Conventional Warfare

I have read a number of articles recently about how the US Defence planners had presumed that with the fall of the Iron Curtain that there would no longer be a need for big "boots-on-the-ground" conventional wars and that the shift for ground troops would be to specialist units.

The same articles go on to criticise this approach suggesting that the defence planners had failed to recognise that the apparent demise of conventional wars, especially in the European arena, was the exception to the rule and that they should therefore have failed miserably in their roles as strategic thinkers.

Their analysis seems to forget Reagan's claim to have used the arms race, especially the "Star Wars" technology to demonstrate to the Soviets that they could not compete economically.  The American electorate was happy in the main to have a guns and butter policy because they were intricately intertwined.  The Russians couldn't compete on that basis thus forcing the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Or so the song goes.

What the planners actually failed to see is that the Cold War between the Soviets and the West was not really an ideological one although it was handy to present it in those terms and much more was a good old-fashioned geopolitical spat between two opposing imperialistic power centers.

So now we have Putin's Russia which has not only happily used troops to quell problems deemed necessary for national security such as Chechnya, Georgia and Moldavia, but now perhaps even into the Ukraine. 

Strangely, the Baltics, the Poles and any other former Soviet satellites clamouring for NATO membership didn't buy into the end of conventional war in Europe mantra.

Perhaps it was another case of American hubris and a serious case of selective hearing.

I don't know why the US didn't pay attention to the signs that highlighted Russia's build-up of a conventional military and the accompanying willingness to use it.

So we are now left with the Ukranians having to use their own conventional forces to combat what is actually an attempt by (pro)Russian militants to secede from the Ukraine.

Would we have acted any differently if the south-west United States was suddenly filled with armed militias clamouring to become part of Mexico?

Why Is There No Outcry

A strange thing happened last week in the US.  The meaning of "the selling of the presidency" left Madison Avenue and wandered down to Wall Street.

In one of the most convoluted rationalisations I have every seen the inalienable rights granted to citizens i.e. humans under the Constitution have now been granted to artificial legal entities such as corporations and labour unions.

Then, to add insult to injury, through the writ of the court we witnessed the transubstantiation of money into speech thus legalising the buying of the presidency and every other political seat.

I understand without hesitation the thought process behind this.  I understand that if the inalienable rights granted to humans could be given to legal entities and if the concept of freedom of speech could be granted to money then it would open the floodgates for moneyed interests to buy every politician in the land-legally!

I can even understand that in a greedy masters of the universe euphoric sort of way one could imagine creating such absurd constructs.

But I also thought that even the most corrupt captains of industry would somewhere in their reptilian brains realise that it was totally immoral to legalise corruption and bribery.

I was wrong. 

It is devastating.  And yet I don't sense any real outcry. 

Has apathy reached such a point that people just watch their political process crash and burn?

It's Not A Question of Good or Evil

There are a number of commentators who wish to couch the conflict in the Ukraine in terms of good and evil.

I think this is a mistake.

I am not overly impressed with the "Good" credentials of either side.  Nor the intelligence levels of the John and Jane Doe's that are interviewed on the street.  We have all see enough of "spontaneous" crowd scenes which only occur when the camera's are rolling and interviews filled with soundbites from semi-literate demonstrators.

No, both sides are filled with much that is to be discredited.  Both sides have groups that are easily swayed by populist propaganda and both sides are capable of brutality.

But there is a difference.  There are Ukrainians in the Ukraine who don't want to be under the control of Putin's Russia.  The Russians demonstrating in the Ukraine are clamouring precisely for that state of affairs.

And it is the Ukraine.

Ideally I would like it if we could forget nationalistic rhetoric and were able to create a global society that would actually benefit the many rather than the global market which condemns the many to poverty and benefits the oligarchical few.

But I don't see that happening and certainly not in the near future.

So my solution is to offer those Russians currently living in the Ukraine who want to live under Putin's rule to go back to Russia, voluntarily, or, if they refuse, by decree. 

I would make the same offer in all the other borderlands with "restless" Russian minorities. 

