems of government, the rule of law, Christianity, cricket, and the English language. Whether these are actually ‘good’ things or not depends on perspective; the assumption that they are is itself a product of the imperialist mindset, revolving as it does around some concept of cultural superiority. Leaving that aside and assuming, for the sake of argument, that these are indeed good things, none of them actually formed any part of the original intention of conquest. That was always about access to resources, and the opportunity to use the power of the imperial state to extract wealth which could be accumulated by individuals, and much of which was repatriated to the shores of the imperial power. That wealth, taken by force from the conquered peoples, was the basis of the great wealth of the cities of the imperial powers, including, of course, Britain. In return, the natives got Shakespeare, a bargain for which they should, apparently, be eternally grateful.

Sometimes, people confuse imperialism with colonialism; but not every country added to the empire was actually heavily colonised. Some were, of course – the territories currently known as the USA being one of them. From a British point of view, the other territories most heavily colonised were places such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. They’re not known as the ‘white commonwealth’ without reason. The USA (a former colony in the true sense of the word) and its constitution were founded on a number of ideas, one of which was the rejection of colonialism and imperialism, and the idea of ‘freedom’ (a word which has many different meanings). Watching that former colony lapse into its own form of imperialism ought to be surprising but is somehow not.

The methods are different in the twenty-first century; although Trump hasn’t ruled out direct military conquest, he has a clear preference for economic domination, even if his grasp of economics leaves more than a little to be desired. But his motivation – control of resources, and the transfer of wealth from other countries to the US – is a direct match for the motivation which led to the empires of the past. And blatantly so. Having got Ukraine to agree to allow half of its mineral wealth to be expropriated on the basis of a lie that aid provided was a loan rather than a gift, he has done as all bullies do when the bullied bow down before them. His conclusion from the willingness of Ukraine to give up 50% is that he didn’t ask for enough, so he’s doubled his demand. He now wants control of all of it. Along with a veto on Ukrainian policy.

His motivation for taking Greenland, although presented in terms of ‘security’ is much the same. He wants access to its resources, and his promise that Greenlanders will become rich if they allow it is as valid as his promise that US citizens would become richer by electing him; it’s a promise which is only ever intended to apply to a tiny minority. Yesterday, Putin declared that he thinks Trump is serious about taking Greenland, but thinks that it's what he described as “an issue that concerns two states and has nothing to do with us”. It’s an open invitation to Trump to view Russia’s intentions in relation to Ukraine in the same terms. The two presidents are clearly thinking along similar lines. And the opinions of others count for nothing, with either of them.

Uninvited guests

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Relative to the size of its population, Greenland must surely be about to become the most-visited country by US dignitaries in the period since Trump was elected for the second time. His son, Donald Junior, undertook an entirely ‘private’ visit before his father was even installed in the White House, turning up in a discreet fashion giant Trump-branded jet and spending the day there, during which homeless people were invited in off the street to enjoy a free lunch wearing MAGA hats (which the ‘tourists’ had coincidentally brought with them) for the benefit of the photographers (who had also conveniently tagged along for this ‘private’ visit).

Next up, originally scheduled for Thursday to Saturday, was another ‘private’ visit by the Vice President’s wife to ‘watch a dog-sled competition’, which the VP himself rather impulsively decided to join. After all, what sort of VP is so busy that he can’t suddenly drop his semi-public planning of bombing raids to take a three-day trip to the Arctic to watch a few dog sleds racing? Coincidentally, the National Security Advisor (assuming he’s still in post tomorrow) and the Energy Secretary are also joining the group in order to visit the US base on the island before they were planning for themselves to become part of the assembled audience for the dog sledding. Until, that is, there was some pushback, as a result of which the dog watching has been cancelled, and the group will confine themselves to a one-day visit to the US base, whilst the armoured cars which had already been delivered to transport them around the island were sent back to the US. Pity that – it rather spoiled the punch line about half the US government literally going to the dogs.

