If the purpose of the Munich agreement was to buy legitimacy then the British and and French governments were certainly delegitimised by being made to look such fools when Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia – by now defenceless -just six months later. The large Czech industrial base was very useful in sustaining Blitzkrieg in 1939-40. And given Britain and France did not even attempt to wage a brutal world war against Germany until Germany attacked them from May 1940, it is not obvious that any greater psychological readiness for war existed, or counted for anything, after Munich. The reality was than Germany was growing faster than Britain and France economically, and geographically also as it gobbled up Austria and Czechoslovakia, so every year of delay objectively benefited Germany. Chamberlain was meanwhile in 1938 meekly handing back British naval bases in Ireland. And if Munich was intended to impress the Americans, little good came of that until Japan forced the issue. With over a decade of senior cabinet experience before becoming PM, and son of Joseph and brother of the equally naive Austen, Chamberlain was no businessman come lately to politics. Lloyd George’s description of him as “a good Lord Mayor of Birmingham in a lean year” was closer to the mark than this unconvincing defence.
How extraordinary that you should use the opinion of that charlatan David Lloyd George to castigate Neville Chamberlain!
Surely you are aware that LG was an unabashed supporter of Adolph & Co?
As to the rest of your vilification of Chamberlain family, it is without substance and somewhat naive I have to say.
Lloyd George was an outstanding war leader, who transformed the British war effort after December 1916 to tremendous effect, and provided the template Churchill followed in World War Two.
True, but the alternative would have been letting either the Kaiser or Hitler conquer the continent, and provide a set of German feet to grovel at. It would certainly have let Britain keep its plunder, but if you really think that would have been a better outcome, I should like to hear your argument in detail.
Given our financial and naval power in 1914 I think we could have kept Kaiser Bill under control should his vaunted Schlieffen Plan have worked.
As to Adolph, we should have kept out of it, and let him get stuck into Stalin. Hopefully it would have been a long war of attrition from which British Industry could have benefited enormously, particularly if we could have supplied arms and equipment to both sides simultaneously
Incidentally had the aforementioned Schlieffen Plan, failed, we might have had a very similar opportunity for plunder and profit if that war to had turned to one of attrition.
As it was, as you well know, our prodigal son, the USA was to do precisely what we might have done! At least we ‘taught’ them/him well don’t you think?
British grand strategy for centuries had always been to stop a dominant power emerging on the European continent, whether the Hapsburgs, Louis 14th, Napoleon or Kaiser Wilhelm. I think those strategic thinkers got it right, rather than a few unconvincing mavericks who argue the opposite. History rather proves with Britain’s rise to power despite its clear military relative weakness on.land, and much lower population. It was far too risky to rely solely on the Royal Navy keeping invaders out, and one reason we did side with France go in the Great War, with Britain in its pomp, was so that France could provide more of the naval forces in the Mediterranean.
Your gleeful appeal to ‘plunder’ rather makes me feel that you have no appreciation whatever for Britain’s largely commercial and benign impact on the globe, as opposed to Germany in both world wars, which actually did plunder and pillage on an epic scale.
Of course in the very long run, it is inconceivable that Britain could have continued being more powerful than a continental power such as the United States, which was outproducing Britain and Germany combined by the 1890s, or that we could have kept the Empire. This of course, rather sadly given its current government system, now applies also to China.
I don’t think French naval forces had much to do with it. Thanks to Grey and Wilson were found ourselves massively committed to a European land war, something we had also studiously avoided in the past if at all possible*. Instead we relied on paying our European Allies massive subsidies to fight that war. It had worked well it must be said, until 1914-18.
Off course I appreciate the commercial aspects of the British Empire. My esteemed forebears were enthusiastic investors in the superb East India Company, the Slave Trade, the Hudson’s Bay Company and even the splendid Dutch East Indies Company, the VOC.
However talking about trade is rather boring compared the joys of plunder would you not agree?
(* A major exception being the War of the Spanish Succession 1701-13.)
(** I think they spell it Habsburg not Hapsburg in the homeland of Adolph.)
I’m glad you agree that there were ‘major exceptions’! As well as subsidising Prussia and other powers, Britain was in fact very often involved in land conflicts on the Continent albeit in alliance with other powers, a very sensible policy. I believe there was one chap called Marlborough and another called Wellington….
No fundamentally different in 1914. The subsidies to France, Italy Russia etc were just too great, and the British Army committed was just too big.
Marlborough was the major exception (singular), other 17th and 18th conflicts only required a comparatively small army commitment.
I suppose you might say the 19th Crimean War was a major departure, but it over with rather quickly mercifully.
Dead right Artaud. We have to rid ourselves of this mental disease that brings us into wars on moral grounds which end up wrecking us economically. I think this reaches deep into the heart of the Anglosphere – the latent moralising of the puritans.
You can see it evident across the media – if you’re ambivalent about the Ukraine you are worse than Jimmy Savile. What a nations of infantile, over emotional tards we are.
We should have never gone to war. At least until the Americans had been brought in.
It has ruined this country to the present day. I have sympathy for Chamberlain. The crass of declaring war because of Poland is beyond belief. What on earth could we have done to help her given the geography.
All parallels with the Ukraine are retarded views of history. Germany was producing machinery and munitions at enormous rates vs the west. The economics are the most important factor but the west is once again moralising than dealing with Realpolitik.
The war could have been over in 1916. Lloyd George saw a great political future for himself by fomenting it . With the help of the media, anyone speaking out against continuing this useless, pointless conflict was savaged, like the Duke of Devonshire. Imagine if peace has been agreed in 1916. No Russian revolution, no bloodletting in Italy, resulting in Mussolini , no Hitler, no dreadful Versailles and Trianon…and European countries would no5 have been weakened, impoverished and demoralised.
“The war could have been over in 1916” Even assuming that you know that for sure: On what conditions? With whose acceptance? Would Lloyd George changing his mind have been enough to get that outcome?
It should have been’ over’ in 1916 because we were nearly bankrupt. Lord Balfour was dispatched to the US to grovel at the feet of Paul Warburg * and other New York money lenders to beg them to extend their credit and also to enter the War on our behalf. The decisive argument being that if the Kaiser won he would not be paying Britain’s enormous debts and New York would take a terrible ‘ hit’.
Thus did we ‘win’! Even Pyrrhus would have been impressed.
How exactly could the war have ended in 1916? Presumably you would have advocated an Allied capitulation, since you and others making your case never seem to think that it should have been the Germans, who after all DID launch an unprovoked attack on Belgium, and of course committed many documented atrocities against Belgian and French civilians. They ALSO, when they had the chance, imposed a Carthaginian peace on Russia, so exactly why so many war sceptics think this would not have applied to Britain and France is a matter of pure faith. Faith and trust in the Kaiser and the militarists in Berlin? Gullible doesn’t begin to express it.
All the malign effects of the First World War are true, but that is all with the benefit of 20 / 20 hindsight. I think people calling for their own side to capitulate would have been at one time rightly been called ‘traitors’.
Yes, Lloyd George rather shamefully made some admiring comments about Hitler when he was a broken man, long out of power, but had been a very successful war leader in the First World War, ruthlessly driving up British war production and mobilisation.
What similar achievements can you claim of Chamberlain?
Come off it! LG a broken man! He was a serial philanderer or s*x pervert as we would say today, right up until almost the end.
Whist he certainly drove up war production he perused the war regardless of its financial consequences, of which, being a former Chancellor he was only too fully aware.
Thanks to his spat with Haig he almost lost the war in the Spring of 1918 by denying him vital infantry reinforcements.Even on his deathbed he greedily grabbed an Earldom.
It short, as the Welsh would say, he was a narcissistic
t**t.
Chamberlain was a far more honourable figure, who it is always forgotten was dying painfully of stomach cancer from about October 1939 to November 1940.
