Challenging the NATO narrative isn't supporting Putin

Tweet

 

Last week, Labour MP Diane Abbott was described by a Tory MP as “playing the role of Putin’s useful idiot” after saying that “the imminent threat from Russia is a NATO fiction to justify their complete capitulation to Trump's demands for more military spending”, and having previously referred to the war in Ukraine as “a Nato campaign against Russia”. Well, she certainly didn’t choose the most diplomatic of phrases, and there’s a certain lack of nuance in her utterances, but neither of those are exactly something new. But given the danger of an escalation of the conflict into something far worse, there is, surely, some scope for challenging the conventional narrative rather than dividing the world into people wearing white hats and others wearing black hats – good guys and bad guys. Calling anyone who wants to explore alternatives an apologist for Putin isn’t helpful.

That the war in Ukraine was started by Russia, in complete disregard of international law, attacking a neighbouring sovereign state is beyond dispute; it is Putin and Russia who must carry the blame for the ensuing bloodshed and destruction. Whether it was entirely unprovoked is a lot more complex. Certainly, Ukraine was attempting to ‘Ukrainify’ parts of the country which were previously largely Russophone, but the population of those areas voted overwhelmingly for independence in 1991, and there was no objective evidence suggesting that they had changed their minds about that. No excuse there for Putin. Whether there was ‘a NATO campaign against Russia’ playing out over the future status of Ukraine vis-à-vis NATO and the EU is a much harder question to answer. NATO had already expanded further eastwards than Russia had expected (and contrary to assurances which may or may not have been given after the fall of the Soviet Union); feeling threatened is not a wholly unreasonable Russian response, although, again, not enough to justify an invasion.

But where I really part company with the views which are being pushed – and tend to agree with Abbott – is over the idea that Russia poses an imminent military threat to the whole of Europe. If there’s one thing which has been clearly demonstrated by the conflict in Ukraine it is that Russian military might has been over-hyped. The idea that a country which has shown itself incapable of dominating a single smaller neighbour is somehow poised to dominate the whole of Europe is risible. Spending more on armaments as a response to the claimed threat benefits only the arms manufacturers – especially in the US, which underpins Trump’s demands for more spending. Putin does not harbour any illusions about subjugating the entire world, and missiles aren’t about to fall on London.

That’s not to say that there is zero threat of anything. There can be little doubt that Putin would prefer a divided and weakened Europe which presents no potential threat to Russia, nor that he would like to disrupt the flow or weaponry and support to Kyiv. I’m willing to believe, even without detailed hard evidence, that Russia is behind at least some acts of sabotage and cyber attacks. A country at war can easily see some things as legitimate targets (which is to explain, not justify, such actions). But buying more tanks, fighter jets, ships and missiles neither prevents nor deters such actions – that merely increases the perceived threat to Russia. The likeliest causes of a wider war in Europe remain as they have been for a long time – a miscalculation or a belief (rational or otherwise) that ‘the other side’ is about to attack, provoking a ‘use it or lose it’ response. What is needed is dialogue and de-escalation, not more weaponry. On that, Abbott is closer to the mark than those rushing to condemn her words.

Principles and virtue-signalling

Tweet

 

Principled stands are all very well, and something for which politicians are generally happy to be credited. Until, that is, the cost of taking such a stand is perceived to outweigh the advantages gained. We saw it in Starmer’s ‘principled stand’ against the US bombing campaign in Iran, which was principled until he decided that allowing the US to use UK bases for ‘purely defensive’ bombing raids (an oxymoron if ever there was one) was a less costly option. And he’s never explained exactly how the purpose and target of each bombing raid was verified to determine whether it met the unspecified criteria for being ‘purely defensive’ – the suspicion remains that the ‘principled stand’ amounted to making a grand statement and then turning a blind eye.

Starmer also took a ‘principled stand’ over Ukraine, backing strong sanctions against unwarranted Russian aggression. Until unwarranted US aggression against Iran caused a potential lack of jet fuel and diesel, at which point the principles got lost. Principles which last only until those espousing them conclude that they are costing themselves too much aren’t really principles at all; they’re more about virtue-signalling.