According to Trump (a form of words which is enough in itself to tells us that whatever follows will be a lie), the delegation on this ‘private’ visit had been ‘invited’ by unnamed Greenlandic officials, although no-one in the Greenlandic government seems to know anything about any invitation. It was probably issued by the new officials whose appointment to run the island Trump has not yet announced. It’s certainly in line with Trump’s equally specious claim that Greenlanders ‘want’ to become part of the USA despite (presumably ‘fake’) opinion poll findings to the contrary. It’s not a Trump original playbook, of course: Putin also ‘knew’ that Crimeans were aching to become part of Russia before he seized the territory in 2014. Even longer ago, a certain European dictator ‘knew’ that Austrians wanted to be German deep down, even if they didn’t know it themselves. As both that dictator and Putin knew, it’s far better to hold a referendum on the issue after taking control, when the voting and the counting of the votes can be ‘properly supervised’ than to accept the verdict of polls taken in advance.

But, to continue the parallel with Crimea, how long will it be before the US equivalent of ‘little green men’ start mysteriously appearing on the streets of Nuuk?

What does Putin really want?

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The Secretary General of NATO has warned Europeans that the alternative to spending more on defence is to learn Russian or migrate to New Zealand. The assumption behind it is that, without a huge increase in spending on armaments, Russia will simply over-run the whole of Europe and turn us all into subjects of its empire. There are a number of problems with that as an idea, not the least of which is revealed by a little simple mathematics.

I’m not sure how practical it is to arrange a mass migration to New Zealand, but I can’t see the New Zealanders (population around 5.25 million) being ecstatic about welcoming around 560 million Europeans to their shores, which throws most of us back on the alternative of learning Russian. It is immediately obvious that the pool of available Russian teachers is never going to be up to the task. A country of 143 million is never going to be able to impose its language on another 560 million in the twenty first century. The English government, with a population of almost twenty times that of Wales has taken 500 years to partially impose its language on us, and there is still resistance. And the numbers aren’t only problematic in terms of language teaching. I don’t know how many occupation troops would be necessary to control an additional population of 560 million, but the chances that a country of only 143 million could find enough are vanishingly small.

It would, of course, be a simple enough task for a Russian Trump; just invent some new numbers for the respective populations and claim that the problem has been solved. But if we assume that Putin might just possibly be a little more numerate than Trump (a not wholly unreasonable proposition), it follows that he would realise that military domination of the whole continent is not an achievable outcome, even if we believe that he really desires it. It is dangerous to assume that he is entirely rational, but probably less so than assuming the complete opposite, which is where most European politicians seem to be at present. Perhaps the safest assumption is that he is mostly rational most of the time, which leads naturally to the question ‘what does he really want?’.

Personal kudos and recognition – very probably. There’s no reason to assume that narcissism should be restricted to the US. He knows that he won’t be around forever, and he’d probably like to be remembered favourably by Russian historians. Personal wealth – possibly. But he already has a great deal of that, and statistics suggest he won’t be around for long enough to enjoy what he has, let alone much more. On the other hand, that is not a consideration which has ever prevented others from accumulating ever greater wealth. Land and resources – maybe, maybe not. His distorted view of history and Russia’s place in it suggests a desire to emulate the Russian empire at its height, but his experience so far in Ukraine will have taught even only a partially rational person something about the cost of that. Security – almost certainly. It is far from irrational for him to suppose that ‘the west’ really might be out to do Russia (and Putin) down. It’s not a fear which requires its sufferer to be diagnosably paranoid. The desire for security guarantees isn’t limited to Ukraine.

The bigger question is about what ‘the west’ is doing to ascertain what he truly wants and whether actions taken are likely to reduce or increase the insecurity he feels. It really doesn’t matter whether his insecurity is based on an accurate assessment of others’ intentions or not – the effect on his actions is the same either way. I cannot believe that an accommodation cannot be reached which involves reassurance and disarmament rather than threat and rearmament. Unless, that is, it’s not something which ‘the west’ actually desires.