Churchill, as you may recall, was effusive with his praise and had Chamberlain’s remains interred in Westminster Abbey. What greater mark of respect could there be?
Good comment.
Germany was already 2-3 years ahead in the arms race and so any further delay didn’t change anything. And as you correctly point out – absorbing Austrian and Czech industries if anything widened the gap. For example the most effective ‘German’ tank until the Panzer III was not German but the Czech 38 (t).
Also good point about the US. That’s disingenuous of the author I think.
David Nebeský
2 years ago
The author is right: negotiating with Putin isn’t the same as dealing with Hitler. In 1938, the world could believe Hitler that the Sudetenland was his last demand. In 2022, we know that enslaving Ukraine is not even remotely Putin’s last goal. Putin openly wants to restore the territory of the former USSR, including its satellites. And many Russian politicians and ideologues in the Russian state media make no secret of the fact that Russia wants to conquer the whole of Europe by military force. So, what “compromise” does Alan Allport suggest? Let Russia conquer and enslave only the countries of the former Soviet Union, including the current NATO members? Or also the former members of the Warsaw Pact? And how many years does he think this will buy before Russia invades other countries?
Good to know there is someone among UnHerd readers who knows what Putin wants. You should apply for the secret service, your talents are much-needed there.
He perhaps knows what Putin wants because he has read was Putin has said? Listen to Gary Kasparov on the subject – he has been warning us about exactly this issue for over 20 years. You do not need to be in the secret service to obtain open source information.
What you say, is factually incorrect. But don’t worry, no fact-checker will correct you.
Putin has iterated many times that it would be impossible to bring the Soviet Union back. He knows very well that it would be impossible to invade and occupy all former Soviet states, let alone the countries of the former Warsaw Pact, let alone Europe.
The main questions remains the same, though. How much does he want, eventually? If we give in now, what will he demand next? Are we willing to give him everything he wants, now and in the future, to avoid war? And once he realises that, how is he going to exploit it? If not, what is the point where we should take the risk and stay ‘stop’?
Last edited 2 years ago by Rasmus Fogh
Martin Logan
2 years ago
The real point about Munich was that it encouraged Hitler’s delusive belief that he could easily conquer and dominate Europe.
But in 1938 the German army was as unprepared for war as the allies. A war in Czechoslovakia, and then Poland, was more than most Germans would have stood for. Indeed, no one in Germany was celebrating when the Wehrmacht attacked in Sept 1939. It was only after they won that Hitler seemed a genius.
One of the present war’s aims is to show that Putin is NOT a genius.
It’s well documented that if the Allies had stood up to the Germans re-occupying the German territories right at the start, they would have backed down – no doubt to return at a later date, but that would have bought the allies even more time, without the material benefits of Austria and Czechoslovakia.
David McKee
2 years ago
Chamberlain understood the Thucydides Trap decades before Graham Allison expounded it. Essentially, if you are an existing power, and a rising power is trying to muscle in on your turf, what do you do? Fight or accommodate? With the Americans around 1900, Britain accommodated. With the Germans in 1914, Britain fought.
In 1938, Nazi Germany wanted to unify the German-speaking peoples, and to expand its economic influence into SE Europe. Chamberlain wanted to accommodate. (He had little choice. The French were unwilling to fight Germany, and Hitler knew it.) He wanted to show Hitler the primrose path to peace. He did not understand that Hitler _wanted_ war. It was only with the destruction of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, that the penny dropped with Chamberlain, Parliament and the British people that Hitler could not be trusted, and had to be stopped.
Well put Sir!
However issuing the notorious ‘blank cheque’ to Poland, guaranteeing her independence and our intervention if she was attacked was not a brilliant move! Whilst the secret clause that this did not apply if the Soviet Union*was the aggressor was simply disgraceful.
Poor old Chamberlain, one can only sympathise that he had to make such an awful choice.
(* In the event Stalin paused for 14 days before following Adolph to feast on the still warm Polish corpse.)
I love people who have it both ways! Providing a guarantee to Poland was, you imply, foolish and naïve, but not doing so against the Soviets was ‘disgraceful’?!
So Britain should have declared war on both Germany and the Soviet Union at the same time? I thought you considered yourself a realist? Germany had a continued record of aggression, the Soviets at that time did not.
With all respect to the Polish nation, it wasn’t Poland as such that was the line in the sand, but that at some point the British establishment, including Chamberlain, realised a line in the sand had to be drawn.
Well if you recall we very nearly did end up at war with both Hitler & Stalin thanks to the Finnish War. Thankfully the Finns surrendered before our ‘task force’ arrived!
However the duplicity of the Polish Guarantee was a disgrace. Stalin was clearly a menace and we should have done our best to encourage Hitler and Stalin to destroy themselves. Was the FO asleep or like Mi16 just riddled with treacherous Communists? We shall probably never know.
Alan Thorpe
2 years ago
This article fails to deal with an earlier sign of Hitler’s intentions. The Versailles treaty agreed that the Rhineland would be a demilitarised zone. Hitler sent in troops and France and Britain did nothing.
John Lee
2 years ago
I have always thought that Chamberlain has been given a raw deal by history.
Chamberlain was a serving officer during the 1st world war and did not want those horrors meted out to another generation of British youth.
He also knew that the 1st world war had ruined the British economy and that we were in no place to wage another major war. His policies may have been proved wrong by future events but his motives were not borne out of cowardice.
You are correct, he has been grossly vilified for decades.
However he was not a ‘serving officer’ during the Great War, but rather a junior member of the Government. He was in fact 45 in 1914, a little too old for combat.
He was what we would now call a financial expert and fully understood the terrible financial damage that the war had inflicted on the British Empire, and as you so correctly say, fully aware the we just couldn’t afford another war.
Sadly his friend Churchill had little understanding of finance, either personal or national. As we would say today he just couldn’t “do the maths”.
No, I agree, you should not impute such a characteristics because of a genuine desire for peace and horror of war.
Jim R
2 years ago
When Chamberlain went to visit Hitler in Germany, the German people greeted him as a hero – they lined the streets to wave to him. German newspapers treated him as a hero. It drove Hitler mad that ordinary Germans supported Chamberlain’s efforts, and there are theories that it was this dynamic that forced Hitler to negotiate when he wanted early war with the unprepared allies. For all sorts of reasons that year was critical to prepare for the coming fight – and Hitler is known to have harboured a grudge to his final days against Chamberlain for outmaneuvering him. Why can’t we give Chamberlain the credit Hitler did?
You mean that Chamberlain predicted it was likely that Hitler would conquer the rest of Chechoslovakia within a year, and that peace in our time would last no longer than that?
It is fun to point out that he said “Peace in our time” and that proved to be incorrect. The situation was more complicated than could fit in to a tweet. Regardless of what he said, he knew Britain was not ready for war with Germany and needed more time. Hitler knew the sooner he provoked open conflict the better. Hitler is known to have considered that agreement one of his biggest blunders. That ought to be remembered when people trot out the simplistic narratives.
From an interview with Robert Harris: “the best witness is Adolf Hitler … a diary written by Joachim Fest, the German historian, who ghost-wrote Albert Speer’s memoirs — Speer was Hitler’s armaments minister. And he asked Speer about Munich, and Speer said Hitler was in a foul mood for weeks after Munich, and at a dinner party it all came pouring out. He said, the German people have been duped, and by Chamberlain of all people. And even at the end of his life in 1945, Hitler was saying, “We should have gone to war in 1938, September 1938 would have been the perfect time.” And I think if the British and the French had gone to war in September 1938, Hitler might well have survived a lot longer and been much more triumphant.”
You can only have one national myth, and ours is the Churchillian one. Consummatum est!
Francisco Menezes
2 years ago
Clever!
Andrew Fisher
2 years ago
A good attempt with a very weak hand. The US was irrelevant in 1938 and 1938, Britain and France were far stronger than Germany from 1936 to 8, and got successively relatively weaker the longer time went on.