Whether sanctions actually achieve very much is another question entirely. The theory is that by denying a country access to goods from outside the country and denying that country access to markets for its own goods, then pressure is placed on the economy to such an extent that the government can no longer sustain itself and must collapse/ surrender/ stop a war (delete as applicable). The truth of the proposition depends on three assumptions. The first is that the country being sanctioned cannot sustain itself entirely on the basis of its own resources and productive capacity, the second is the neoliberal economic dogma that the limiting factor on any government’s actions is the amount of money available to it, and the third is that all other countries buy into the sanctions regime.

In the case of Russia, none of those three assumptions are valid. Russia may not have the climate to grow certain crops, which might limit the population’s dietary choices (although after decades of Soviet rule, that might not be as novel as one might think), but the country’s resources are vast and varied, and they have the people and skills to exploit them. As long as they don’t need foreign currency, the idea that the money supply is somehow limited is a myth anyway: the constraint on government action is the availability of real resources, not the means of exchange to buy them. And in any event, there are significant other powers prepared to ignore the sanctions regime. Sanctions have the ring of the old adage, which runs ‘something must be done, this is something, we must do this’.

The conclusion – that sanctions are largely symbolic statements by those applying them, and little more than irritations to those to whom they are applied – is depressing. Failure to recognise that fact is even more so – it simply encourages people to continue to pursue a failed path. There is no quick or easy solution. Universal adherence to agreed international law is our only hope in the long term, but achieving it is another matter entirely. Perhaps we never will, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. In the meantime, pretend principles achieve little except to divert attention from the real issue.

When is an agreement not an agreement?

Tweet

 

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?

Tweet

 

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.

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

Tweet

 

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.

Tough words won't cut it

Tweet

 

In their response to Trump’s support for Putin’s position on Ukraine, the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Finland, along with the presidents of the European Council and European Commission, issued a strongly worded statement, in which they made clear their view that “Russia cannot have a veto against Ukraine‘s pathway to EU and NATO”, and “International borders must not be changed by force.” Brave words, but ultimately meaningless. Putin does not need a direct veto on Ukraine’s membership of Nato when his willing puppet in the White House has one, and has made it clear that he’s ready to use it. And the international borders of Ukraine have effectively already been changed by force. Indeed, the whole history of international borders shows that force is the most usual way in which they are changed. There are few – if any – international borders which are not the result of armed conflict at some point in the past. We might wish that the world had learned better by now, but it hasn’t, and the fine words of an assorted group of leaders don’t change that.

The situation in Ukraine remains where it has been for the last three years, with only three potential outcomes. The first is that Ukraine’s allies provide the resources, both weaponry and personnel, to defeat Russia and restore previous boundaries. There is little doubt that the capacity to do this exists, although whether it would ignite an even bigger problem is an unknown. The second is that Ukraine’s allies continue to supply just about enough weaponry to keep the war going until one or both sides – most probably Ukraine, as the smaller of the two – lose the will and the manpower to continue fighting. The third is that some sort of accommodation is reached with Putin under which new de facto, if not necessarily de jure, borders are agreed. None of these is palatable, but only one offers the hope of an early end to the slaughter.

Leaders like to be seen to be talking tough, but tough rhetoric solves little. As a statement of the way the world should be, it’s hard to fault what they say; but as a recognition of reality it’s a dismal failure. And what’s lacking above all is any sense of an understanding that the world isn’t as they want it to be – let alone of the fact that they are some of the key players who should be working to change the way the world works.

Throwing people probably wouldn't help

Tweet

 

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.

Imposing sanctions in baby steps

Tweet

 

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

Tweet

 

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

Tweet

 

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.

What does Putin really want?

Tweet

 

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.

A small price to pay

Tweet

 

It’s entirely understandable that so many people are clamouring for the invitation to Trump for a state visit to the UK to be withdrawn, given what happened in the 24 hours after issuing it. It’s less clear what would be achieved by withdrawing it. There is a mismatch between the expectations of the inviter (that it would happen next year) and those of the invitee (that it would happen this year). Whether it’s best to get it over with quickly or keep it hanging for a while – there is always a potential for ‘diary’ issues to create a delay if necessary – depends on one’s assessment of how Trump will be likely to react to either. That is, essentially, unknowable. The thought that the red carpet and a great deal of obsequiousness will be rolled out for the man who sought to demean and humiliate the leader of a country resisting an invasion by a larger neighbour is unpleasant to say the least. That doesn’t mean that there is no chance of it helping.