The art of the undeal

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The flourish of Sir Starmer producing an invitation letter from the King of England from his pocket to hand to Trump was probably intended to add a little bit of drama to the event, but Sir Starmer hasn’t really got what it takes to be dramatic. He’d probably fail an audition for a bit part with his local Am Dram group, even if they were desperate for players. In any event, the idea that the letter and its content hadn’t been agreed through diplomatic channels in advance is for the birds – a public refusal by Trump of an unexpected invitation would hardly be helpful as an opening to the discussions. Still, however hammy it appeared, it ticked an important box when dealing with the narcissism of His Orangeness: it made him feel important, respected, and uniquely better than all his predecessors, none of whom was ever invited twice. (Whether Buck House and Number 10 have fully thought that through is another question; future presidents only invited once are now likely to feel slighted, especially if they compare themselves and their contribution to world affairs to the present incumbent. What one might call ‘State Visit Inflation’ risks devaluing the currency.)

The visit ticked a second box as well. Since Trump sees everything in transactional terms (usually presented as ‘what’s in it for the USA?’, but actually more about ‘what’s in it for me?’), giving him something he wants might make him better disposed to giving something in return. Or at least, that is presumably Sir Starmer’s fervent hope.

I wonder, though, whether it doesn’t rather ignore a third key characteristic of the current occupant of the White House. It doesn’t take a very detailed look at his business record to realise that this is a man who has never signed any deal which he didn’t believe that he could break at any time that it suited him. There is a long list of law suits involving stiffed suppliers and dissatisfied customers to testify to that. And it isn’t just his business dealings. This week, he effectively repudiated the trade agreement with Canada and Mexico by saying that he will override its provisions and impose tariffs anyway. His justification was that the agreement was signed by a previous administration whose leader was a fool. In an uncharacteristically honest way, he was right on both counts, although he ignored the fact that the previous administration in this case was the first Trump administration. But the real fools were the leaders of Mexico and Canada who either assumed that he would abide by an agreement that he signed, in the face of all the available evidence to the contrary, or else believed that he was just a short-term phenomenon about which they didn’t really need to worry unduly. Sir Starmer should be a great deal more wary than he seems to be about adding his name to that list of fools.

We don’t know, as yet, exactly what is in the ‘agreement’ with Zelensky over Ukrainian mineral rights, and maybe Zelensky has little choice but to sign something at this stage, but the chances of Trump honouring his side of any bargain should be assumed to be low, to put it mildly. In his attempt to dissuade Trump from getting too close to Putin, Zelensky is shouting very loudly that Putin is not a man whose word can be trusted. He's right, of course, but I wonder if he understands that Putin’s willingness to renege on any agreement probably only adds to Trump’s admiration of Putin, rather than sowing doubts. When Trump calls Putin ‘smart’, it’s a rather condescending statement carrying the unstated implication, ‘…but not as smart as me’. One of the most dangerous aspects of Trump’s unshakeable belief in his own deal-making ability is that he thinks that he can outsmart Putin. From Trump’s perspective, compared to Putin, Sir Starmer looks like a mere gnat.

There has to be a better way of ensuring peace

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To all intents and purposes, NATO is dead, even if that wasn’t quite what the new German Chancellor said yesterday. It is entirely clear that members can no longer assume that the US will abide by the commitment that ‘an attack on one is an attack on all’. Without the support of the largest and most powerful member, the claimed deterrent effect of NATO is effectively nullified. To be fair to Trump, all he has done is to clarify what some of us have suspected for many years under a succession of US presidents, which is that the US will never commit to all-out war to save a far-away European country from being wholly or partially eaten up by a larger neighbour. The theoretical point of ‘deterrence’, however, was about creating a sufficient degree of uncertainty. Although the supposed adversary, Russia, might have doubted US commitment, they could never be entirely certain. Trump has removed that uncertainty.

