I would have happily signed that letter.
But they didn’t ask you, did they? On the grounds that they wanted to be taken seriously no doubt….
I would have happily signed that letter.
But they didn’t ask you, did they? On the grounds that they wanted to be taken seriously no doubt….
In fairness the only one of the factors behind the massive rise in inflation he wasn’t entirely on board with was the Ukraine War, so while this is the wrong reason for opposing it, he’s not wrong in seeing it as a huge waste of money and materiel.
The letter:
The false premise is that Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is the first step to make Russia “a dominant military power in all of Europe”. Evidence that Britain is already under attack is provided by “the poisonings, assassinations, sabotage operations … cyber-attacks and influence operations … sensors … around critical pipelines, efforts to butcher undersea cables”. It follows that Britain’s economy and society must be geared up to resist the Russian menace. Deny the premise, and the argument for a “whole society” mobilisation against Russia collapses. What it reveals is the strength of the warmongering mood of official Britain.
True enough, but Fiona Hill didn’t call for a mobilisation against Russia.
She claimed “we” (who’s ‘we’, paleface?) are “at war” with Russia, and therefore should encourage children to think about joining the cadets, and maybe do a bit of first aid training.
There’s a nonsequitur in there somewhere for the sharp of eye. But the bizzarity (new word) of the Ukraine war continues.
“We”, the “we” who are “at war” with Russia, don’t want peace, but “we” also don’t want to do anything that could lead us to victory in this war with Russia. The Strategic Defence Review was another waste of paper, written by idiots. Britain continues to operate a tiny scale model version of an army that would last about as long as a pint of milk in Ukraine. We continue to give Ukraine just enough money and weapons to keep them losing the fight with Russia at massive cost to Ukrainian life and limb, but never enough to actually prevent the Russians from taking over the parts of former Ukraine they desire to possess. And we act as if coming second in a proxy war with Russia gives us the authority to demand that Russia does what we want.
Our betters are not serious people, and they don’t have anything serious to offer except more wars they don’t know how to win. If that’s not true, thank your local cadets for their service.
Steve sides with the Guardianistas!
Theo – even a stopped clock is right twice a day, unless it’s digital.
What have we won from our £20Bn investment in a proxy war with Russia? Is Britain more secure now than it was in February 2022, or less? Are we more prosperous, or less? Because we keep spaffing money on this thing, and our betters keep promising that our children will die fighting Russians… that does not sound like winning to me.
It’s nice to see some Guardianistas remembering they’re supposed to be “antiwar” tho. One of the strangest things about the Ukraine war is that there’s been no peace demonstrations. We’ve got millions of people obsessed with Gaza and now Iran, but apparently a war in the continent where we live is less important.
No, Steve has a point, because “We continue to give Ukraine just enough money and weapons to keep them losing the fight with Russia at massive cost to Ukrainian life and limb, but never enough to actually prevent the Russians from taking over the parts of former Ukraine they desire to possess.”
– is undeniable. As is:
“And we act as if coming second in a proxy war with Russia gives us the authority to demand that Russia does what we want.”
Of course, we Aussies aren’t concerned about Ukraine. It’s so far away.
The coming invasion of Taiwan by China is what bothers us.
Sabre-rattling against distant knackered Russia is meant to stop you noticing the real enemy, neither distant nor knackered but close and variously fanatical.
Steve
A war is not over until it’s over. And wars generally don’t make a nation richer. And resisting Russian expansionist aggression prevents Russia going on to seize – for example – Moldova and parts of Finland. Russian ideologues – like Aleksandr Dugin aka “Putin’s Brain” – have a crazed vision of a Russian empire extending over Western Europe…
RK
Sabre-rattling against distant knackered Russia is meant to stop you noticing the real enemy
A bonkers evidence-free conspiracy theory based on your feelz!
And Russia is not “knackered”! Russia has outgrown the West and has shifted to a war economy that Europeans struggle to keep up with. After exclusion from Swift, the Russians developed an alternative system for global payments that China has joined, threatening dollar hegemony and more…
Theo
We have thousands of ISIS sympathetic volunteers, possibly tens of thousands located across the country ready to start chopping off their neighbours heads- alongside fifth columnists numbering well into six figures who want Sharia Law,
Do you feel Russia constitutes a greater threat?? I would far rathe we start spending the money on closing down militant Mosques and greater control on Muslims coming in than Ukraine.
Norman – thanks
Bboy – Taiwan is still 4,500 miles away from Australia. And you have a moat.
Theo – A war is not over until it’s over. And wars generally don’t make a nation richer.
You’re supposed to win something if you win. We “won” in Iraq and Afghanistan and against Libya, and got hordes of Moslem refugees for our trouble. The British Army, including TA, was hard used and ill used in the Mesopotamian adventure, which exhausted our military capacity and burned out our best people at the cost of enormous sums of our money for no discernible beneficial strategic outcome. We bombed the shite out of Yugoslavia to force the existence of a new, Muslim-run gangster state in the Balkans for… something to do with human rights. British foreign and defence policy has been disconnected from any notion of benefitting Britain for a long time.
Take the “war with Russia” meme. This is indeed the honest belief of British officialdom, I have met Sir Humphreys and heard them express much the same sentiment. Ok, so if we are at war with the biggest country on the planet, which has an armed forces mobilisation capability measured in millions of men, and a vast military industrial complex of its own, whirring out more shells, tubes, tanks and missiles than we plus all our allies combined currently do… shouldn’t we be doing a bit more than encouraging kids to join the cadets? Do you understand the strategy here? I’m stumped.