The bottom line is that, whether we like it or not (and an awful lot of us don’t), Trump is right about two things, even if his way of expressing them is repugnant. Firstly, it is not a war between equals, and in the absence of any willingness by other countries to commit forces to support of Ukraine, Ukraine will ultimately lose. The cost in money and lives to both sides will be enormous, but the trajectory is clear. The second thing about which he is right, which flows from the first, is that the immediate priority has to be to stop the death and destruction through some sort of ceasefire, and that inevitably means accepting that boundaries, for the time being at least, reflect the territorial gains made. That’s neither fair nor just for the country which has been invaded, but it does mirror most of the other borders in Europe and beyond, which are where they are because that’s where they were when the fighting stopped. It’s uncomfortable for any Welsh independentista to see a country which so recently gained its independence being dismembered by an invading force, but it takes more than hope, sympathy and an endless supply of armaments to get out of the current situation.

Trump’s approach to achieving that ceasefire, by allying himself with one party and attempting to do a deal over the head of the other, looks ham-fisted and has angered many, but how much worse it is than simply supplying ever-increasing amounts of armaments which do little more than slow Russian progress is debateable. For the long term, European security needs to be established on the basis of de-escalation and demilitarisation rather than on competing to see who can build the biggest stick. That must include an assumption that the US will no longer play a role in Europe. In the short term, the alternative facing Ukraine is some sort of accommodation with Russia or a long grinding war in which the eventual outcome will probably be worse than freezing things where they are.

The question is whether a state visit, with all its flattery and fawning over His Orangeness, will help or hinder in either the short term or the long term. It’s a question to which I don’t have an answer, and neither, I suspect, does anyone else, given the quintessential unpredictability with which the world is dealing. What is likely to be a sick-inducing spectacle for many is a small price to pay compared to that being paid daily in Ukrainian lives, and might still be better than the impact of withdrawing a rather hastily issued invitation. It could hardly make things any worse, whereas withdrawing the invitation might do just that.

Deliberate or merely incompetent?

Tweet

 

A lot of people are seeing the bust-up in the White House last week as having been deliberately planned in advance by Trump and Vance, with the intention of humiliating Zelensky. I’m not so sure; that would require a degree of planning and forethought which is certainly beyond Trump – this is a man who can’t stick to a script when it’s written out in front of him, let alone when he has to remember it – or Vance, whose general ignorance of history and geography seems to be matched only by his innate nastiness.

Even if they had fully intended to find a way of delivering a humiliation, did they really intend that the outcome would be a total breakdown of the relationship, or did they simply assume that Zelensky would cave in and show his subservience? One of the attributes of bullies is that they invariably assume that people will do as they are told, and are always surprised – not to say angered – when they don’t. And Zelensky’s quiet attempts to push back certainly escalated Trump’s anger. The one thing that I do believe is that Trump really wanted that deal on minerals. He may not care about Zelensky or Ukraine, but he really does care about money and about further enriching US billionaires. It's increasingly clear that Trump and Vance – the latter possibly even more than the former – believe that the US has the right to do as it wishes and that lesser states (everyone except Russia, apparently) should bow down before them. They don’t care whether people like them or not, only whether they are obeyed.

Putin has produced a range of ‘justifications’ for his invasion, and amongst them is the idea that the Ukrainian regime was a client state of the US and that the regime in Ukraine was a puppet installed and operated somehow by the CIA. The behaviour of Trump and Vance suggests that they have, in a sense, bought in to that narrative, and genuinely believed that they could dictate to Ukraine. Their belief in their own absolute power to dictate what happens outside their own borders received a nasty jolt on Friday, and a man who holds grudges (and Trump’s grudge against Zelensky for not digging up dirt on the Bidens is probably a significant part of the cause of last week’s events) is likely to become even more unpredictable as a result.