France did capitulate to become a Nazi ally, Great Britain very nearly did so in 1940. A Nazi dominated Europe (possibly for a while shared with its fellow totalitarian state the Soviet Union was a probably a more than evens chance. It was Churchill, whatever his many faults, who prevented that, but, boy, was it close.
The author could just have said, we daren’t mess with Russia because it has nuclear weapons, which is a fair enough point, and left it at that.
Last edited 2 years ago by Andrew Fisher
ARNAUD ALMARIC
2 years ago
An apposite essay that is long overdue on these pages. The reality check contained in the final three paragraph says it all. “You don’t argue with a man who has thirty Legions at his back”*.
Thus could the US (population 350 million) pound Iraq (population 36 million) into the ground with impunity, in an act of barbarism than even exceeds Mr Putin’s current savagery.
Are you a European Trotskyist? You sound like one. When our side invades a country it is a terrible wrong (indeed, in Iraq it was). When the other side invades a country it is just fine, and it is a terrible wrong for us to interfere and try to help them resist. The one constant theme is that everything we do is evil, and so we should do nothing and leave it to less morally compromised characters like Putin to make the weather.
What’s wrong with your powers of comprehension?I am no apologist for Putin, but by comparative analysis his barbarism is less than ours, and we should know better.
After all we are the heirs of Greece & Rome, the creators of the greatest civilisation ever seen, and this fit of moral outrage over Putin’s savagery is grossly hypocritical, and all rather embarrassing.
What is this “comparative analysis” of which you speak ? How does that work ? Please show your working that demonstrates that “his barbarism is less than ours” so the rest of us can catch up.
OK, so I assume you’ve already got the meter running and have already included Putin’s massacres in Syria (plus Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, … _ I think some nasty stuff in Africa too). What’s your current score for Putin ? When do you predict he hits 500K (at the current rate) ?
The only people massacred in Georgia were the hapless South Ossetians, shelled by Georgia. What is it about the successor states to the USSR that they shell civilians who want to be independent?
South Ossetia: 162 civilians, according to Russia;[24]365 people killed in total, according to South Ossetia;[25][26] 255 wounded, according to Russia[24]
Georgia: 224 civilians killed and 15 missing, 547 injured according to Georgia[23]
Using your logic that the USA is responsible for all the deaths in Iraq…. Estimates of the total number of deaths in the Syrian Civil War, by opposition activist groups, vary between 499,657 and about 610,000 as of March 2022 So Russia is responsible for all these deaths – that puts Putin ahead on your meter, doesn’t it?
The US and their loathsome Saudi ‘allies’ are responsible for both starting the synthetic Syrian rebellion and for at least 50% of the casualties.
Incidentally these ‘usual suspects’ are it again in the Yemen, but I have yet to find a reasonable body count.
The US did not ‘pound Iraq into the ground’. The Iraqis did that to themselves. The US and others went in to prevent a murderous dictator from slaughtering his own people. As a left wing commentator put it ‘Saddam is a threat to his people, a threat to the region, and a threat to the world’. But once his jackboot was off their necks, the Iraqis resumed what they had been doing for centuries before, and as the Libyans and Syrians have done in the same situation: slaughtering each other. As these wars, and the Yemen, demonstrate, destroying your tribal, religious, sectarian, ethnic etc enemies is, even if you destroy your own society in the process, far more important than building a future for your family.
Which part of GAW’s assessment does your rude WUT retort refer to?
And, yes, indeed – and not just any man, by the way.
Johann Strauss
2 years ago
Very well argued. I’m in total agreement, although many on Unherd have become excessively jingoistic and appear to be rooting for war with Russia, a war which would result in mutual destruction without doubt, should push ever come to shove.
I don’t believe I’ve read a single comment on here that proposed NATO sending in combat troops to fight the Russians. What they have took umbrage with is your constant opinion pieces stating that Ukraine should have given up its sovereignty without a fight simply to appease Putins paranoia
It’s not my homeland, and it’s not something I’m prepared to risk my life over. Many people have gone to assist the Ukrainians and they have my utmost respect, however my point is that millions of Ukrainians have decided that they are willing to risk their lives to fight for their nations freedom, but according to yourself they should instead roll over and allow Russia to do as it pleases.
We’ll all agree that war is a terrible thing, however sometimes it is justified, and the Ukrainians cause is worth them fighting for in my eyes.
For a man who spent the whole pandemic accusing western governments of taking away peoples freedom, you seem quite happy to suggest the Ukrainians should give theirs up willingly to the Russian invaders
Precisely, it’s not your homeland. and Ukraine is of not a security concern of the West. One can deplore Putin’s invasion, while at the same time realize that this is a conflict we would do well to stay as far away as possible from it. The stakes are very high and the possibility of a major blunder is very real. Last Saturday Biden demanded regime change; previously he had told the US military in Poland that they would be in Ukraine. And I listened live to Biden’s speech in Poland, and there was no question what he said as he went off script.
Worth reading: https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/03/29/the-incoherence-at-the-heart-of-nato/
As for your comment about COVID, seems that at the last Pandemic Recovery APPG, a group of MPs and Peers, numerous scientists testified to the fact that lockdowns cost more lives than they saved! (https://dailysceptic.org/2022/03/30/lockdowns-cost-more-lives-than-they-saved-and-must-not-happen-again-scientists-tell-mps/)
Russia’s attempt to conquer and enslave Europe’s largest country, with a number of huge factories capable of instantly mass-producing Russian weapons and missiles, and with a deep dry dock suitable for building large military ships, has no security (if you don’t care about the moral) significance for the West? You do know that we are talking about a Russia that has consistently attacked its neighbors and openly desires to subjugate all the countries that the Soviet Union subjugated after 1945, do you?
You have zero evidence for your statement. And you do realize that Ukraine was part of Russia just as Scotland and Wales are part of the UK, or Texas is part of the USA. So what exactly are you talking about. Ukraine can’t be equated to Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, etc….
I think the main lesson of this fiasco is that Russia is no longer a significant power–and cannot be treated as such.
It is on a par with North Korea–a rogue nuclear state that is dysfunctional in all other respects.
I would suggest that that assessment is not exactly on the mark. First Russia is a lot lot richer and resource rich than N. Korea. Second the Russians have 6000 nuclear warheads. Perhaps wiser to tread carefully rather than enter into a conflict with Russia that could easily lead to devastating consequences for all of humanity.
The comparison stands.
Both nations have nuclear weapons, and the West is rightly concerned about the judgement, if not the sanity, of both leaders.
Moreover, at at least for the West (and any sane nation concerned about its long term survival), Russia’s carbon “riches” will eventually become obsolete.
And under Putin, Russia has no Plan B.
Except to become Northwest Korea.
This isn’t as football game. War is accompanied by a lot of death and horror. If Putin is going to win, surely it’s better to try and reduce casualties rather than try and increase them, especially when the West isn’t putting any blood and treasure on the line. i.e. the west is fighting a proxy war with Russia through Ukraine. That is potentially a very dangerous situation where one false step can lead to global disaster.
Thinking about this more, I do not believe the article that this was Putin’s plan all along. It looks very much like the idea was a quick fait-accompli regime change in Kyiv. But it might well be his Plan B. Take the gas fields and the ports, and reduce Ukraine to a landlocked rump dependent either on his good will or western charity. If he insists on control of Ukraine and has no problem with bloody wars it might well work, too.
As for Ukraine, they are free to surrender at any time. Fighting is their choice. Why should we refuse to give them what they desperately want, making their choices for them, particularly when that fighting is also in our interest? For it is, you know. A quick win for Putin would minimise death and destruction, sure. It would also show Putin that wars of conquest were cheap and easy, and that no one dared resist him. Armed with that knowledge he would be highly likely to start another war soon. Agaist someone in Europe. Again, if you can see a stable long-time solution ahead, I should like to know what it is, and what you think someone needs to give to Putin to stop him trying for more.