Putin took a calculated gamble in Ukraine, mitigated by signalling his intentions well in advance and assessing the reactions, that the country’s friends would not intervene actively on behalf of a country which wasn’t even a member of NATO. His judgement was proved correct on that (even if it was proved dramatically wrong in terms of Ukraine’s ability and willingness to resist, and the extent to which the population was waiting to give a warm greeting to the Russian ‘liberators’). The military types keep telling us that, having got away with taking a big chunk out of Ukraine, he will turn his attention elsewhere – the Baltics are the most-often named target. It would still be a gamble for Putin. Whilst he can now be completely certain that the US would not rush to aid those attacked (indeed, the current president might be more inclined to sit down with Putin and decide how to split the spoils), he cannot be so certain about the European response. Indeed, he would be very unwise to gamble that several other European nations would not respond to any call for help from, say, Lithuania if he tried to create a corridor to Kaliningrad, one of the more commonly posited reasons for starting a war. Scandinavian countries along with Poland would be very likely to engage (albeit not under the umbrella of NATO (if it still exists), even if the response of the larger European military powers, such as France, the UK, and Germany might be less certain. Having already learned, to his cost – or, rather, to the cost of the dead and wounded soldiers and their families – that the Russian army isn’t quite the force he believed it to be, why would he risk such an attack?

That brings us to the crux of the question of future European security. For those of us who’ve never been convinced that security comes through ever-increasing amounts of weaponry, the issue has to be about ensuring that an attack is prevented not by military means but by ensuring that there is no reason to attack in the first place. That doesn’t mean following a policy of appeasement, as the warmongers claim. Of course, if Putin really is the madman as which he is often presented, sitting in the Kremlin stroking his cat like some sort of Bond villain plotting world domination, then there is little scope for rational debate and negotiated common security. (On the other hand, if that is indeed an accurate picture of Putin, then the history of the film franchise would suggest that we don’t need a large army to defeat him, just one man armed with a pistol and a few Martinis.)

If we discount the possibility of simple insanity, the single most frequent cause of conflict, historically, is access to wealth and resources, even if it isn’t always presented that way. The second is a fear of attack unless ‘our side’ attacks first: the ‘use it or lose it’ mindset. Both of those look more likely as causes of the war in Ukraine, for example, than an insane desire for domination at all costs, with the idea that Russia and Ukraine are a single historical identity and nation being more a stated rationalization than an actual reason. Even if the fear of attack is irrational or unjustified, it still acts as a motivation: fear doesn’t have to be reasonable to motivate a response. I don’t believe that NATO ever had any intention of attacking Russia, but it isn’t parroting Putin to suggest that things might not have looked that way from Moscow.

Most Europeans and most Russians probably want the same things: peace and prosperity. Both are being let down by leaders who tell them that those things can only be achieved by war and impoverishment rather than discussion and agreement. There’s never a ‘right’ time to break the cycle – there will always be unresolved disputes and arguments. But the ‘best’ time will always be ‘now’, whenever now is. Where are the politicians able to recognise that?

The problem of capricious autocracy

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One of the more surprising, at first sight anyway, revelations of the war in Ukraine has been that the Russian armed forces – whose strength and capability we have been told to fear for decades – have been shown to be rather less effective in practice than the military hype suggested. They appear to be slowly turning the war in their direction anyway, but that owes more to their ability to field – and willingness to lose – larger numbers of soldiers than their Ukrainian opponents.

The reasons for their poor performance are varied, but the main ones appear to mirror the wider problems of the Russian state apparatus, many of them inherited from the Soviet Union which preceded it. It is riddled with corruption and bribery, and successive purges have ensured that those at the top comply with the wishes of the Kremlin, and fear taking any decision with which the man at the top might disagree. Those lower down in the hierarchy know that they must wait for their orders and not show any undue initiative, initiative being seen as a threat to the established order. It makes for slow, cautious decision-taking and a sclerotic organisation.

It looks increasingly as though Trump, instead of seeing this as a warning, is seeing it as a model to be emulated. He is conducting a ruthless purge of any public servants who might not be fully attuned to his thinking, and since his thinking changes by the day, or even by the hour, he is creating a situation where decision-taking becomes increasingly difficult, as people wait to be told what to do. He is now extending that approach to the armed forces, purging top generals and replacing them with people who are loyal only to him, and not to the Constitution as their oath of allegiance requires. The working assumption of his administration seems to be that anyone who isn’t a white male has obviously only been appointed because of their gender or skin colour, and should therefore be removed. Those who replace them will be Trump loyalists, waiting to be told what to do. An autocracy headed by someone who changes his mind suddenly and randomly can end up being even less effective than an autocracy headed by someone ruthless and single-minded, but full of corruption and bribery.