Anyway, the Ukraine war is overski, in the sense that the outcome is no longer a matter of debate, and has been for some time. Nobody in Ukraine or NATO has a plan to win, or is even talking about winning, because that’s no longer possible given the disparity in mobilisation capability of the two sides. Wars can indeed drag on for years despite the outcome being predetermined, the death agonies of the Third Reich 1942-45 for example. Or the entirety of WW1. But I thought we were supposed to learn from history, not repeat it.
And resisting Russian expansionist aggression prevents Russia going on to seize – for example – Moldova and parts of Finland. Russian ideologues – like Aleksandr Dugin aka “Putin’s Brain” – have a crazed vision of a Russian empire extending over Western Europe…
Remember, it was approx 23 years into his evil, expansionist regime and 8 years into the Ukrainian civil war that the landhungry tyrant Putin finally invaded somebody. Georgia tried provoking the Russkies in 2008, but got slapped down quick. This proves Russia is bent on World Domination, Pinky!
In the same timeframe (the literal reincarnation of Hitler’s 23 years of not invading his neighbours to steal their land) Britain has launched unprovoked attacks on Yugoslavia, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and others. This proves Britain is a fine and upstanding member of the Rules Based Order. (Whose rules?)
But more importantly, what’s in it for Britain? Why should we care about “Moldova and parts of Finland”? You would think that, being blessed with a natural moat, we could afford a foreign policy of minding our own business? This war has impoverished Europe through spiking energy prices, meanwhile Russians can afford all the cheap central heating, leccy and petrol they want. Why did we do that to ourselves, again? Call me a crazy dreamer, but I like it when we win and hate it when we lose. So why choose to lose?
VP – We have thousands of ISIS sympathetic volunteers, possibly tens of thousands located across the country
So many domestic problems of our own government’s making. We also have a tiny, boutique military. Fiona Hill, one of the Great Minds of the latest Strategic Defence Review, says it’s ok for our army to be the smallest it’s been since Napoleon and the Royal Navy to have the lowest number of hulls in 400 years.
But then they go on TV and threaten Putin, as if they had the 1911 Royal Navy at their back. It’s very strange, but I can only put it down to our rulers being quite stupid people who think they can solve real world physical problems with management buzzwords and Strategic Defence Reviews.
In the late 19th century the jokey account of British foreign policy was that it believed in Splendid Isolation, to be achieved by the strategy of Masterly Inactivity.
We were better run in those days.
(Of course it was buggered up when the half-mad Kaiser Bill decided to build a navy with the explicit function of sinking our Home Fleet in the North Sea. Isn’t it a bastard when the enemy doesn’t agree with your strategy?)
Steve
Just to be nasty, I can’t resist mentioning (yet again!!) that the UK has also surrendered to Mauritius, and has agreed to pay it billions in tribute for the next 99 years.
“Is Britain more secure now than it was in February 2022”
Yes. Yes it is.
The Russian conventional army and its equipment have been largely destroyed and its economy hollowed-out.
The mystery is why now, right after the remnants of the enemy have been reduced to using Chinese golf carts for maneuver, our political leaders should start warning us about the impending threat of Russian aggression. They’re at least 10 years too late; the problem has been dealt with.
“But more importantly, what’s in it for Britain? Why should we care about “Moldova and parts of Finland”? You would think that, being blessed with a natural moat, we could afford a foreign policy of minding our own business?”
Those who do not learn history, etc. Your mindset is stuck in the 1800’s and the supremacy of the Royal Navy, when even then Britain sensibly pursued a policy of strategic balance in Europe, to avoid the scenario of being the last one to be eaten.
“British foreign and defence policy has been disconnected from any notion of benefitting Britain for a long time.”
Yep. It’s what Cook and Blair called an ‘ethical foreign policy’.
Bboy – Just to be nasty, I can’t resist mentioning (yet again!!) that the UK has also surrendered to Mauritius, and has agreed to pay it billions in tribute for the next 99 years.
Zackly.
WB – The Russian conventional army and its equipment have been largely destroyed and its economy hollowed-out.
The mystery is why now, right after the remnants of the enemy have been reduced to using Chinese golf carts for maneuver, our political leaders should start warning us about the impending threat of Russian aggression. They’re at least 10 years too late; the problem has been dealt with.
Possibly because your first paragraph is entirely wrong, the Russian army is now much bigger and more experienced than it was 3 years ago and if their economy is hollowed out, I hate to think about ours.
But also: look at a map. A big Russian military is a potential problem for its neighbours. We are not Russia’s neighbours. It has taken them nearly 4 years to conquer about 20% of Ukraine. At this rate, they’ll be a problem for Britain by the space year 2435.
Your mindset is stuck in the 1800’s
Thank you .
and the supremacy of the Royal Navy, when even then Britain sensibly pursued a policy of strategic balance in Europe, to avoid the scenario of being the last one to be eaten
Which made sense before mass conscription transformed land war from being very much a minority sport practiced by professionals in the age of Wellington and von Moltke, to being enormous scale industrialised slaughter by the end of the 19th c.
I would submit to you that it’s very much not in Britain’s interests for the continent we live in to be engulfed in a massive war. The economic damage alone is something that will take decades to fix, and we thought we’d stopped having to worry about total thermonuclear annihilation in 1991. I also object to the enormous waste of life and limb.