The question is what happens next. No matter how much we admire the way Zelensky stood up to the bully, to say nothing of Ukrainian courage and resistance, no lover of peace, and no true friend of Ukraine, should seriously be urging them to fight to the last Ukrainian against a numerically superior force. If Trump really does ‘turn off the tap’ of supplies of armaments, it’s hard to see how the European states can make up the resulting shortfall. We might wish it were otherwise, but Trump is actually right in saying that Ukraine is in a bad place right now. Unless other countries are going to come directly to its aid militarily – which seems as unlikely as it is undesirable – then a peace deal of some sort has to be negotiated. Trump is clearly the wrong person to broker such an agreement, but who and where is the right one? Even if Sir Starmer and Macron can devise a peace plan, will Trump accept anything that doesn’t give him what he wants?

The art of the undeal

Tweet

 

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.

Can even Trump get something right?

Tweet

 

The Western Mail carried a story earlier this week (which I can’t find online, but basically seems to be a fairly minor edit of this story from three weeks ago) about the problem of desertion facing the Ukrainian armed forces. We knew, of course, that the Russian armed forces were suffering from desertion as well as draft avoidance in the light of the serious level of casualties, but the media in ‘the west’ have seemingly been reluctant to report that the same issue is impacting the Ukrainian armed forces. Whilst it’s credible that Russian problems have been greater than those faced by Ukraine, it’s reasonable to suspect that the gap might not be as large as a less-than-entirely-unbiased media might have us believe. And the fact that Ukraine is suffering its own problem with a high level of desertion should come as no surprise.

It raises a much bigger – and more general – question as to whether the sort of large scale ground war for which the generals and some politicians keep telling us we should be preparing will ever be possible in the future in the same way as it was in the past. The report tells us that the US has been urging Ukraine “to draft more troops, and allow for the conscription of those as young as 18”, since the current minimum age for conscription is 25. Leaving to one side the moral issue of whether anyone should be urging a country to send even more of its people, and at an even younger age, into a vicious and bloody war where many of them will be killed or injured, I found myself wondering how realistic it is in the modern world to expect that people, particularly young people, will willingly comply with an order to go out and kill ‘for their country’. We’re not in the first half of the twentieth century when information flows could be easily controlled, and where jingoism was a fairly normal phenomenon. People – even in dictatorships like Russia – have much easier access to information about what’s happening. Pro patria mori has never been particularly dulce or decorum whatever the politicians might tell us, and that was precisely the point which Wilfred Owen was making more than a century ago. Mass conscription for a major war in the twenty-first century is likely to be problematic for any country which attempts it, with resistance running very high.

Trump has said that he will end the war on day 1 of his renewed presidency. I struggle to understand his drivers. He says it is to stop the killing, which would be a noble enough aim; but coming from a man who has no previous record of concern for anyone other than himself, it doesn’t immediately strike me as being likely. After himself, those about whom he most seems to care are other billionaires, but we know that capitalist billionaires are amongst those who most benefit from war through their investments in the arms industry. It might simply be, for Trump, a case of not spending US money to support another country. That would certainly seem to fit with his ‘America First’ outlook, even if it shows a certain ignorance of the relationship between US government spending on armaments and the overall value of shares on the New York Stock Exchange, which seems to be Trump’s only metric of economic success.

However, whatever his rationale is (to the extent that he has one at all) his conclusion that the immediate priority should be to stop the fighting and killing is difficult to disagree with. And since Ukraine does not have – and without a massive injection of military manpower and firepower from friends and allies is unlikely ever to have – sufficient forces to recapture all its lost territory, an end to the fighting necessarily implies a redrawing of boundaries, on at least a temporary basis. Expecting Ukraine to cede vast swathes of territory in order to buy peace is neither fair nor just, but in the absence of any other basis for agreeing a peace deal, it is surely no worse than the current US position of telling Ukraine to simply conscript more young people who can be ‘expended’ in an ongoing war with no obviously better outcome in sight. There aren’t many boundaries in the world which aren’t the result of a war, a treaty following a war, or arbitrary lines drawn on a map by colonial masters. 

