A very interesting article about a subject unlikely to be reported outside the specialist literature.
Ian Stewart
2 years ago
Given that Putin’s primary justification for this war is based on the shared roots and ethnicity of the Slavs in Russia and Ukraine (and Belarus), I’m rather surprised that no one has raised the issue of how Russian Slavs will feel about Chechnya Muslims slaughtering their fellow Ukrainians Slavs. I don’t think they’ll be at all happy about it, and it severely undermines Putin’s claim of defending Slavs.
But I’ve yet to see any commentator, including this writer, mention that aspect. Am I wrong in thinking this could be a big deal in the aftermath of the war?
A very good point.
In the early days of the Irish Rebellion 1969-1996 we could have deployed Gurkha troops, who no doubt would have solved the problem overnight.
In the event we didn’t, and preferred to use ‘Aunt Sally’ tactics with disastrous results.
Putin obviously lacks our scruples, but we should not be surprised. After all both the Tsars and Stalin had no compunction at all in slaughtering thousands of fellow Polish Slavs and others.
I don’t think he is ADVOCATING their use! I very much doubt that the Gurkhas would have ‘solved the Irish problem overnight’ because essentially the British had lost all political legitimacy among the Irish population by the time of the Anglo-Irish war. Defeating an insurgency with public support is very hard, short of using utterly brutal methods; we could not defeat the Provisional IRA in the small state of Northern Ireland after all. It is not at all likely that British public support for a policy of complete repression in Ireland could have been maintained, which of course is precisely why there was a truce and a negotiated settlement.
The reason why the Provos led by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness decided to in effect sue for peace is that they realised that they could not defeat the British army. That sounds a bit like a military defeat.
The Gurkhas* plus Derek Wilford’s I Para and the 39 Brigade Commander, Frank Kitson would probably have ‘wrapped it up in six months’, but to the detriment of the future of the British Army it must, reluctantly be said.
(* An optional extra, which again it must be said.)
Defeat them? Murderers who used the skirts of women to hide: cowardly bombs & bullets to achieve for them what democracy would not? How does a standing army achieve that? There are many historically divided islands that live with the status quo-trying to right a wrong perpetrated 00’s of years ago by murdering the descendents is an obscenity.
I was one of the Aunt Sally’s you refer to in the COIN operation known as Op BANNER. I do not recognise this Irish Rebellion you refer to at all. That had already happened after WW1 and resulted in the partition of Ireland leading to the present situation. The mention of the use of Gurkha units is a red herring and in any event would not have made any difference.
Really! How extraordinary so was I. I hadn’t heard that dreadful acronym COIN before, how odious.
I cannot follow your logic. Yes there had been an Irish Rebellion between 1916-21, but after years of poverty and peace which lasted until 1969, there was the outbreak of Rebellion II, which the British Public quite happily endured for more than thirty years.*
I fail to see how the use of Gurkha troops is a “red herring” in the context of this article where the use of Muslim Chechens against Christian Slavs seems to be the point. I would have thought the parallels were obvious.
Incidentally thank God we didn’t use the Gurkhas and the philosophy of Derek Wilford and Frank Kitson and destroy the the IRA at birth. As you may recall this was the era of massive Defence cuts by Dennis Healey & Co, even the Agile & Suffering Highlanders** were almost disbanded despite their recent sterling service in Aden. In fact Ireland gave the Army another lease of life, a thirty year live firing training area, which would not have been the case had things been wrapped up in say 1971-2, would you not agree?
(* In answer to Andrew Fisher.)
(** Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders for the uninitiated.)
Good point. Franco notoriously used Moroccan troops in his ‘reconquista’ of (Republican) Spain, who were noted for their brutality. They probably had no particularly good reason for loving the Spanish in general (there had been an ongoing colonial war which Franco put down).
Nearly half the Free French Army in September 1944 was ‘black’.
They were later to be defrauded of their pensions by the French Government in 1959. C’est la vie!
>Russian Slavs will feel about Chechnya Muslims slaughtering their fellow Ukrainians Slavs
It seems the Chechens are annihilating Azov and similar n**i creatures. I hear they are not considered to be Slavs even by Ukrainian Slavs. People escaped from Mariupol held by Azov are telling things.