You may be, and I hope you are right, but North Korea still survives. And are you sure that ‘the West’ can maintain its united front (only for a few weeks) and wean itself off Russian oil and gas, for the long haul? Western governments are already coming under pressure over living standards, which are going to get a lot, lot worse.
Sorry if I am being rude, but do people on here so love being contrarian for the sake of it that they feel compelled to say absolutely daft things? Putin has 6,000 or whatever nuclear missiles capable of wiping out the US and Europe. Whatever else it may be – and unfortunately it is becoming ever more of a dictatorship – Russia is a powerful military power. Even if not an economic one, many nations are also beholden to its oil and gas supplies.
Nobody here is rooting for a no-fly zone, let alone sending western tanks to Ukraine. You, however, are insisting that it was wrong for the west to support Ukraine in their desire for some independence from Russia. Even by peaceful means. Even politically. In practice you are saying that we should have supported Putin against Ukraine from day one. I, for one, disagree.
That’s certainly not the impression I’ve got from you and others. And incidentally, the sanctions imposed by the West correspond to total economic war. We in the West had better be careful that they don’t backfire and we don’t end up worse than we started. Massive prices hikes in food and gas (petrol), inflation, etc….. Those things will have consequences and are destabilizing. Another very real potential concern is the loss of the world’s currency reserve status for the dollar. If that happens, the massive US debt will represent a very real problem that can’t just be brushed away. Time will tell. Let’s see what the situation is in a couple of months when the west has lost interest and when the US public has had enough of the self-inflicted economic pain.
“That’s certainly not the impression I’ve got from you and others” You are jumping to conclusions, then. Maybe we should all get better a being clear on what we – and the other guy – are actually saying. Speaking of which, I am still waiting to hear from you which outcome you are actually advocating for, beyond the fact that whatever happens we should have no active part in it.
All I’m saying is that if conflict was occurring, let’s say close to Siberia, nobody in Europe or the US would care. What I’m also saying is that if one is going to interfere in a dispute one had better have a good plan of action and and end-goal. If that goal is as Biden stated so clearly on Saturday (and he hasn’t walked it back despite White House efforts) we are likely to end up in a worse place than where we started. At the very least one should be aware of that possibility, given the US’s outstanding successes (sarc!) in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, various South American countries, etc…..
You are still not saying what outcome you are advocating for.
We care more in Ukraine than we would in Uzbekistan? Sure. Just like I care more about street violence in my home town than in Djibouti. So? It is risky to act? Sure. We have made a fair few blunders in the past? Sure. That still does not let you off the hook. You are proposing a different course of action. Tell us what you expect the consequences to be, and why they would be better.
I’m not going to propose anything because it’s up to the Russians and Ukrainians to sort out what in effect is almost a civil war, without interference from the West which is likely to make things worse rather than better.
That choice is not necessarily wrong. It is certainly what we ought to have done in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it might just possibly be the least bad choice even here. But when you argue for any course of (in)action, you have a moral duty to face up to the likely consequences. If you think that the best course of actions includes letting Saddam Hussein, or Bashir Assad, continue to terrorise ther populations, or Putin conquer and forcibly Russify Ukraine, fine. But you have to be able to say it openly, and defend it. If you shy away from admitting to the consequences of your own actions, you are trying to fool someone, quite likely yourself.
The term ‘total economic war’ to mean sanctions is already biased. It has simply been invented, never used before, to kind of justify that the West is at war with Russia, and presumably any attack Putin makes on any western forces. Many of the sanctions have been imposed by private businesses, who really don’t want the reputational damage.
Well, we get annoyed by posturing about BLM etc, but if we are pusillanimous and ‘on the one hand, on the other’ in the face of a full scale unprovoked invasion, then things are very bad indeed. We’d better hope the cynical realpolitik doesn’t come back to bite us. Of course Putin is well known for exhausting all peaceful means of resolving conflicts, such as flattening Grozny, Aleppo and now Kharkov!
I just jib at the one-sided ‘realpolitik’, if such it is. Putin has been ‘waging total cyber war’ against the West, not to mention actually killing British civilians on our own soil, you could have mentioned.
If you can’t see that the West has imposed such severe sanctions including stopping SWIFT etc… than what else can it be possibly be considered as anything other than total economic war. At least see the sanctions for what they are. Now one is perfectly entitled to believe that they are a good thing but also worth noting than once sanctions are in place they tend to be very difficult to remove.
Exactly, far too many armchair Lance Corporals on this site, not to mention a plethora of ‘outraged’ Linda Snells*, whose pernicious influence has recently seen the departure of many of the best commentators!
(* A BBC Radio, dreadful Soap Opera character for US readers.)
That’s Linda Snell MBE I’ll have you know ! Yes, she’s one of those characters that seemed a monstrosity at the start (think also Dot Cotton, Alan Partridge), but has aged rather well and is now a pillar of the community in Ambridge (US readers: we’re talking about “The Archers”, a long-running BBC Radio 4 soap opera).
I for one wouldn’t want to be going up against any military unit led by Linda Snell !
Touché,
Yes it is, and I have corrected it elsewhere today on UnHerd.
However despite you protestations you seem to have omitted it* yourself in the final line of your post!
This war has revealed all the failings of Putin’s regime over the last two decades. It is the greatest strategic blunder of the 21st Century.
Whether Putin–or even Russia–can survive it is the real question.
Putin’s nuclear weapon of choice is thought to be an 800 Kiloton device.
Detonated 5,000 feet above Paddington Station even the garden Gnomes in Neasden, five miles away, will be vaporised!
Thus we have something to look forward to wouldn’t you say?
If Putin’s that mad, then there’s little we can do to stop him. So I don’t worry about it – beyond my control.
Not going to happen though. The West will never give him any legitimate trigger point to do this. It will be a gradual ratcheting of pressure and not big steps by the US. Eventually something on the Russian end will crack as the pain becomes unbearable. Whether that’s economic, military or psychological pain or some combination of these.
Perhaps but perhaps not. Let’s wait and see several months down the road. Could be that the massive sanctions imposed by the West may backfire negatively on the West and could also represent, in your words, “the greatest strategic blunder of the 21st Century”. Apart from anything else they are so severe that they are not exactly conducive to any negotiated settlement or with Putin walking back to Russia with his tail between his legs.
Maybe we’ve had our turn on this globe anyway.
‘All hail the cockroaches!’
Mike Fraser
2 years ago
Resolution 377 known as the “United for Peace” resolution, allowed the United Nations General Assembly to circumvent Russia’s veto recently and voted overwhelmingly to deplore Russia’s actions and demand its immediate withdrawal from Ukraine.
Why has this not been followed up by a vote recommending the establishment of an emergency force?
Ian Stewart
2 years ago
Yet another devil’s advocate article from Unherd, seeking attention with a ‘controversial’ opinion. I’d rather you don’t publish anything if you can only do provocative-for-the-sake-of-it pieces like this.
Martin Logan
2 years ago
Since Luttwak did not predict the invasion, and the CIA did, I suspect there is more than a little professional envy here.
“By their fruits shall ye know them…”
If the purpose of the Munich agreement was to buy legitimacy then the British and and French governments were certainly delegitimised by being made to look such fools when Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia – by now defenceless -just six months later. The large Czech industrial base was very useful in sustaining Blitzkrieg in 1939-40. And given Britain and France did not even attempt to wage a brutal world war against Germany until Germany attacked them from May 1940, it is not obvious that any greater psychological readiness for war existed, or counted for anything, after Munich. The reality was than Germany was growing faster than Britain and France economically, and geographically also as it gobbled up Austria and Czechoslovakia, so every year of delay objectively benefited Germany. Chamberlain was meanwhile in 1938 meekly handing back British naval bases in Ireland. And if Munich was intended to impress the Americans, little good came of that until Japan forced the issue. With over a decade of senior cabinet experience before becoming PM, and son of Joseph and brother of the equally naive Austen, Chamberlain was no businessman come lately to politics. Lloyd George’s description of him as “a good Lord Mayor of Birmingham in a lean year” was closer to the mark than this unconvincing defence.