‘Might is right’ is a lousy basis on which to run a planet, but unless and until we collectively find a better way, it’s the basis on which almost all of the world’s current boundaries exist. Supporting the idea that a free and independent country should cede territory to one autocratic bully at the behest of another autocratic bully is uncomfortable, to say the least; but encouraging Ukraine to fight to the last Ukrainian would feel even less comfortable. The devil will, of course, lie in the detail and in the mechanisms for ensuring the integrity of any new boundaries. But on the principle, even Trump might be able to get something right, even if not based entirely on rational analysis or concern for fellow humans.

Did Farage, albeit accidentally, have a point?

Tweet

 

That Nigel Farage hates the EU and sees it as some sort of evil dictatorship which enslaves its member states is hardly news. He blames the EU for almost everything that is wrong in the world. Most recently that extends to being part, along with NATO, of what provoked the Russians into invading Ukraine by daring to expand what Farage sees as the EU’s empire into parts of Europe which Russia thought in some way belonged in its sphere of influence. The choice of words is important, though: what Farage sees as EU-driven expansion to incorporate more countries will be seen by others as a case of states which have newly regained their independence choosing their own future. Whilst there’s no doubt that the existing members of both the EU and NATO were keen to draw countries in the east of Europe into their ranks, agency ultimately lay with those new members in the first place, not with the EU/ NATO. Those states were, to put it another way, exercising precisely that national sovereignty which is, apparently, so important to Farage, just in a way of which he does not approve. It’s legitimate to question whether they were making the right/ best choices – especially so in regard to the military alliance rather than the primarily economic and political one – but not whether they had the right to make them.

If the alternative was to avoid ‘provoking’ Putin, that would imply either that the states concerned agreed never to seek EU/ NATO membership, or that the EU/ NATO declined to accept them. Or even a bit of both. But there is a corollary to that – it would also mean that those states agreed to accept the effective political, economic and military dominance of Russia over them for the foreseeable future. In other words, Farage seems to see it as ‘better’ that those states cede a degree of sovereignty involuntarily to Russia than that they voluntarily share some of their sovereignty with others. Superficially, his demand for absolute sovereignty for the UK whilst limiting the sovereignty of countries to which Russia believes it has a right looks inconsistent. But it really isn’t: English nationalist exceptionalism has long held that some countries are more equal than others. And it isn’t only English nationalists – Farage is just invoking the same attitudes which led to the Munich agreement or the Yalta Conference, where European ‘great powers’ thought that they had the right to dismember and determine the future of lesser states over the heads of the people who lived there.

Whether EU/ NATO expansion did actually provoke Putin is another question entirely. He has certainly said that it was a factor, and it’s not hard to see why expanding the territory covered by NATO in particular up to the Russian borders could look like a threat, but a man who believes that large swathes of Europe historically belong to Russia – and that Ukrainians are just Russians speaking a strange dialect – could always have found another excuse to justify fulfilling his dream of reviving the Russian empire at some point. Wars are rarely caused by a single factor or event, and interpreting that expansion as a potential future threat still doesn’t justify launching a war against a neighbouring country.

But raising the question of whether NATO really did pose a threat to Russia does mean that Farage has gone to the very heart of the debate about the role of ‘defence’ in the modern world, even if almost certainly unwittingly. The nub of the argument is this: do armed blocs act as a deterrent or a threat; do they make war more, or less, likely? Specifically, if most of the former Warsaw Pact countries had not chosen to join NATO, would Putin have been more likely, or less likely, to seek to annexe all or part of Ukraine? The answer is essentially unknowable, which probably helps to explain the absolute certainty which people bring to the table when the issue is debated. Those who would have us spend ever more on armaments argue that it’s better to be safe than sorry, but it’s entirely possible that what they see as being ‘safe’ is actually the direct opposite if it makes it more likely that those who are supposed to be ‘deterred’ feel so threatened that they decide to take the risk of striking first.

What we do know, with a reasonable degree of certainty, is that using Earth’s finite resources to build ever more weapons makes those resources unavailable for other aims, and also that the long term future of all of us depends on achieving a degree of civilisation which recognises the need to share and co-operate in the way we use the Earth’s resources. Somehow, I don’t think any of that was in Farage’s mind when he opened his mouth.