And if Russia cuts oil and gas deliveries to the Ukraine.  I would make sure that the first to feel the pain be the restless Russian nationalists.

That might make me evil....

So What Happens if Putin Enters Eastern Ukraine

I will admit that I kept hoping that Putin would not sign the documents that ratified the transfer of the Crimea from the Ukraine to Russia.  Not because he is a nice guy.  No, but because I had hoped that he wanted to demonstrate his power, and then pull back from actually using it and thereby creating a form of gunboat diplomacy in the near-Russia periphery.

I was wrong.  Mr Putin really does want to recreate the Soviet Union.

This throws a new light on things.

In the first instance it raises the stakes exponentially.  For the moment it demonstrates that the decision to join NATO by the Baltics, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and  Roumania was the right decision even if some of the southern European members might be having second thoughts about their position within the EU.

For, if a NATO state is attacked by definition the rest of the NATO states must come to its defence.

The Ukraine is not a NATO state.  Nor is Georgia.

Perhaps Russia only took back what they hold to have been rightfully theirs.  But, as I have discussed previously, it is a dangerous precedent both for those countries on the Russian periphery, but also perhaps for ethnic groups within the Russian mainland such as Chechnya.

But for Russia to make a military move into the Ukraine is a step which cannot be allowed to happen without a response far beyond the sanctions put in place as "punishment" for devouring  the Crimea.

I don't want war.  The West doesn't want war.  But is Putin willing to risk war?  I don't know.  I especially don't know as currently I don't believe he thinks a military move into the eastern Ukraine will be met with a military response, so he quite possibly doesn't even perceive such a move as even a potential declaration of war.

So what to do.

I believe the West needs to call his bluff.  It has to say that a military move into the Ukraine would constitute a declaration of war.

This is not something the West wants-and I would hope neither does Putin.

It would force both sides to sit down and pursue a diplomatic solution which would probably be some sort of a "Finlandisation" of the Ukraine i.e. a neutrality which required any foreign policy moves by the Ukrainians to be sanctioned by the Russians.

It is not clear to me that the Ukrainians would agree to such a solution.  It might require massive pressure from the West to make them acquiesce along the lines that if they don't then they will be left to take on Russia on their own...

This is what Russia really wants.  Control over the Ukraine.

Great Power Realpolitik is full of examples of small countries being sacrificed for what is considered the greater good which in this case is a non-military solution.

I can't help but think that if the West allows Putin to annex the Ukraine, under the threat of a loaded gun, that he will continue until the West says stop.

It is an incredibly depressing thought that on the 100th anniversary of WWI,  the 75th anniversary of the start of WWII, despite the end of the Cold War and the supposed new paradigm of peace, that the Russians, whom I hold at least partially responsible for WWI, and who were joint aggressors in 1939, should once again be the sable rattlers for another European war.

Is it the Spring of 1912, the Fall of 1914, or September 1938?

The first Balkan War of 1912 was started by the Russian sponsored Balkan League which was formed to eject the Ottoman Empire from the Balkans.

The Fall of 1914 is the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, the blame for which could be aimed at the Russians for their then support of the Serbians in their efforts to escape the clutches of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Given that the Russians lost and with it the Czar disappeared most commentators forget about the battles in the East and focus on the Germans as the guilty ones in World War I- but that is a different post.

Or, with the advantage of hindsight, are we bending over backwards to ensure 'peace in our time' although in this case not as a result of German but rather Russian geopolitical imperatives.

The truth is I don't know.

But I do know that we are in a much more dangerous position than many people appreciate.

On the subject of history the Crimea has been part of Russia since Catherine the Great.  It remained so more or less until Khrushchev-himself a Ukrainian-decided to give it to the Ukraine.

So much for history.

If we go back further than Catherine then the Crimea belonged to numerous peoples-as did almost every other piece of land on earth.  The problem with going back in history is that empires rise and fall.  Sometimes of their own volition, and sometimes through invasion.

This time around there are a lot of voices suggesting that the Crimea, with its majority of ethnic Russians should be allowed to go "back" to Russia.

I even understand that thought.