Martin Logan
2 years ago
We need to start thinking about what happens should Putin fall.
It’s doubtful that Kadyrov would have any loyalty to the regime that replaces Putin. It’s also doubtful that any other Russian leader would be able to hold the country together. Certainly no one in the Duma has any legitimacy.
It would thus be very tempting for Kadyrov to expand into part of Ingushetia and other parts of the Caucasus.
Things may get as messy as during the Russian Civil War.
ARNAUD ALMARIC
2 years ago
Chechnya is an irrelevance.
Smaller that the island of Sardinia in both size and population, it is a mere pawn on the board.
In UK terms it would be like having the support of the Isle of Wight or in US terms, Rhode Island.
Size is not everything, as the Spartans historically, among others, showed. Fighting spirit and a reputation for brutality can, unfortunately, mean that small units can punch well above their weight, especially in the context of a lumbering regular army made up largely of poorly motivated conscripts.
Sparta was destroyed by Epaminondas at Leuctra despite outnumbering them 10:7.
Normally, as Voltaire said “ God is on the side of the big Battalions “
Joe Donovan
2 years ago
In the noon-day sun in the Valley of Dagestan, I lay motionless with a bullet in my breast … Drop by drop my blood ran out.
So wrote Turgenev. The more things change …
Somewhat disjointed claims none of which offer much conviction. Does the deployment of this force threaten UKR or is it a vanity play? Do these forces even speak Ukrainian and if not how well can they infiltrate or do their psych ops? Is their PR strategy just self aggrandizing or are they doing real damage? Try again
Neven Curlin
2 years ago
The first month of President Putin’s most recent invasion of Ukraine has not gone according to plan: the initial drive to Kyiv has stalled; his forces have sustained heavy losses; support from his inner circle has been tentative or lacking.
These are all assumptions, but you’re presenting them as fact! And that’s just the first paragraph of your piece. How do you expect me to continue to read?
Andy E
2 years ago
>The first month of President Putin’s most recent invasion of Ukraine has not gone according to plan
I had to force myself over those first lines. (another idiot, I thought — how in the world you might know what the plan is!).
But in fact it’s a very thorough and deep look at the issue. I guess a stylistic analysis would show that the first and last paragrahs belong to one author and the rest is to another.
Dan Croitoru
2 years ago
Another article from the bed wetting liberal magazine. Something closer to the truth: after 8 years of genocide against the Russian minority in Donbas and almost a complete takeover of Ukr by western funded crooks Russia had no choice but to intervene. It had no intention to take Kiev but had to position nearby in case the West invades.
…you don’t even engage with the argument. Silently and fearfully careful not to melt, you depose your dislikes… ha ha ha ha ha ha. C’mon warriors for freedom, that’s all you can do? Dislike and try to censor?
Be careful, the censorship on UnHerd in recent weeks has been absolutely dreadful. Far too many erudite commentators have simply ‘vanished’.
However let’s hear more about the 8 years of genocide, a few facts and figures would be a good start. Perhaps also something about the Ukraine’s first attempt at real independence in 1917 might also be useful.
’.
1917? Really? You can find about the Donbas genocide (from before 2010) on the web (of course not on neo-con/neo-lib sites such as UnHerd). For example, look for Donbas documentary (I think is now available on YT – Donbass – 2016. Documentary Anne-Laure Bonnel) I hope they did not remove it. Btw, they refused the screening of this doc on any TV channel in Europe.
1917. Ukraine gained quasi independence thanks to the Imperial German Army led by that military genius, one Max Hoffman.
Thanks for the YT info, I shall explore.
8 years? It is a wonder there are any Russian speakers left! You haven’t actually provided any arguments, though you do tell a number of outright lies. Then again, you are a pro-Putin troll, or judging by your weird language, an outright nutter.
Shelling Kharkov, a Russian speaking city, to smithereens. What a brilliant policy promoting the brotherhood of the East Slav peoples!
