Why there’s no parleying with Putin
If there is any silver lining in the dark clouds engulfing Ukraine, it’s the thought that Western Europe and Scandinavia have been made to confront their complacency over issues of security and defence. NATO is not only relevant again, but also has an allure to countries such as Finland and Sweden, which previously eschewed its embrace.
Although Germany and Italy are clearly compromised by their dependence on Russian energy, we have seen a relatively high degree of determination to confront the Kremlin over its aggression in Ukraine. There is genuine shock that this overtly revanchist war — straight out of the nineteenth or twentieth century — can be playing out on the European continent in the twenty-first.
Unbelievably though, there are people who just don’t get it.
When former UK ambassador, Sir Roderic Lyne, spoke to Times Radio recently, he rightly denied accusations that NATO was encroaching on Russia. But he then went on to say:
“We need to careful about the sort of help that we provide to Ukraine and the sort of words we use. And some of this loose talk from junior defence ministers boasting about British missiles striking targets within Russia simply plays in to the hands of Putin.”
Does it?
Putin’s whole military strategy is predicated entirely on the idea that western nations are too weak to stand up to him. His sidekick Sergei Lavrov has long sniped and sneered at the decadence of western societies, echoing the kind of language enshrined in the propaganda classes of the USSR and GDR.
Like any bully, the regime in Moscow pushes and pushes and pushes. Putin despises weakness and only retreats when challenged forcibly. Note the withdrawal from the North of Ukraine in the face of brave resistance that proved much stronger than anyone expected.
Of course, Sir Roderic would argue that we must avoid getting dragged in to a direct conflict with Russia. Who could disagree? No one wants World War III. But surely, after everything we’ve seen, we realise the best way of avoiding that war is through strength and deterrence. Putin needs to realise he has bitten off more than he can chew.
An article in The Guardian by Angus Roxburgh, former BBC Moscow Correspondent and erstwhile PR adviser to the Russian government, made for stomach-churning reading. Quite why a major liberal newspaper would even choose to carry this piece is fairly baffling. His argument is essentially that by supplying weaponry to Ukraine, we are prolonging a war which cannot be won.
Let’s leave aside the obvious counter that the Ukrainians are asking for this support (and actually want more of it). Roxburgh’s advice to effectively accept defeat — under the guise of Realpolitik — has huge implications. His recommended strategy is to sit around a table with Putin, or perhaps 30 feet away from him like the humiliated UN chief Guterres, and ‘parley’.
According to the ex-BBC man, ‘everything would have to be up for discussion’ in order to entice the reviled occupant of the Kremlin to take part. In other words, all the borders are up for grabs. No Ukrainian territory is sacrosanct.
It takes us right back to the 1930s, of course, where the Sudetenland was offered on a plate to Hitler by the British and French in discussions with Germany and Italy. This deal was also thought to be a route towards ‘peace’, although history shows that it was anything but.
Roxburgh ironically cites the Dayton Accord as an example of where the US sat down with a brutal aggressor following the conflict in Bosnia in the 1990s. He seems conveniently to forget that just a few years later, we were confronted by ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
Just how many times do we need to restate the glaringly obvious lesson of history? Appeasing dictators never works. At best, it buys you time. But even then, you need to use that time to prepare for a coming confrontation.
If we were gullible enough to listen to people like Roxburgh, whose views sadly find an echo on the far left of British politics, think of the message it would send to Beijing, Tehran and Pyongyang: do what you like; impose your will by force. People will be obliged to play ball with you — particularly if you make veiled (and not so veiled) threats of nuclear annihilation.
It would be a world of near-constant conflict, economic dislocation and zero co-operation. We would all live in fear. And as a result, our ability to confront the existential threat of climate change would be completely eroded. Migration traffic would intensify. Living standards would decline in rich and poor nations alike. Is that the kind of future we really want?
My mind drifts back to the first demonstration I ever attended 40 years ago. It was against the Falklands War. As a rather naïve 14-year-old, I had travelled to Trafalgar Square to hear Tony Benn and Judith Hart denounce Thatcher’s task force, which was sailing towards the South Atlantic to confront the fascist junta in Buenos Aires. The small and slightly unhinged crowd was shouting: ‘Falklands! Malvinas! They are Argentina’s!’
In my defence, I was young. I didn’t like the jingoistic fervour at the time, whipped up by newspapers such as The Sun. But I was also hopelessly, mind-bogglingly, embarrassingly wrong. It took me most of the rest of the 1980s to figure that out, but I got there in the end. It depresses me that some people quite a bit older than me haven’t yet even embarked on the journey.
Phil Woodford is co-host of the weekly news review show on Colourful Radio, broadcast from London’s Africa Centre every Friday morning between 09.00 and 10.00 am.
