“An
appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last”.
Winston
Churchill
May 28th. I am an analyst. I am not a politician and
thankfully for Europe and the wider world I am not a commander. Some say I am a
good analyst. If so, my job is to analyse, not proselytise or order. Last
week I was in Poland at the superb Strategic Ark Conference hosted by the
outstanding Polish International Affairs Institute and led by my friend, the
impressive Slawomir Debski. At the Conference I spoke to Polish ministers,
senior commanders, as well as senior Ukrainian friends and contacts.
Like most reasonable people I deplore Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine and its subsequent atrocities. I am also firmly committed
to a Ukraine that is whole and free and a Europe that is secure from further
Russian aggression. BUT, I am not going to collude in the pretence of action
where none exists. At the conference one senior Polish figure, who I greatly
admire, rather sneered at so-called ‘realists’ for questioning whether Ukraine
can evict Russia from the 18% of Ukrainian territory it is currently occupying
and thus return to its 1991 borders. His argument was that all wars ebb and
flow and whilst this is a hard moment for Ukrainian forces they will somehow
magically prevail.
Wars only flow, as opposed to ebb, because some
internal or external factor changes. Take World War Two. Yes, Britain defied
the Nazis in 1940 but could not defeat them alone. The external change factor
was that America and Russia joined the war in 1941 which acted as a massive
force multiplier for Britain’s efforts. At present, Ukraine is fighting an
incompetent Russia led by an entrenched megalomaniac nationalist with both
sides near exhaustion. The war is thus drifting towards stalemate over the bodies
of thousands of dead young men, like some World War One cloud of mustard gas.
In the time it has taken me to write this piece more will have been killed in
the human meat-grinder that is eastern Ukraine.
And yet, I am being asked to pretend by leaders that
Ukraine will win, even though Kyiv’s Western partners are clearly unwilling to
take any risk or supply and re-supply the Ukrainians all the necessary
equipment and resources they need. Many Western states are not even prepared to
rapidly build up their own defence industries simply to replace the weapons
they have already given Ukraine.
Let me be clear: as an analyst I will NOT collude with
strategically illiterate and pretentious politicians who have done so much to
reduce the West this century through their incompetence and risk aversion. They
did it in Iraq. They did it in Afghanistan. Now, they are doing it in Ukraine.
They are NOT even prepared to provide free Ukraine with the security guarantee
of affording NATO membership. This profound lack of strategic imagination and
leadership is not just a tragedy for those dying in this war, often horribly
(Western publics never see that because our leaders treat us like children).
Freedom can never be secure in the absence of well-led power and playing
politics with strategy is the very opposite of good leadership. Once again,
Western politicians are asking analysts to pretend the emperor is magnificent
when he really does have no clothes simply in the hope that the rest of the
world does not see our nakedness…it does!
The tragic irony is that the West is so close to
defeating Russia on Russia’s terms if only it had the political will and the
courage to offer Ukraine a road-map to NATO membership. Historians will come to
view Putin’s War as one of the great historical cockups. OK, he might gain some
or all of Donbas and Crimea, but he has already lost Finland, Sweden, and the
rest of Ukraine to the West, the very thing he wanted to prevent.
Let me also be clear to strategically challenged
wishful thinkers: unless there is a very marked uplift in Western support for
Ukraine the stalemate to which I refer will be highly unstable even if a new
temporary Line of Contact is established. Ukrainian forces have been forced
onto the defensive precisely because the collective West has decided for a host
of mainly domestic factors and political weakness that its leaders do not
really care enough to make it otherwise. The question now is whether the survival
of the rest of Ukraine as a free state is a risk worth taking for Western
leaders who time and again this century have demonstrated they lack both the
strategic patience and acumen to prevail in long wars. And, how long before
Putin launches the next phase?
To paraphrase Churchill: an appeaser is indeed one who
feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last, whilst a colluder is one who
assists the crocodile in the business of consumption. A realist, on the other
hand, is simply one who understands that unless he can find a way to kill the
crocodile first then he too will be eaten. Still, at least he is willing to
give it a go…as Churchill did. An analyst? He or she is simply one who
describes the crocodile, warts, teeth and all, for what it is…a bloody crocodile.
Or, at least, they should be...
Julian Lindley-French