It is a shame we can’t contribute to the wide ranging debate going on in Russia, that land of freedom, rather than this western hellhole. And of course we know how Putin is famed for his humanitarian interventions in Chechnya, Syria and now Ukraine.
There, as we all know, he constantly demonstrates his love of the East Slav and especially Russian speaking population of Kharkov by providing copious supplies and aid – oh no, he DOESN’T?! What the hell do you mean, he shells the city to smithereens?! You are a western liar!! Or, if you are not then the local commanders must be to blame!
Hail Putin, the glorious freedom loving leader of the Eastern Slavs (plus various Muslims etc..)
Nobody ever got shot going over the Berlin Wall to climb into the promised land of East Germany and it’s the same today. Plenty will criticise the West and Western democracies and leaders..not one would leave to live in Russia- let alone go there and criticise that leader.
A very interesting article about a subject unlikely to be reported outside the specialist literature.
Given that Putin’s primary justification for this war is based on the shared roots and ethnicity of the Slavs in Russia and Ukraine (and Belarus), I’m rather surprised that no one has raised the issue of how Russian Slavs will feel about Chechnya Muslims slaughtering their fellow Ukrainians Slavs. I don’t think they’ll be at all happy about it, and it severely undermines Putin’s claim of defending Slavs.
But I’ve yet to see any commentator, including this writer, mention that aspect. Am I wrong in thinking this could be a big deal in the aftermath of the war?
A very good point.
In the early days of the Irish Rebellion 1969-1996 we could have deployed Gurkha troops, who no doubt would have solved the problem overnight.
In the event we didn’t, and preferred to use ‘Aunt Sally’ tactics with disastrous results.
Putin obviously lacks our scruples, but we should not be surprised. After all both the Tsars and Stalin had no compunction at all in slaughtering thousands of fellow Polish Slavs and others.
I don’t think he is ADVOCATING their use! I very much doubt that the Gurkhas would have ‘solved the Irish problem overnight’ because essentially the British had lost all political legitimacy among the Irish population by the time of the Anglo-Irish war. Defeating an insurgency with public support is very hard, short of using utterly brutal methods; we could not defeat the Provisional IRA in the small state of Northern Ireland after all. It is not at all likely that British public support for a policy of complete repression in Ireland could have been maintained, which of course is precisely why there was a truce and a negotiated settlement.
The reason why the Provos led by Gerry Adams and Martin McGuiness decided to in effect sue for peace is that they realised that they could not defeat the British army. That sounds a bit like a military defeat.
As indeed it was. However one must remember that ‘self praise is no recommendation’ mustn’t one?
The IRA were not operating out of Northern Ireland but out of the South with the complicity of the Irish government.
And the US Government via that odious organisation called NORAID, to which both Biden and Pelosi and countless others are closet supporters.
The Gurkhas* plus Derek Wilford’s I Para and the 39 Brigade Commander, Frank Kitson would probably have ‘wrapped it up in six months’, but to the detriment of the future of the British Army it must, reluctantly be said.
(* An optional extra, which again it must be said.)
Defeat them? Murderers who used the skirts of women to hide: cowardly bombs & bullets to achieve for them what democracy would not? How does a standing army achieve that? There are many historically divided islands that live with the status quo-trying to right a wrong perpetrated 00’s of years ago by murdering the descendents is an obscenity.
I was one of the Aunt Sally’s you refer to in the COIN operation known as Op BANNER. I do not recognise this Irish Rebellion you refer to at all. That had already happened after WW1 and resulted in the partition of Ireland leading to the present situation. The mention of the use of Gurkha units is a red herring and in any event would not have made any difference.
Really! How extraordinary so was I. I hadn’t heard that dreadful acronym COIN before, how odious.
I cannot follow your logic. Yes there had been an Irish Rebellion between 1916-21, but after years of poverty and peace which lasted until 1969, there was the outbreak of Rebellion II, which the British Public quite happily endured for more than thirty years.*
I fail to see how the use of Gurkha troops is a “red herring” in the context of this article where the use of Muslim Chechens against Christian Slavs seems to be the point. I would have thought the parallels were obvious.