How extraordinary that you should use the opinion of that charlatan David Lloyd George to castigate Neville Chamberlain!
Surely you are aware that LG was an unabashed supporter of Adolph & Co?
As to the rest of your vilification of Chamberlain family, it is without substance and somewhat naive I have to say.
Lloyd George was an outstanding war leader, who transformed the British war effort after December 1916 to tremendous effect, and provided the template Churchill followed in World War Two.
Both of them bankrupt the country, and thereby reduced us to the position of a client state, grovelling at the feet of the USA.
Three centuries of profit & plunder we squandered by these two fantasists in the twinkle of an eye.
True, but the alternative would have been letting either the Kaiser or Hitler conquer the continent, and provide a set of German feet to grovel at. It would certainly have let Britain keep its plunder, but if you really think that would have been a better outcome, I should like to hear your argument in detail.
Given our financial and naval power in 1914 I think we could have kept Kaiser Bill under control should his vaunted Schlieffen Plan have worked.
As to Adolph, we should have kept out of it, and let him get stuck into Stalin. Hopefully it would have been a long war of attrition from which British Industry could have benefited enormously, particularly if we could have supplied arms and equipment to both sides simultaneously
Incidentally had the aforementioned Schlieffen Plan, failed, we might have had a very similar opportunity for plunder and profit if that war to had turned to one of attrition.
As it was, as you well know, our prodigal son, the USA was to do precisely what we might have done! At least we ‘taught’ them/him well don’t you think?
British grand strategy for centuries had always been to stop a dominant power emerging on the European continent, whether the Hapsburgs, Louis 14th, Napoleon or Kaiser Wilhelm. I think those strategic thinkers got it right, rather than a few unconvincing mavericks who argue the opposite. History rather proves with Britain’s rise to power despite its clear military relative weakness on.land, and much lower population. It was far too risky to rely solely on the Royal Navy keeping invaders out, and one reason we did side with France go in the Great War, with Britain in its pomp, was so that France could provide more of the naval forces in the Mediterranean.
Your gleeful appeal to ‘plunder’ rather makes me feel that you have no appreciation whatever for Britain’s largely commercial and benign impact on the globe, as opposed to Germany in both world wars, which actually did plunder and pillage on an epic scale.
Of course in the very long run, it is inconceivable that Britain could have continued being more powerful than a continental power such as the United States, which was outproducing Britain and Germany combined by the 1890s, or that we could have kept the Empire. This of course, rather sadly given its current government system, now applies also to China.
I don’t think French naval forces had much to do with it. Thanks to Grey and Wilson were found ourselves massively committed to a European land war, something we had also studiously avoided in the past if at all possible*. Instead we relied on paying our European Allies massive subsidies to fight that war. It had worked well it must be said, until 1914-18.
Off course I appreciate the commercial aspects of the British Empire. My esteemed forebears were enthusiastic investors in the superb East India Company, the Slave Trade, the Hudson’s Bay Company and even the splendid Dutch East Indies Company, the VOC.
However talking about trade is rather boring compared the joys of plunder would you not agree?
(* A major exception being the War of the Spanish Succession 1701-13.)
(** I think they spell it Habsburg not Hapsburg in the homeland of Adolph.)
I’m glad you agree that there were ‘major exceptions’! As well as subsidising Prussia and other powers, Britain was in fact very often involved in land conflicts on the Continent albeit in alliance with other powers, a very sensible policy. I believe there was one chap called Marlborough and another called Wellington….
So, not so different from the First World War!
No fundamentally different in 1914. The subsidies to France, Italy Russia etc were just too great, and the British Army committed was just too big.
Marlborough was the major exception (singular), other 17th and 18th conflicts only required a comparatively small army commitment.
I suppose you might say the 19th Crimean War was a major departure, but it over with rather quickly mercifully.
Dead right Artaud. We have to rid ourselves of this mental disease that brings us into wars on moral grounds which end up wrecking us economically. I think this reaches deep into the heart of the Anglosphere – the latent moralising of the puritans.
You can see it evident across the media – if you’re ambivalent about the Ukraine you are worse than Jimmy Savile. What a nations of infantile, over emotional tards we are.
Who cares? Hitler took it anyway – thus your comment is utterly pointless.
We should have never gone to war. At least until the Americans had been brought in.
It has ruined this country to the present day. I have sympathy for Chamberlain. The crass of declaring war because of Poland is beyond belief. What on earth could we have done to help her given the geography.
All parallels with the Ukraine are retarded views of history. Germany was producing machinery and munitions at enormous rates vs the west. The economics are the most important factor but the west is once again moralising than dealing with Realpolitik.
The war could have been over in 1916. Lloyd George saw a great political future for himself by fomenting it . With the help of the media, anyone speaking out against continuing this useless, pointless conflict was savaged, like the Duke of Devonshire. Imagine if peace has been agreed in 1916. No Russian revolution, no bloodletting in Italy, resulting in Mussolini , no Hitler, no dreadful Versailles and Trianon…and European countries would no5 have been weakened, impoverished and demoralised.
“The war could have been over in 1916” Even assuming that you know that for sure: On what conditions? With whose acceptance? Would Lloyd George changing his mind have been enough to get that outcome?
It should have been’ over’ in 1916 because we were nearly bankrupt. Lord Balfour was dispatched to the US to grovel at the feet of Paul Warburg * and other New York money lenders to beg them to extend their credit and also to enter the War on our behalf. The decisive argument being that if the Kaiser won he would not be paying Britain’s enormous debts and New York would take a terrible ‘ hit’.
Thus did we ‘win’! Even Pyrrhus would have been impressed.
(* First ‘Chair’ of the Federal Reserve.)
How exactly could the war have ended in 1916? Presumably you would have advocated an Allied capitulation, since you and others making your case never seem to think that it should have been the Germans, who after all DID launch an unprovoked attack on Belgium, and of course committed many documented atrocities against Belgian and French civilians. They ALSO, when they had the chance, imposed a Carthaginian peace on Russia, so exactly why so many war sceptics think this would not have applied to Britain and France is a matter of pure faith. Faith and trust in the Kaiser and the militarists in Berlin? Gullible doesn’t begin to express it.
All the malign effects of the First World War are true, but that is all with the benefit of 20 / 20 hindsight. I think people calling for their own side to capitulate would have been at one time rightly been called ‘traitors’.
Yes, Lloyd George rather shamefully made some admiring comments about Hitler when he was a broken man, long out of power, but had been a very successful war leader in the First World War, ruthlessly driving up British war production and mobilisation.
What similar achievements can you claim of Chamberlain?
Come off it! LG a broken man! He was a serial philanderer or s*x pervert as we would say today, right up until almost the end.
Whist he certainly drove up war production he perused the war regardless of its financial consequences, of which, being a former Chancellor he was only too fully aware.
Thanks to his spat with Haig he almost lost the war in the Spring of 1918 by denying him vital infantry reinforcements.Even on his deathbed he greedily grabbed an Earldom.
It short, as the Welsh would say, he was a narcissistic
t**t.
Chamberlain was a far more honourable figure, who it is always forgotten was dying painfully of stomach cancer from about October 1939 to November 1940.
Churchill, as you may recall, was effusive with his praise and had Chamberlain’s remains interred in Westminster Abbey. What greater mark of respect could there be?
Good comment.
Germany was already 2-3 years ahead in the arms race and so any further delay didn’t change anything. And as you correctly point out – absorbing Austrian and Czech industries if anything widened the gap. For example the most effective ‘German’ tank until the Panzer III was not German but the Czech 38 (t).
