Save us from evil. The statement is one of the most well-known in one of the oldest Christian prayers. Most of us are leery of using the E-word because grown-ups understand that few situations, or even individuals, can be categorised as entirely good or entirely bad, but instead reside somewhere in the between.
However, it is difficult to perceive Russian President Vladimir Putin as anything other than a force for evil. He is personally accountable for tens of thousands of fatalities in Ukraine as a result of an unjustified act of aggression aimed to satisfy a vision of national and personal glory that has no legal or moral grounding.
At the very least, by suffocating Ukrainian grain exports, he is inflicting suffering and risking starvation on an increasing chunk of the Southern Hemisphere.
This is why it stings to declare that it is difficult to find a way out of the disaster that punishes Putin and his country as they deserve. Or one that gives Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s people the security and prosperity they deserve.
Emotions are running hotter in Britain today than in any other European country save Poland and the Baltic republics. People like myself, who express uncertainty about Ukraine’s chances of winning, are generally criticized as “ultra-realists” — not a flattering phrase — at best, and appeasers at worst.
We lay awake at night, questioning in our hearts and thoughts if the data supports our pessimistic predictions.
Otto von Bismarck declared before a committee of the Prussian parliament in 1862, “Not by speeches and majority choices will the big concerns of the day be settled,” but by “Blut und Eisen” — blood and iron. We want to think that civilized 21st-century cultures have progressed beyond such heinous dogma. Putin, on the other hand, is aiming to demonstrate that he can use extreme violence to win a much greater place on the international stage than Russia’s economic and political prominence allows.
To respond to Putin’s aggressiveness, Europe must free itself from Russian energy enslavement and re-arm. Both of these approaches take time, which Putin’s troops are gaining in the Donbas region. Even the best-equipped, or least-weak, European allies — Britain, France, and Germany — would need months to field a single battleworthy division.
The US’s power and commitment are essential. Former NATO defense academy dean RD Hooker Jr recently stated, “NATO must have the desire to compete, and the US must lead and encourage.”
In the short term, Putin’s blood-and-iron program appears to be working, because even a bumbling Russian army is stronger than Ukraine’s.
My military contacts predicted weeks ago that Zelenskiy’s forces would be able to halt an all-out Russian invasion of Ukraine. They have long claimed, however, that no matter what equipment the West gives, Kyiv’s prospects of retaking the occupied Donbas are “nil” – a general’s phrase, not mine. Russia is reinforcing its captured areas. Despite its army’s shocking losses and low morale, Putin still has a stockpile of unneeded weaponry, some of which are horrifying. Only direct Western military involvement has the potential to tip the scales decisively against Russia.
There is a case to be made for US and ally warships to accompany Ukrainian grain shipments to and from Odesa, despite Putin’s threat to fire on them. At the moment, President Joe Biden’s government is apprehensive of taking this move, which might spark a worldwide conflict. It is almost impossible to imagine US military being actively committed.
Many Americans, not all of them Republicans, believe that their nation is already betting too much in Europe, despite the fact that China remains the more threatening foe. The failure of national objectives in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan over the last two decades has made critics hesitant to see the US commit to another messy conflict in a foreign place that costs blood and cash while gaining little glory.
The political politics of another failed American war appear to be disastrous. Putin, as usual, is calculating that the 2024 presidential election will return to the White House either former President Donald Trump or a Trump clone, as opposed to deeper entanglements – or even any entanglements – in a European confrontation with Russia. A US withdrawal from Europe would leave Ukraine reliant on European military, political, and economic backing, a bleak scenario given that the US provides more than 80% of its funding.