Can war be avoided? | thearticle

The mask has not merely slipped — the phantom has ripped it off entirely, to reveal the death’s head beneath. By his words and actions this week, Vladimir Putin has revealed himself to the

remaining appeasers in the West as unappeasable. Those who still needed persuading that he was implacable should at last desist from placating the Moloch of Moscow. Yesterday Putin broke

international law by “recognising” two separatist “people’s republics”, Donetsk and Luhansk. Today he will aggravate that breach by sending in his tanks and troops to occupy these

“self-governing” areas. And tomorrow? Will he advance further into Ukraine to seize the rest of these two oblasts, or provinces, which include the major port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov

and the headquarters of the Ukrainian army in the region? That would be an act of war and Ukraine would have no choice but to resist. At that point, it is assumed, the rest of the Russian

armies gathered along the eastern borders, plus those in Belarus to the north, would invade. By then Europe’s biggest conflict since 1945 would be well under way. How can this inexorable

train of events, this terrifyingly familiar logic of war, be interrupted? Sanctions against Russia will be imposed, not only by NATO countries but by other international bodies too, though

Russia and China will use their veto at the emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council that Ukraine has requested. It is possible, though unlikely, that the unprecedented

severity of these sanctions will cause Putin to draw back from the brink of full-scale war. But sanctions have failed to deter him so far.   Has diplomacy now run its course? The Biden-Putin

summit, mooted by Emmanuel Macron last weekend, already looks like a vain hope. Even Thursday’s meeting of Antony Blinken and Sergei Lavrov is now in doubt. If by then Russian tanks are

rolling across Ukraine, what is there left to discuss? Yet the possibility remains that pressure could be applied on China, the only great power that supports Russia, to urge Putin to hold

back. Aiding and abetting an aggressor is tantamount to sharing responsibility for his crimes. Yesterday China’s ambassador to the UN called on all parties to “continue dialogue and

consultation and seek reasonable solutions”. If Xi Jinping means what he says, he should remind his new best friend in Moscow that his actions risk sabotaging the global economic recovery

from the pandemic. That is no more in Chinese interests than those of the West — or Russia. It is, of course, improbable that Xi will do anything to restrain Putin, for the obvious reason

that he has been threatening to do exactly the same thing to Taiwan. As Ben Wallace told the Commons yesterday, it is even possible that China could seize this opportunity to carry out its

threat in the immediate future. The Defence Secretary may be too pessimistic, though. The butchers of Beijing are no less callous but they are more cautious than the criminal in the Kremlin.

Xi has no need to gamble, because he believes that time is on his side. Putin knows that his time is running out. This brings us to the final possibility of averting a conflagration. What

if Putin’s reckless conduct dismays those inside the regime? The President’s rambling speech, televised live yesterday, must have given Moscow’s military and security establishment pause.

Does the “old man in the bunker” (his Covid-era nickname) really have a grasp of reality? Russia’s most powerful oligarchs also stand to lose a great deal — and for what? A rustbelt region

of Ukraine? Once the full implications of Putin’s irredentist politics becomes clear, implying as it does a showdown with NATO over the Baltic states, the chance will increase of a power

struggle or even a coup inside the Kremlin. The West cannot, of course, rely on any internal opposition in Russia. For the moment, Putin’s malicious and mendacious maunderings have drowned

out all other voices in Moscow. Who knows what ordinary Russians make of their head of state? The incessant propaganda may have fired up their patriotic fervour while dulling their sense of

danger. Yet the President-for-life is in reality only President-on-sufferance. The fact that he has ruled for well over two decades does not mean that he is irreplaceable. His popularity has

waxed and waned. The attempt to whip up hostility to Ukraine — which in his tirade was simultaneously traduced as a reincarnation of the Nazis with nukes and belittled as an American puppet

— could yet backfire. Even if the securocrats and kleptocrats are too frightened of Putin to depose him, the masses might surprise us by turning against the gloating ghoul now leading

Mother Russia to perdition. It would not take much — a rash of anti-war demonstrations across the major cities — to puncture Putin’s fragile prestige. Let us assume that nothing of the kind

discussed here happens. The Russian war machine cranks into action and grinds down the Ukrainian resistance. What are the options for the West? The EU, predictably, is urging a minimalist

response, arguing that sanctions must be applied slowly to maximise leverage. The British favour a tougher approach, hitting Russia hard immediately to send the strongest possible message to

Moscow. The US is likely to side with the UK, the French and Germans with the EU. Nobody is prepared to die for Ukraine; indeed, polls suggest that most Americans not only cannot find

Ukraine on the map, but are doubtful even about sanctions. So far, so depressing. What would change the mood music would be a new resolve of the West to defend itself — and democracy.

Yesterday I alluded to the first Gulf War in 1991, when Margaret Thatcher stiffened the resolve of President Bush: “This is no time to go wobbly, George.” The principle at stake, then and

now, was that dictators must not be seen to profit from aggression against their neighbours. In that instance, Saddam Hussein annexed Kuwait, which was not a democracy but an oil-rich

absolute monarchy. Nevertheless, the broad-based coalition of the willing that was assembled to restore the sovereignty of Kuwait had the support of the UN. The principle of the

inviolability of internationally-recognised borders was upheld. In 2014, by contrast, the annexation of Crimea and the encroachment of Russia on the Donbas went largely unpunished. A

democracy was successfully attacked and partly occupied; despite the ceasefire agreed in Minsk in 2015, some 14,000 Ukrainians have been killed on both sides and more than 2 million

displaced. We now see the consequences of that impunity. The West needs to give teeth to its abhorrence of territorial aggression by reinforcing its military strength. Russia and China have

been rearming themselves for decades. It is time that Europe and America woke up and did the same. NATO defence budgets vary between 1 and 3 per cent of GDP, substantially lower than during

the Cold War. Our leaders must explain that the peace dividend is now definitively over. A sustained increase in defence expenditure is long overdue, on both sides of the Atlantic. Even the

appeasers of the Thirties, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain, began a rearmament programme without which Winston Churchill could not have won the Battle of Britain. Boris Johnson is no

longer constrained by the EU, merely by his own Cabinet. The trio of Johnson, Wallace and Truss should now demand that the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, find the money to build up new forces to

be stationed permanently in Europe. For nearly half a century, the British Army of the Rhine — comprising between 80,000 and 50,000 troops and a substantial part of the RAF, helped to keep

peace on the Iron Curtain. We may need to return to a similar standing deployment, this time to defend Poland and the Baltic states. The Russians should be left in no doubt that their

invasion of Ukraine will being about precisely the opposite of their intention. NATO, dismissed as “brain-dead” by Macron only a year ago, has never been more alive and kicking. It must be

given the wherewithal to ensure that Putin’s aggression will finally be stopped.   A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an

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