Also good point about the US. That’s disingenuous of the author I think.
The author is right: negotiating with Putin isn’t the same as dealing with Hitler.
In 1938, the world could believe Hitler that the Sudetenland was his last demand. In 2022, we know that enslaving Ukraine is not even remotely Putin’s last goal. Putin openly wants to restore the territory of the former USSR, including its satellites. And many Russian politicians and ideologues in the Russian state media make no secret of the fact that Russia wants to conquer the whole of Europe by military force.
So, what “compromise” does Alan Allport suggest? Let Russia conquer and enslave only the countries of the former Soviet Union, including the current NATO members? Or also the former members of the Warsaw Pact? And how many years does he think this will buy before Russia invades other countries?
Good to know there is someone among UnHerd readers who knows what Putin wants. You should apply for the secret service, your talents are much-needed there.
He perhaps knows what Putin wants because he has read was Putin has said? Listen to Gary Kasparov on the subject – he has been warning us about exactly this issue for over 20 years. You do not need to be in the secret service to obtain open source information.
I wrote “Putin openly wants”, not “secretly wants”. Putin said many time he wants Soviet Union back. Even you should know that.
What you say, is factually incorrect. But don’t worry, no fact-checker will correct you.
Putin has iterated many times that it would be impossible to bring the Soviet Union back. He knows very well that it would be impossible to invade and occupy all former Soviet states, let alone the countries of the former Warsaw Pact, let alone Europe.
In the end, all such comparisons are moot. Hitler did not have an arsenal of Nuclear weapons at his disposal.
That fact entirely changes the dynamic.
The main questions remains the same, though. How much does he want, eventually? If we give in now, what will he demand next? Are we willing to give him everything he wants, now and in the future, to avoid war? And once he realises that, how is he going to exploit it? If not, what is the point where we should take the risk and stay ‘stop’?
The real point about Munich was that it encouraged Hitler’s delusive belief that he could easily conquer and dominate Europe.
But in 1938 the German army was as unprepared for war as the allies. A war in Czechoslovakia, and then Poland, was more than most Germans would have stood for. Indeed, no one in Germany was celebrating when the Wehrmacht attacked in Sept 1939. It was only after they won that Hitler seemed a genius.
One of the present war’s aims is to show that Putin is NOT a genius.
It’s well documented that if the Allies had stood up to the Germans re-occupying the German territories right at the start, they would have backed down – no doubt to return at a later date, but that would have bought the allies even more time, without the material benefits of Austria and Czechoslovakia.
Chamberlain understood the Thucydides Trap decades before Graham Allison expounded it. Essentially, if you are an existing power, and a rising power is trying to muscle in on your turf, what do you do? Fight or accommodate? With the Americans around 1900, Britain accommodated. With the Germans in 1914, Britain fought.
In 1938, Nazi Germany wanted to unify the German-speaking peoples, and to expand its economic influence into SE Europe. Chamberlain wanted to accommodate. (He had little choice. The French were unwilling to fight Germany, and Hitler knew it.) He wanted to show Hitler the primrose path to peace. He did not understand that Hitler _wanted_ war. It was only with the destruction of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, that the penny dropped with Chamberlain, Parliament and the British people that Hitler could not be trusted, and had to be stopped.
Well put Sir!
However issuing the notorious ‘blank cheque’ to Poland, guaranteeing her independence and our intervention if she was attacked was not a brilliant move! Whilst the secret clause that this did not apply if the Soviet Union*was the aggressor was simply disgraceful.
Poor old Chamberlain, one can only sympathise that he had to make such an awful choice.
(* In the event Stalin paused for 14 days before following Adolph to feast on the still warm Polish corpse.)
I love people who have it both ways! Providing a guarantee to Poland was, you imply, foolish and naïve, but not doing so against the Soviets was ‘disgraceful’?!
So Britain should have declared war on both Germany and the Soviet Union at the same time? I thought you considered yourself a realist? Germany had a continued record of aggression, the Soviets at that time did not.
With all respect to the Polish nation, it wasn’t Poland as such that was the line in the sand, but that at some point the British establishment, including Chamberlain, realised a line in the sand had to be drawn.
Well if you recall we very nearly did end up at war with both Hitler & Stalin thanks to the Finnish War. Thankfully the Finns surrendered before our ‘task force’ arrived!
However the duplicity of the Polish Guarantee was a disgrace. Stalin was clearly a menace and we should have done our best to encourage Hitler and Stalin to destroy themselves. Was the FO asleep or like Mi16 just riddled with treacherous Communists? We shall probably never know.
This article fails to deal with an earlier sign of Hitler’s intentions. The Versailles treaty agreed that the Rhineland would be a demilitarised zone. Hitler sent in troops and France and Britain did nothing.
I have always thought that Chamberlain has been given a raw deal by history.
Chamberlain was a serving officer during the 1st world war and did not want those horrors meted out to another generation of British youth.
He also knew that the 1st world war had ruined the British economy and that we were in no place to wage another major war. His policies may have been proved wrong by future events but his motives were not borne out of cowardice.
You are correct, he has been grossly vilified for decades.
However he was not a ‘serving officer’ during the Great War, but rather a junior member of the Government. He was in fact 45 in 1914, a little too old for combat.
He was what we would now call a financial expert and fully understood the terrible financial damage that the war had inflicted on the British Empire, and as you so correctly say, fully aware the we just couldn’t afford another war.
Sadly his friend Churchill had little understanding of finance, either personal or national. As we would say today he just couldn’t “do the maths”.
No, I agree, you should not impute such a characteristics because of a genuine desire for peace and horror of war.
When Chamberlain went to visit Hitler in Germany, the German people greeted him as a hero – they lined the streets to wave to him. German newspapers treated him as a hero. It drove Hitler mad that ordinary Germans supported Chamberlain’s efforts, and there are theories that it was this dynamic that forced Hitler to negotiate when he wanted early war with the unprepared allies. For all sorts of reasons that year was critical to prepare for the coming fight – and Hitler is known to have harboured a grudge to his final days against Chamberlain for outmaneuvering him. Why can’t we give Chamberlain the credit Hitler did?
You mean that Chamberlain predicted it was likely that Hitler would conquer the rest of Chechoslovakia within a year, and that peace in our time would last no longer than that?
It is fun to point out that he said “Peace in our time” and that proved to be incorrect. The situation was more complicated than could fit in to a tweet. Regardless of what he said, he knew Britain was not ready for war with Germany and needed more time. Hitler knew the sooner he provoked open conflict the better. Hitler is known to have considered that agreement one of his biggest blunders. That ought to be remembered when people trot out the simplistic narratives.
“Hitler is known to have considered that agreement one of his biggest blunders.” Do you have a source for that, because I never heard it before?
From an interview with Robert Harris: “the best witness is Adolf Hitler … a diary written by Joachim Fest, the German historian, who ghost-wrote Albert Speer’s memoirs — Speer was Hitler’s armaments minister. And he asked Speer about Munich, and Speer said Hitler was in a foul mood for weeks after Munich, and at a dinner party it all came pouring out. He said, the German people have been duped, and by Chamberlain of all people. And even at the end of his life in 1945, Hitler was saying, “We should have gone to war in 1938, September 1938 would have been the perfect time.” And I think if the British and the French had gone to war in September 1938, Hitler might well have survived a lot longer and been much more triumphant.”
You can only have one national myth, and ours is the Churchillian one. Consummatum est!
Clever!
A good attempt with a very weak hand. The US was irrelevant in 1938 and 1938, Britain and France were far stronger than Germany from 1936 to 8, and got successively relatively weaker the longer time went on.
France did capitulate to become a Nazi ally, Great Britain very nearly did so in 1940. A Nazi dominated Europe (possibly for a while shared with its fellow totalitarian state the Soviet Union was a probably a more than evens chance. It was Churchill, whatever his many faults, who prevented that, but, boy, was it close.