But to allow the Russians of the Crimea to vote to return to Russia would suggest that wherever there are ethnic minorities, who are however majorities in their ethnic enclaves, they should be allowed to vote to become part of their "parent" countries.

I am not sure that this is a good precedent.

It is true that the lines of nation-states have been drawn somewhat arbitrarily reflecting either the status quo-or a desire to change the status quo-depending on the time and the situation and so there are many borderlands of countries that today look out of place.

Whatever changes are made could look equally out of place tomorrow.

To start allowing these kind of votes will open up fissures between peoples that have actually often enough lived happily together until it was brought to their attention that maybe they shouldn't really get along with one another.

Every group has its own geopolitical hang-ups.  There is always a border which can not be defended; there is always a lack of natural resources, of fertile land.  Essentially every group wants to be in charge of its own destiny-even when that destiny is fraught with danger.

This is the seed of nationalism.  Today it is often a response to globalism.  The benefits of globalism are often positive on a macro level, and equally often negative on a micro level.  This is compounded by the fact that the weak are generally at the mercy of the strong, regardless of how the strong present their case.

So back to my question.

What are the Russians really up to?

It was Just a Pizza Parlour

In a recent debate on Britain's place in the European Union held at Bloomberg's London headquarters Luke Johnson, famous for having created the Pizza Express brand, decided to show that he should have stuck to pizza and not politics by announcing that "the European Union was 'built on German guilt' after World War Two".

No Mr Johnson, Germany has many things for which its sense of guilt associated with the Second World War "directs" it choices, but the creation of the EU is not one of them.  

Germany was indeed involved in the creation of the EEC.  But it was not out of guilt.  It was corralled into the EEC out of fear by the victorious allies.  A fear that Germany would once again, despite an unconditional surrender and a complete collapse, physically, politically and economically, rise up and once again wreak havoc in Europe.

Now if you want to twist things and say that it was guilt that made Germany  provide the bulk of troops to NATO second only to the US, you can.

If you want to twist things to suggest that it was guilt that made Germany  pay more into the European Economic Community than it received, you can.

If you want to twist things to suggest that guilt was the driver behinds Germany's  willingness to take a "backseat" at the table, then you can.

But you would be wrong.

No Mr Johnson, I don't think your memory-if you ever took the time to look into the facts-is clear.  I think that you are forgetting that despite the integration of Germany into Europe by the victors it is once again becoming the dominant continental power-a thought which is anathema to 600 years of English geopolitical strategy.

Granted, this time it is through economic rather than military prowess, it still stirs that underlying British fear of German hegemony in Europe.

And so it is not surprising that Mr Johnson would try and play the guilt card to try and squeeze Germany back into its box. 
                                                            
No not surprising.  

And not correct.

There is no Escaping the Past....nor the Future....

I am fully aware of the dangers of the Ukraine.  As always national boundaries are drawn by the victors, sometimes constructively, and sometimes maliciously. The Ukraine has suffered from this almost since its inception and certainly its most recent manifestation arising from the ashes of the Second World War is flawed to the core with battle lines being drawn along religious, ethnic and political lines.

Post-Soviet Russia might have changed it's political stripes and openly embraced capitalism-but its territorial imperialism, even if it is to defend its national interests against perceived threats- both real and  imagined-is as strong as ever.

The EU and the USA are engaging in a dangerous game of baiting the Russian bear as if the wars in Chechnya, in Georgia, not to mention the interventions in Budapest and Prague were not part of a long term geopolitical dance with destiny.

No one in the West wants to go to war over the Ukraine and so the West's antics are more to discomfort Russia rather the prick it into overt aggression-if Russia plays along.

I would suggest however that on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the First World War which, despite Bismarck's famous statement that "the Balkans weren't worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier ended up costing a lot of bones, the majority of which were not from Pomerania, that we be very careful of our actions in the Ukraine.

I'm not sure that it's that much different than Egypt or Syria except that Russia sits on the other side of the board.

I am not forgetting nor suggesting that the path of appeasement was any more successful 25 years later, but we should be very clear of the ramifications of our actions and react strategically rather then the tactical positioning which smacks of opportunism as practiced by dilettantes..