The Russians, NATO. and Ukraine

Good piece in today’s Quillette email

quillette.com/2022/03/09/the-new-great-game/

To cut a long story short, the EU and US don't have the resources to remain in control of our own destiny in the long term and come the second half of this century chances are we will be more or less under the rule of the Chinese, Russians and possibly even the Indians. Life as we know it will change dramatically this decade.

Don’t agree with that. Technological advance in the west outstrips everywhere else. Ok, so China is the labour market but that’s easier to change than most things. One could argue that the reason for this strike into Europe by Putin is because he knows his successors won’t have the fossil fuel stranglehold over the west within a generation so he can be remembered as the great visionary by striking now when he had that advantage.

For all their faults the Chinese are remaining on the fence, neither condemning nor supporting Putin. They do a lot of trade around the world and anyone with a smidgen of history in their brain can see that trade has been China’s driver for a couple of millennia. China and India may both be super- populous but in terms of population control and organisation are poles apart. India is at best chaotic and the internal competition of its population amongst one another will prevent any meaningful digression outside its own borders for about a century. 

And therein lies the strength of the West. It allows free thought, opportunity and fosters advancement, both of technology and population. When that is threatened nations that are otherwise playfully taking the piss out of one another join together to protect the things that matter to them all, something Russia and China abhor as they consider themselves utterly sovereign. Russia has again resorted to the tactics of obliteration but are doing it against, again, a carefully selected foe. They out number most armies but this is not 1917 when Marshall Foch said the allied forces would defeat the Germans because they had more men in a war of attrition but as Ukrainian resistance is showing that only works against certain foes.

Finally the ridiculous can never succeed in humanity as has long been proven. Fashion alone shows this as the most ludicrous elements of the catwalk never make the main stream, and I mean never. Why have I raised this? Today Lavrov said to a worldwide audience that “Russia is not planning an attack on any other nation, and Russia has not attacked Ukraine.” Ridiculous doesn’t really cover the official Russian position on this.

ETA: one thing also. Never forget that for all our politically correctness and media face niceness, white European stock has long shown itself to be the nastiest element of humanity. The history of the 19th and 20th century showed that quite well, subjugating the majority of the planet and having no thought for destroying a generation of our own kind. The sheen of modernity wipes away easily and never forget which stock of human race actually dropped the two most devastating bombs of death and destruction.

My last post was a summary of that article and I think you're right to point out its flaws. I agree that Russia probably is aware that its stranglehold on Europe regarding energy supplies would have naturally dwindled over the next 10-20 years as we try to move away from fossil fuels and maybe this is his way of having one last go at reminding the world who we're messing with.

The Lebedev fella is starting to become the new Chemical Ali (remember him?) and is appearing as a bit of a laughing stock in some parts of the press. If he believes what he's saying he must be one of the most deluded politicians on the planet (and there's some stiff competition for that award!) But more worrying is that the Putin regime thinks this will somehow wash.

So, during Angela Merkel's term as German Chancellor she emasculated the German military, refused to use any of Germany's soft power to influence Russia and China, or to display any sort of leadership of the EU commensurate with its largest economy and contributor, made her country largely reliant on Russian gas, dragged Poland and Ukraine back into Russia's influence by green lighting Nord Stream 2, thereby bypassing them and allowing Putin to turn the taps off to them, without affecting Germany...when will she be outed as a Russian asset? A sleeper agent, recruited in her early days in the Communist East and set on this path to power?

That's not going down an EU wormhole, that's a recognition that perhaps finally the EU is moving towards what it was founded to be and needs to be.

We are now outside that and our quandary (and goal) will be how to avoid effectively becoming a client state of one of the global powers, be that the EU, the US, China, India or whoever.

Just back from four days in Dubai. Felt like being in a parallel universe.

Merkel had a charmed life, and has got out of public life just when things are turning sour for Germany

I don't agree with this either. We need to remember in the West that democracy is not the default, it is one model we are used to, much (most?) of the world follows another path, whatever consensus in those places might be if they had a real vote. Democracy - with universal voting - is relatively recent (one century or so) even here and at times since then - like WW2 - it was at threat. 

But the free world grows faster, and innovates quicker, and while Russia's economy relies on soon to be outmoded hydrocarbon sales, China's is deeply intertwined with our modern economies. Not to say I don't fear them, but the current situation has probably done Taiwan a lot of good, not bad.

I'm coming down from my idealism that we have to prevent Putin gaining anything from this - but only because of his nuclear weapons. Without them I think we should have got involved and it would be a massive defeat to Russia if we did - on whatever scale/theatre they chose to fight - because the Russian military is far more behind NATO than we thought. And Russia spends such a % of its income already on defence, they will struggle to sort out the deficiencies they are now aware of. Meanwhile Germany has been totally roused from its slumber and will become a huge force again - good. 

This is a good article on how this may go now: 

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60756993

Ukraine joining NATO will probably be ruled out for now (until Putin is dead/gone anyway), and I expect Russia will get to keep Crimea and Luhansk/Donbas (all of the latter, not just the bits the Russians already had. On EU membership I would think would it would be harder to justify killing thousands of civilians to prevent a neighbour from joining a free trade block than something like NATO, maybe there will be something woolier. Basically, the Ukranians need to play Russia at their own game here - the Russians signed an accord saying they would not invade Ukraine after the Crimea invasion. They can do the same about NATO now and then, when the west has massively increased arms spending, Russia has been crippled by sanctions, and Putin has effed off, they can change their mind in 10 or 20 years time. That's how I see this going now. To anyone with half a brain this us an epic fail on Putin's part, and has managed to do everything he would not have wanted in galvanising NATO and increasing defence budgets across all NATO countries, as well as seeing that spent on "traditional" hardware like tanks and aircraft that are useful in a large conventional war. 

The threat remains that he's a total lunatic, in which case we may indeed still be in the early days of WW3. 

I think the issue is pushing a paranoid Marvin too far and frankly the eu et al have done just that. The man is certifiable green bloody tarmac and the sooner his 'friends' shove him off this mortal coil the better for everyone.

Russians are as decent a bunch as you will find but this situation has the propensity to kill more than a few of those and he is, as his friends are. a little too needy of a depot injection and not bloody penicillin. The sheath technique for treating gonorrhea might be useful tho'.

Something worthy of thinking about.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-says-putin-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule

Just to show we’re not all horrible suburbanites in the outer London boroughs.

Ukraine: Meet the Londoners ready to host war refugees www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-60787818