The author could just have said, we daren’t mess with Russia because it has nuclear weapons, which is a fair enough point, and left it at that.
An apposite essay that is long overdue on these pages. The reality check contained in the final three paragraph says it all. “You don’t argue with a man who has thirty Legions at his back”*.
Thus could the US (population 350 million) pound Iraq (population 36 million) into the ground with impunity, in an act of barbarism than even exceeds Mr Putin’s current savagery.
(* Who said that, about whom, anyone?)
Are you a European Trotskyist? You sound like one. When our side invades a country it is a terrible wrong (indeed, in Iraq it was). When the other side invades a country it is just fine, and it is a terrible wrong for us to interfere and try to help them resist. The one constant theme is that everything we do is evil, and so we should do nothing and leave it to less morally compromised characters like Putin to make the weather.
What’s wrong with your powers of comprehension?I am no apologist for Putin, but by comparative analysis his barbarism is less than ours, and we should know better.
After all we are the heirs of Greece & Rome, the creators of the greatest civilisation ever seen, and this fit of moral outrage over Putin’s savagery is grossly hypocritical, and all rather embarrassing.
What is this “comparative analysis” of which you speak ? How does that work ? Please show your working that demonstrates that “his barbarism is less than ours” so the rest of us can catch up.
The ‘butchers bill’ for Iraq exceeds 500,000. When Putin’s approaches that I will alter my opinion.
OK, so I assume you’ve already got the meter running and have already included Putin’s massacres in Syria (plus Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, … _ I think some nasty stuff in Africa too). What’s your current score for Putin ? When do you predict he hits 500K (at the current rate) ?
I think he is about half way, but my sources are rather limited at present.
The only people massacred in Georgia were the hapless South Ossetians, shelled by Georgia. What is it about the successor states to the USSR that they shell civilians who want to be independent?
The only people?
Using your logic that the USA is responsible for all the deaths in Iraq….
Estimates of the total number of deaths in the Syrian Civil War, by opposition activist groups, vary between 499,657 and about 610,000 as of March 2022
So Russia is responsible for all these deaths – that puts Putin ahead on your meter, doesn’t it?
The US and their loathsome Saudi ‘allies’ are responsible for both starting the synthetic Syrian rebellion and for at least 50% of the casualties.
Incidentally these ‘usual suspects’ are it again in the Yemen, but I have yet to find a reasonable body count.
I believe that what Arnaud is saying is simply that “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones”.
The US did not ‘pound Iraq into the ground’. The Iraqis did that to themselves. The US and others went in to prevent a murderous dictator from slaughtering his own people. As a left wing commentator put it ‘Saddam is a threat to his people, a threat to the region, and a threat to the world’. But once his jackboot was off their necks, the Iraqis resumed what they had been doing for centuries before, and as the Libyans and Syrians have done in the same situation: slaughtering each other. As these wars, and the Yemen, demonstrate, destroying your tribal, religious, sectarian, ethnic etc enemies is, even if you destroy your own society in the process, far more important than building a future for your family.
What utter tosh, you don’t seriously believe that?
Next you will be telling me a man rose from the dead!
Which part of GAW’s assessment does your rude WUT retort refer to?
And, yes, indeed – and not just any man, by the way.
Very well argued. I’m in total agreement, although many on Unherd have become excessively jingoistic and appear to be rooting for war with Russia, a war which would result in mutual destruction without doubt, should push ever come to shove.
I don’t believe I’ve read a single comment on here that proposed NATO sending in combat troops to fight the Russians. What they have took umbrage with is your constant opinion pieces stating that Ukraine should have given up its sovereignty without a fight simply to appease Putins paranoia
Johan that is not the point and that is a spurious response that means no one will listen to you so maybe time to stop beating that particular drum …
It’s not my homeland, and it’s not something I’m prepared to risk my life over. Many people have gone to assist the Ukrainians and they have my utmost respect, however my point is that millions of Ukrainians have decided that they are willing to risk their lives to fight for their nations freedom, but according to yourself they should instead roll over and allow Russia to do as it pleases.
We’ll all agree that war is a terrible thing, however sometimes it is justified, and the Ukrainians cause is worth them fighting for in my eyes.
For a man who spent the whole pandemic accusing western governments of taking away peoples freedom, you seem quite happy to suggest the Ukrainians should give theirs up willingly to the Russian invaders
Precisely, it’s not your homeland. and Ukraine is of not a security concern of the West. One can deplore Putin’s invasion, while at the same time realize that this is a conflict we would do well to stay as far away as possible from it. The stakes are very high and the possibility of a major blunder is very real. Last Saturday Biden demanded regime change; previously he had told the US military in Poland that they would be in Ukraine. And I listened live to Biden’s speech in Poland, and there was no question what he said as he went off script.
Worth reading: https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/03/29/the-incoherence-at-the-heart-of-nato/
As for your comment about COVID, seems that at the last Pandemic Recovery APPG, a group of MPs and Peers, numerous scientists testified to the fact that lockdowns cost more lives than they saved! (https://dailysceptic.org/2022/03/30/lockdowns-cost-more-lives-than-they-saved-and-must-not-happen-again-scientists-tell-mps/)
Russia’s attempt to conquer and enslave Europe’s largest country, with a number of huge factories capable of instantly mass-producing Russian weapons and missiles, and with a deep dry dock suitable for building large military ships, has no security (if you don’t care about the moral) significance for the West? You do know that we are talking about a Russia that has consistently attacked its neighbors and openly desires to subjugate all the countries that the Soviet Union subjugated after 1945, do you?
You have zero evidence for your statement. And you do realize that Ukraine was part of Russia just as Scotland and Wales are part of the UK, or Texas is part of the USA. So what exactly are you talking about. Ukraine can’t be equated to Poland, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, etc….
Withdrawn; Unkind.
Same
Sadly only a few for Francisco Franco & Co it must be said.
I think the main lesson of this fiasco is that Russia is no longer a significant power–and cannot be treated as such.
It is on a par with North Korea–a rogue nuclear state that is dysfunctional in all other respects.
I would suggest that that assessment is not exactly on the mark. First Russia is a lot lot richer and resource rich than N. Korea. Second the Russians have 6000 nuclear warheads. Perhaps wiser to tread carefully rather than enter into a conflict with Russia that could easily lead to devastating consequences for all of humanity.
The comparison stands.
Both nations have nuclear weapons, and the West is rightly concerned about the judgement, if not the sanity, of both leaders.
Moreover, at at least for the West (and any sane nation concerned about its long term survival), Russia’s carbon “riches” will eventually become obsolete.
And under Putin, Russia has no Plan B.
Except to become Northwest Korea.
You might wish to read this article originally published in none other than the New York Times: https://dnyuz.com/2022/03/29/what-if-putin-didnt-miscalculate/. Might give you a little different perspective.
Interesting – but still not an argument for letting him have an easy win.
This isn’t as football game. War is accompanied by a lot of death and horror. If Putin is going to win, surely it’s better to try and reduce casualties rather than try and increase them, especially when the West isn’t putting any blood and treasure on the line. i.e. the west is fighting a proxy war with Russia through Ukraine. That is potentially a very dangerous situation where one false step can lead to global disaster.
Thinking about this more, I do not believe the article that this was Putin’s plan all along. It looks very much like the idea was a quick fait-accompli regime change in Kyiv. But it might well be his Plan B. Take the gas fields and the ports, and reduce Ukraine to a landlocked rump dependent either on his good will or western charity. If he insists on control of Ukraine and has no problem with bloody wars it might well work, too.
As for Ukraine, they are free to surrender at any time. Fighting is their choice. Why should we refuse to give them what they desperately want, making their choices for them, particularly when that fighting is also in our interest? For it is, you know. A quick win for Putin would minimise death and destruction, sure. It would also show Putin that wars of conquest were cheap and easy, and that no one dared resist him. Armed with that knowledge he would be highly likely to start another war soon. Agaist someone in Europe. Again, if you can see a stable long-time solution ahead, I should like to know what it is, and what you think someone needs to give to Putin to stop him trying for more.
