Dec 27, 2023. Posted by Balkan Periscope - Hellas
It's
dragging on too long. It's too much of a drain on our resources. It's not our
fight. These are some of the arguments - although to call them that gives them
too much credit - being pushed in Western capitals at the moment.
By STEPHEN
POLLARD
When
historians look back at our century from the vantage point of 2123, it’s
possible they will regard this month as being as disastrous for future peace
and prosperity – and freedom – as we now look back at the Munich Agreement of
September 1938, or Hitler’s invasion of the Rhineland in March 1936.
Our failure
to act against him then set the path which led to the Second World War.
Disastrously, at the very time when Ukraine needs our support – in money and
weapons – there are ever-louder calls for an accommodation to be reached with
Vladimir Putin: which means in reality rewarding him for invading Ukraine.
It’s
dragging on too long. It’s too much of a drain on our resources. It’s not our
fight. These are some of the arguments – although to call them that gives them
too much credit – being pushed in Western capitals at the moment.
Should they
hold sway, they will mark a devastating defeat for the forces of freedom. They
will show that the West is as weak as our enemies believe.
In February
2022 the West was near-unanimous in seeing Russia’s invasion as a
black-and-white issue. We stood solidly by Ukraine’s side, supplying weapons
and money, with eloquent speeches made pledging that the West would do whatever
it took to help repel the invaders.
This was
not altruism. It was – is – in all our interests that Russia is defeated. Had
we simply stood back and shrugged our shoulders, offering nothing except
solidarity, we would have been signing, if not our own, then the death warrant
of any notion of international order, let alone international law.
We would
have been signalling to Vladimir Putin and any other would-be aggressor that
while we might talk a good game of defence and security, when push came to
shove we would fold.
We would be
sending a clear message that violence and force pay – a terrible, disastrous
and ruinous message to send.
We know
this is true because history has shown it time and time again. In 1936, for
example, Hitler saw that he could break the terms of the Versailles Treaty by
invading the Rhineland and the rest of Europe would simply stand and watch.
Similarly,
when the German army entered Czechoslovakia in September 1939, we threw a hissy
fit but then walked away from confrontation when Hitler signed the Munich
Agreement – a meaningless piece of paper in which he said with a straight face
that he had no more territorial ambitions. No wonder he then invaded Poland.
More
recently, having spent a fortune in money and lives in Afghanistan fighting the
Taliban, in 2021 we simply cut and ran, with US soldiers fleeing Kabul in much
the same way as they left Saigon when it fell to the Viet Cong in 1975.
Vladimir
Putin will have drawn the same conclusion as everyone else: that the West is
spineless. He saw the same thing in 2014 when he invaded Crimea. We passed lots
of resolutions and issued full-throated condemnations but what we actually did
was: nothing. Which is why, eight years later, he invaded the rest of Ukraine.
Yes, we
leapt to its aid and gave it weapons and money. But there is a Taliban phrase
which is just as relevant for Ukraine: You have the watches, we have the time.
In other words, at some point you will run out of patience – and we will be
waiting when that happens. Which brings us to December 2023.
A fortnight
ago Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Washington to beg for help.
Last year he was serenaded with a joint session of Congress and a $50billion
aid package. But that aid runs out at the end of this month.
And, as
things stand, that’s it. There is no more money.
President
Biden understands why it is essential we do whatever it takes to defeat Russia,
but his Republican opponents have taken leave of their senses and are refusing
to consider more aid until Biden changes policy on illegal immigration.
I say they
have taken leave of their senses, but they are in reality pre-empting a return
to the White House by Donald Trump. The former president would stop all aid to
Ukraine, handing Putin a terrible victory.
It is
difficult to overstate how awful this is. Allowing Putin to walk away with land
gained from aggression would mark the end of international law and destroy the
next century.
The likes
of China, Iran and North Korea would see that the West remains as weak and
unreliable an ally as they have always believed. This is a disaster, and it is
one of the West’s shameful making
Express
(british)
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