Maybe it’s all part of a really cunning plan to make war between the US and Russia less likely by reducing the effectiveness of the US military to the same level as that of Russia. Other explanations are available.

Who needs the translator?

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Last week, Trump had a lengthy and somewhat controversial conversation with Putin. According to this report, the reason that the call lasted so long was that Putin doesn’t speak English, so that translators were required. It’s a very ethno-centric way of looking at it. It could equally be said that the translators were required because Trump doesn’t speak Russian, an alternative perspective which seems to have completely gone over the heads of the Americans.

Besides, it isn’t even true. Putin speaks English fairly well, even if he prefers not to do so when involved in negotiations and discussions, to the extent of having been observed correcting the translators on previous occasions. He’s also very fluent in German, giving him at least three languages, compared to Trump’s one. And listening to Trump speak on occasions, there are surely grounds for wondering whether he can legitimately claim to speak even one language fluently. Even if Putin were content to use English in the discussion, translators might still be needed to make sense of some of Trump’s words (covfefe, anyone?) let alone his mangled and rambling sentences.

It reveals a lot about American attitudes that the man who speaks three languages reasonably well is regarded as the problem requiring a translator, whilst the man who struggles to make sense in one is regarded as the norm.

What about the inhabitants?

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Failing to rule something out isn’t the same as ruling it in, and it’s perfectly possible that Trump thinks that leaving the threat of military action hanging over Greenland and Panama will ‘encourage’ Denmark and Panama to cave in without any need to resort to actual use of force.

He is probably serious about wanting to take control of Greenland, but that doesn’t make him unique in US history. Other presidents have also had designs on the territory and various land swaps have been envisaged in the past, including his own suggestion of giving Puerto Rico to Denmark as well as the 1940’s suggestion of swapping it for land in Alaska and the 1910 proposal to exchange it for some islands in the Philippines (so that Denmark could, in turn, swap them for a chunk of what is now Germany). The UK doesn’t exactly have clean hands on the issue either, having once sought to be given first refusal should Denmark decide to sell, with a view to it becoming part of Canada in order to keep it out of the hands of the US. He’s also probably at least semi-serious about annexing Canada, and he’s not the first to think that either: the US actually invaded Canada during the 1812-1815 war with the UK, expecting (rather like Putin in Ukraine) to over-run the country in days. Buying territory along with the people who live there is hardly a new concept either, especially for the US, which bought Alaska from Russia in 1867 and a huge chunk of the mid-west from France in 1803. Describing the purchase of Greenland over the heads of its residents as ‘decolonisation’ is perverting the meaning of words somewhat, but the process itself is hardly historically novel.

People tend to forget that most – maybe all – of the world’s political boundaries between states are the result of war, or treaties agreed between nominally equal parties (even though, in reality, many of those treaties were effectively imposed on the weak by the strong). The boundary between Canada and the US, like Danish ownership of Greenland, are both accidents of history. Trump’s mindset in this context isn’t radically different from that of Putin – both think that the boundaries of the states which they govern should be drawn differently to include more territory, and both are willing to consider, at least, the use of force to bring about those changes. It is, unfortunately, far from inconceivable that an early meeting between Trump and Putin – which both want, apparently: Putin because he thinks he can outwit Trump, and Trump because he believes his own hype about his abilities as a dealmaker and his friendship with Putin – will lead to something akin to the Yalta conference after the second world war, in which the so-called great powers (now reduced to two, in the eyes of both of those involved) carve up Europe and the Americas between them.

As for the people of Greenland themselves, such evidence as exists suggests that their preferred status is independence. In a world where invading the territory of the EU is not ruled out, and an invasion of the UK is floated as an option, the chance that the Greenlanders’ voice will be heard seems slim.