Looking for the simplest explanation

Tweet

 

For some strange reason, people have been mocking Boris Johnson after he called for Ukraine to join the EU. This could be based on a wholly irrational expectation that he would be consistent in what he says, despite all evidence to the contrary. It’s not as if it is particularly difficult to identify the inconsistencies, such as claiming that it was the EU that was provoking war in Ukraine (because we all know from so many of his utterances that the EU is the root of all evil), or that membership of the EU would have somehow prevented the UK from aiding Ukraine.

In fairness, there are a number of possible reasons why Johnson might think that Ukrainian membership of the EU makes sense.

The first is that he might actually see it as a way of undermining the EU. The size and relative poverty of Ukraine – to say nothing of what seems to be endemic corruption – would be a major challenge for the EU to absorb quickly. The logic of Brexit (although rarely expressed openly by Brexiteers) was that it was supposed to be just the start of a stampede for the door, leading to the utter collapse of the whole edifice. There are other ways of achieving the same thing – perhaps he’s being really cunning.

The second is that, as a poorer country, Ukraine would be entitled under EU policies to receive massive amounts from ‘Brussels’, although that policy depends, of course, on the richer countries being willing to pay in in the first place. It’s a bit of a cheek from a man who argued that Brexit was a means of avoiding paying into such solidarity funds, but with fewer rich countries left to pick up the tab, maybe he sees it as a way of damaging the UK’s competitors, such as Germany and France. Although it’s more likely that he simply hasn’t understood the dependency between making payments to the poorer and receiving them from the richer. Financial arithmetic was never his strong point, whether in affairs of state or in managing his own finances.

The third is that, driven as he is by an inflated sense of English exceptionalism, he genuinely believes that the EU is fine for lesser peoples and nations, but not for the great power which his fevered imagination tells him that the UK is.

On the whole, however, and following the dictates of Occam’s razor, I favour a very much simpler explanation – he was just doing what he has always done, and saying what a particular audience wanted to hear. Zelensky wants to join the EU, so Johnson supports him. He doesn’t really mean it, any more than he has ever meant most of the things he’s said. He assumed that, if he’s ever in a position of influence again (and I struggle to see how even the Tories could be that stupid), he will simply deny ever having said any such thing. It's not as if he has never done that before.

Looking in the mirror

Tweet

 

In August, 1704, an Anglo-Dutch invasion force seized Gibraltar from the Spanish by force of arms, during the war of the Spanish Succession. Like most wars, the conflict was eventually resolved by a series of treaties, one of the consequences of which was that a weakened Spain ‘voluntarily’ during a process of ‘negotiation’ ceded the territory of Gibraltar to England. On that basis, the rock has been ‘British’ ever since, despite a few Spanish attempts to reclaim the territory. Given two and a half centuries to make their mark, aided by a certain degree of migration and cultural dominance, the British authorities got to a position by 1968 where a referendum of the inhabitants opted to remain British rather than see Gibraltar returned to Spain. It never really settled the question though – Spain continues to claim sovereignty on the basis that the territory was stolen from it.

Lest anyone think that this makes the Spanish look like the good guys, there is a not dissimilar history to Spain’s control of a series of outposts along the northern coat of Africa, such as Ceuta and Melilla – seize them first, and worry about getting agreement from the previous owners later. And the issue goes much wider than that – the legal basis for most of the boundaries in Europe is that territory was at some point seized by the current rulers and the new ownership subsequently legitimized by forcing the losers to sign treaties recognising the new boundaries or, in the case of territories swallowed up in their entirety (such as Wales, for instance), simply allowing the passage of time to legitimise the new ownership. It is the way that European states have behaved over centuries. Among the consequences of this long-standing approach are a series of unresolved boundary disputes (including, of course, Gibraltar itself) and most, if not all, of Europe’s independence movements.

In insisting that any peace negotiations with Ukraine should start by recognising the new boundaries created by military conquest (negotiations then being about the terms under which those boundaries are recognised, rather than about whether they should be recognised at all), Putin is simply following the traditional European playbook. Seize territory first, and legitimize it later. That doesn’t justify it, or make it right, it simply underlines the fact that a few decades of relative peace have not provided any sort of answer to the question of how and where boundaries should be drawn if not by the prior exercise of military force. There is no obvious ‘good’ outcome to the current war. Ceding territory to Russia confirms the validity of Putin’s approach, and may encourage further demands in future (to say nothing of what it means for the people in the territories concerned); providing ever more armaments of increasing sophistication and destructive capability to Ukraine in an attempt to enable the recapture of all stolen territory risks an escalation whose consequences could be catastrophic way beyond the boundaries of Ukraine itself. The only certainties are that the death and destruction will continue for as long as there is no resolution, and that there will have to be some negotiation eventually.