You may be, and I hope you are right, but North Korea still survives. And are you sure that ‘the West’ can maintain its united front (only for a few weeks) and wean itself off Russian oil and gas, for the long haul? Western governments are already coming under pressure over living standards, which are going to get a lot, lot worse.
Sorry if I am being rude, but do people on here so love being contrarian for the sake of it that they feel compelled to say absolutely daft things? Putin has 6,000 or whatever nuclear missiles capable of wiping out the US and Europe. Whatever else it may be – and unfortunately it is becoming ever more of a dictatorship – Russia is a powerful military power. Even if not an economic one, many nations are also beholden to its oil and gas supplies.
It’s called banter, have you not heard of it ? Or do you have the terrible misfortune to be an American may I ask?
Nobody here is rooting for a no-fly zone, let alone sending western tanks to Ukraine. You, however, are insisting that it was wrong for the west to support Ukraine in their desire for some independence from Russia. Even by peaceful means. Even politically. In practice you are saying that we should have supported Putin against Ukraine from day one. I, for one, disagree.
That’s certainly not the impression I’ve got from you and others. And incidentally, the sanctions imposed by the West correspond to total economic war. We in the West had better be careful that they don’t backfire and we don’t end up worse than we started. Massive prices hikes in food and gas (petrol), inflation, etc….. Those things will have consequences and are destabilizing. Another very real potential concern is the loss of the world’s currency reserve status for the dollar. If that happens, the massive US debt will represent a very real problem that can’t just be brushed away. Time will tell. Let’s see what the situation is in a couple of months when the west has lost interest and when the US public has had enough of the self-inflicted economic pain.
“That’s certainly not the impression I’ve got from you and others” You are jumping to conclusions, then. Maybe we should all get better a being clear on what we – and the other guy – are actually saying. Speaking of which, I am still waiting to hear from you which outcome you are actually advocating for, beyond the fact that whatever happens we should have no active part in it.
All I’m saying is that if conflict was occurring, let’s say close to Siberia, nobody in Europe or the US would care. What I’m also saying is that if one is going to interfere in a dispute one had better have a good plan of action and and end-goal. If that goal is as Biden stated so clearly on Saturday (and he hasn’t walked it back despite White House efforts) we are likely to end up in a worse place than where we started. At the very least one should be aware of that possibility, given the US’s outstanding successes (sarc!) in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, various South American countries, etc…..
South America isn’t Communist, which is in fact a rather successful outcome of US policy, whatever the faults elsewhere on the globe.
No it’s even worse than Communist, look at Mexico, medieval barbarism at its very best.
You must lead a very sheltered life if I may say so.
You are still not saying what outcome you are advocating for.
We care more in Ukraine than we would in Uzbekistan? Sure. Just like I care more about street violence in my home town than in Djibouti. So? It is risky to act? Sure. We have made a fair few blunders in the past? Sure. That still does not let you off the hook. You are proposing a different course of action. Tell us what you expect the consequences to be, and why they would be better.
I’m not going to propose anything because it’s up to the Russians and Ukrainians to sort out what in effect is almost a civil war, without interference from the West which is likely to make things worse rather than better.
[Rewritten as too combative]
That choice is not necessarily wrong. It is certainly what we ought to have done in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it might just possibly be the least bad choice even here. But when you argue for any course of (in)action, you have a moral duty to face up to the likely consequences. If you think that the best course of actions includes letting Saddam Hussein, or Bashir Assad, continue to terrorise ther populations, or Putin conquer and forcibly Russify Ukraine, fine. But you have to be able to say it openly, and defend it. If you shy away from admitting to the consequences of your own actions, you are trying to fool someone, quite likely yourself.
The term ‘total economic war’ to mean sanctions is already biased. It has simply been invented, never used before, to kind of justify that the West is at war with Russia, and presumably any attack Putin makes on any western forces. Many of the sanctions have been imposed by private businesses, who really don’t want the reputational damage.
Well, we get annoyed by posturing about BLM etc, but if we are pusillanimous and ‘on the one hand, on the other’ in the face of a full scale unprovoked invasion, then things are very bad indeed. We’d better hope the cynical realpolitik doesn’t come back to bite us. Of course Putin is well known for exhausting all peaceful means of resolving conflicts, such as flattening Grozny, Aleppo and now Kharkov!
I just jib at the one-sided ‘realpolitik’, if such it is. Putin has been ‘waging total cyber war’ against the West, not to mention actually killing British civilians on our own soil, you could have mentioned.
If you can’t see that the West has imposed such severe sanctions including stopping SWIFT etc… than what else can it be possibly be considered as anything other than total economic war. At least see the sanctions for what they are. Now one is perfectly entitled to believe that they are a good thing but also worth noting than once sanctions are in place they tend to be very difficult to remove.
Exactly, far too many armchair Lance Corporals on this site, not to mention a plethora of ‘outraged’ Linda Snells*, whose pernicious influence has recently seen the departure of many of the best commentators!
(* A BBC Radio, dreadful Soap Opera character for US readers.)
That’s Linda Snell MBE I’ll have you know ! Yes, she’s one of those characters that seemed a monstrosity at the start (think also Dot Cotton, Alan Partridge), but has aged rather well and is now a pillar of the community in Ambridge (US readers: we’re talking about “The Archers”, a long-running BBC Radio 4 soap opera).
I for one wouldn’t want to be going up against any military unit led by Linda Snell !
Touché,
Yes it is, and I have corrected it elsewhere today on UnHerd.
However despite you protestations you seem to have omitted it* yourself in the final line of your post!
(*MBE.)
This war has revealed all the failings of Putin’s regime over the last two decades. It is the greatest strategic blunder of the 21st Century.
Whether Putin–or even Russia–can survive it is the real question.
“So far”. It’s only 2022. Still time for plenty more.
Putin’s nuclear weapon of choice is thought to be an 800 Kiloton device.
Detonated 5,000 feet above Paddington Station even the garden Gnomes in Neasden, five miles away, will be vaporised!
Thus we have something to look forward to wouldn’t you say?
If Putin’s that mad, then there’s little we can do to stop him. So I don’t worry about it – beyond my control.
Not going to happen though. The West will never give him any legitimate trigger point to do this. It will be a gradual ratcheting of pressure and not big steps by the US. Eventually something on the Russian end will crack as the pain becomes unbearable. Whether that’s economic, military or psychological pain or some combination of these.
I admire your confidence.
Never in the history of humanity has a war started because of ‘gradual ratcheting of pressure’. Oh no, wait – that’s how every war starts.
Perhaps but perhaps not. Let’s wait and see several months down the road. Could be that the massive sanctions imposed by the West may backfire negatively on the West and could also represent, in your words, “the greatest strategic blunder of the 21st Century”. Apart from anything else they are so severe that they are not exactly conducive to any negotiated settlement or with Putin walking back to Russia with his tail between his legs.
Maybe we’ve had our turn on this globe anyway.
‘All hail the cockroaches!’
Resolution 377 known as the “United for Peace” resolution, allowed the United Nations General Assembly to circumvent Russia’s veto recently and voted overwhelmingly to deplore Russia’s actions and demand its immediate withdrawal from Ukraine.
Why has this not been followed up by a vote recommending the establishment of an emergency force?
Yet another devil’s advocate article from Unherd, seeking attention with a ‘controversial’ opinion. I’d rather you don’t publish anything if you can only do provocative-for-the-sake-of-it pieces like this.
Since Luttwak did not predict the invasion, and the CIA did, I suspect there is more than a little professional envy here.
“By their fruits shall ye know them…”
Aren’t you commenting on the ‘wrong’ piece?
Luttwak is is next door!