Talk of shields is misleading

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A good shield is intended and designed to be a defensive tool, not a weapon. The objective is to protect the user against offensive weapons being used by others, not to attack those others. At a pinch, a desperate soldier could probably use a shield to hit an opponent over the head, but it’s poorly designed for that purpose and somewhat unwieldy in use. A similar story applies to umbrellas. Whilst they are good at protecting the user – or the top half anyway – from rain, they are not much use as a weapon. Again, a substantially made one, properly furled, could be pressed into service to hit someone over the head if it’s the first thing that comes to hand, but it’s hardly a weapon of choice.

Both terms are badly misapplied when it comes to nuclear weapons. It’s at least partly deliberate – there’s something mildly reassuring about providing protection through shields and umbrellas in a way which cannot be said about threatening to use weapons of mass destruction, each one intended and designed to kill thousands of people indiscriminately. The ‘protection’ provided by nuclear weapons amounts to a threat to wipe out whole cities in response to any attack. It’s not something that any ‘shield’ or ‘umbrella’ could ever achieve, no matter how well designed. Nevertheless, the ‘friendlier’ terms were both in use this week by German ministers urging some sort of joining up of French and UK nuclear weaponry to provide ‘protection’ for the whole of Europe. Whether nuclear weapons do in fact act as a deterrent is one of those questions which can never be fully answered: the argument that they have prevented full-scale war in Europe since the end of the Second World War depends on an implicit assumption that a war would have occurred had the weapons not existed. It’s an assumption which is essentially impossible to either prove or disprove; an impossibility which only adds to the ferocity of debate on the subject. The clearest direct evidence for their deterrent effect is that the possession of nuclear weapons by Russia has deterred NATO countries from more direct intervention in support of Ukraine, but that makes the weapons look more like an enabler for their possessors than a protection against attack. To say nothing of an encouragement for proliferation.

It is possible that Putin is mad enough to believe that he can restore the old Russian/Soviet empire’s territories by the application of military force (his past words and statements certainly seem to indicate that he would like to do so), but the probability that a madman would be ‘deterred’ by anything is low. The whole concept of deterrence is predicated on the assumption that the actors are all rational, and that’s an assumption around which there must be considerable doubt. The second most probable reason for the outbreak of war would be if Putin believed that ‘the West’ is preparing to strike first and thus decided on pre-emptive action. Talk of establishing a ‘European’ nuclear strike force doesn’t look like the smartest way of convincing him otherwise.

Who's really doing what Putin wants?

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Nadhim Zahawi is clearly a man of deeply and sincerely held views. Appointed as Chancellor from the Downing Street bunker in the dying days of the Johnson regime because of his deep and long term loyalty to Johnson, within 48 hours he was equally sincere in his belief that Johnson should resign. When the subsequent Truss regime imploded, he was one of the first to express his deeply-held view that Johnson should return as PM, and then last week he told us with immense sincerity that there was no chance of a Johnson return. It’s anybody’s guess as to what his position on the question will be next week, but we can be certain that it will be deeply-held and sincere. Or, at least, as deeply-held and sincere as any other views he’s expressed.

On which subject, he told us very sincerely yesterday that striking nurses are playing into the hands of Putin. If I understand his argument correctly (and who knows with Zahawi?), Putin will be delighted if the nurses manage to maintain or improve their standard of living, but deeply disappointed if the nurses do their patriotic duty and accept a drop in their standard of living (something which all of us, except millionaires like, er, Zahawi, are apparently obliged to do as part of our patriotic duty). Now I may well be missing something here, but if Putin wants the nurses to get a decent increase whilst the UK government wants their living standards to fall, doesn’t that rather make Putin look at least a little bit like the good guy here?

In truth, I doubt that Putin is actually much bothered about nurses or any other group of workers in the UK. His main aim in relation to those countries like the UK which are supporting Ukraine is to see the population demoralised to the extent that they force their government to stop supporting Ukraine. On that basis, given a choice between a UK government which grinds down standards of living and blames the war in Ukraine, or a UK government which acts to maintain the standards of living of its population regardless of events in Ukraine, it doesn’t take a huge leap of imagination to conclude that he’d prefer the former. By a large margin. But if the UK government wants the same outcome from the strikes as Putin, who is really playing into his hands?