Nothing can or should blind us to the fact that Putin is responsible for the current war; resorting to military force rather than negotiation – and consultation with the people directly affected – should never be acceptable. But nothing happens without a context, and the context in which he launched the war is nothing new. The failure to find an alternative and civilised approach to determining statehood, nationality and boundaries, with the support of the people themselves, is never going to be down to one man at one time. There are politicians across Europe who ought to be taking a long hard look at the actions of their own states over the years as well as condemning Putin.

Who's really doing what Putin wants?

Tweet

 

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?

Truss, Sunak, and the reluctant genie

Tweet

 

For a Russian nationalist like Putin, it is entirely obvious that Ukraine is not, and never has been, a country at all. It is merely a part of Russia, and its people are just Russians with a funny accent and an odd dialect which some of them insist on using instead of standard Russian. It follows that, in those parts of Ukraine occupied by his forces, it is entirely proper that the school curriculum should be replaced by a proper Russian one, that the people should be issued with Russian passports, and that the flag of Russia should be flown everywhere instead of the previous ‘regional’ flag. Since it is clearly unacceptable to have different laws applying in a single country, obviously the laws laid down in Moscow will henceforth apply in occupied Ukraine also. All this will help those people previously ‘confused’ about their identity to understand that they are Russians, and to start behaving as such.

In the real world, a strategy of Russification will have mixed effects. Those who already identified as Russian (and those of us outside Ukraine tend to forget that that is a significant proportion of the population, particularly in the east of the country) will welcome it; some will comply with varying degrees of reluctance; others will double down on their Ukrainian nationality even if (like Catalans and Basques under Franco) they express it largely in secret, clandestinely passing on their language to their descendants. Some might think that the utter destruction being wrought on the territory taken over by Russia might push more people into the third camp, but the reality is that those in the third camp are perhaps the most likely to have moved westwards ahead of the invasion (or subsequently been deported to the far-flung reaches of Russia ‘for their own safety’), leaving a population predominantly consisting of those who are either delighted or else willing to comply. That is the advantage of using military force to impose a change of nationality on a reluctant people.

But leaving aside the use of military force as the method of choice, how different is what Putin is trying to do in Ukraine from what the English conservative party is trying to do in Wales, and more particularly in Scotland? Demanding that we all accept that the UK is not a union of four nations but a single country in which the same laws should apply everywhere would surely ring a bell or two in the Kremlin. As would branding everything with the Union flag. OK, expecting the devolved administrations to be accountable to the central government in performing tasks which are in their purview would probably look to Putin more than a little bit like going soft on the rebellious natives, but abolishing the devolved parliaments without the use of force leaves the Tories forced to take things a step at a time. And attempting to eliminate any ‘local dialects’ is not a venture which has been met with unqualified success over the last four centuries, with or without violent imposition.

The crucial difference though is that without repeating the highland clearances (which is sort of what Putin is doing in Ukraine), the impact on public opinion of those remaining may not quite work in the same way. Whilst they both start from the assumption that identity can be changed by imposition and central dictat, Putin is driving out those with Ukrainian sympathies so as to leave nothing to chance. Truss and Sunak, on the other hand, are assuming that most of those Scots and Welsh who aren’t already fervent supporters of the Union will simply comply and fall in behind the new reality rather than doubling down on their own sense of identity. Only time will tell whether they are right on that, although in Scotland at least it seems highly unlikely as things stand. They seem to believe that Blair’s devolution let the genie out of the bottle; others might think that the genie would have found a way out eventually anyway. Either way, from what I remember of the myths from my childhood, genies are not often amenable to being controlled, and putting them back into bottles is not an endeavour generally accompanied by huge amounts of success. I suppose, though, that it might divert a bit of attention from the looming economic disaster.