Incidentally thank God we didn’t use the Gurkhas and the philosophy of Derek Wilford and Frank Kitson and destroy the the IRA at birth. As you may recall this was the era of massive Defence cuts by Dennis Healey & Co, even the Agile & Suffering Highlanders** were almost disbanded despite their recent sterling service in Aden. In fact Ireland gave the Army another lease of life, a thirty year live firing training area, which would not have been the case had things been wrapped up in say 1971-2, would you not agree?
(* In answer to Andrew Fisher.)
(** Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders for the uninitiated.)
‘In the early days of the Irish Rebellion 1969-1996 we could have deployed Gurkha troops, who no doubt would have solved the problem overnight.’
You couldn’t, otherwise you would have done so.
We could, but unfortunately Harold Wilson was a socialist worm. QED.
Good point. Franco notoriously used Moroccan troops in his ‘reconquista’ of (Republican) Spain, who were noted for their brutality. They probably had no particularly good reason for loving the Spanish in general (there had been an ongoing colonial war which Franco put down).
Nearly half the Free French Army in September 1944 was ‘black’.
They were later to be defrauded of their pensions by the French Government in 1959. C’est la vie!
>Russian Slavs will feel about Chechnya Muslims slaughtering their fellow Ukrainians Slavs
It seems the Chechens are annihilating Azov and similar n**i creatures. I hear they are not considered to be Slavs even by Ukrainian Slavs. People escaped from Mariupol held by Azov are telling things.
We need to start thinking about what happens should Putin fall.
It’s doubtful that Kadyrov would have any loyalty to the regime that replaces Putin. It’s also doubtful that any other Russian leader would be able to hold the country together. Certainly no one in the Duma has any legitimacy.
It would thus be very tempting for Kadyrov to expand into part of Ingushetia and other parts of the Caucasus.
Things may get as messy as during the Russian Civil War.
Chechnya is an irrelevance.
Smaller that the island of Sardinia in both size and population, it is a mere pawn on the board.
In UK terms it would be like having the support of the Isle of Wight or in US terms, Rhode Island.
Size is not everything, as the Spartans historically, among others, showed. Fighting spirit and a reputation for brutality can, unfortunately, mean that small units can punch well above their weight, especially in the context of a lumbering regular army made up largely of poorly motivated conscripts.
Sparta was destroyed by Epaminondas at Leuctra despite outnumbering them 10:7.
Normally, as Voltaire said “ God is on the side of the big Battalions “
In the noon-day sun in the Valley of Dagestan, I lay motionless with a bullet in my breast … Drop by drop my blood ran out.
So wrote Turgenev. The more things change …
Someone else wrote that I think.
Somewhat disjointed claims none of which offer much conviction. Does the deployment of this force threaten UKR or is it a vanity play? Do these forces even speak Ukrainian and if not how well can they infiltrate or do their psych ops? Is their PR strategy just self aggrandizing or are they doing real damage? Try again
These are all assumptions, but you’re presenting them as fact! And that’s just the first paragraph of your piece. How do you expect me to continue to read?
>The first month of President Putin’s most recent invasion of Ukraine has not gone according to plan
I had to force myself over those first lines. (another idiot, I thought — how in the world you might know what the plan is!).
But in fact it’s a very thorough and deep look at the issue. I guess a stylistic analysis would show that the first and last paragrahs belong to one author and the rest is to another.
Another article from the bed wetting liberal magazine. Something closer to the truth: after 8 years of genocide against the Russian minority in Donbas and almost a complete takeover of Ukr by western funded crooks Russia had no choice but to intervene. It had no intention to take Kiev but had to position nearby in case the West invades.
Dear oh dear oh dear.
…you don’t even engage with the argument. Silently and fearfully careful not to melt, you depose your dislikes… ha ha ha ha ha ha. C’mon warriors for freedom, that’s all you can do? Dislike and try to censor?
Be careful, the censorship on UnHerd in recent weeks has been absolutely dreadful. Far too many erudite commentators have simply ‘vanished’.
However let’s hear more about the 8 years of genocide, a few facts and figures would be a good start. Perhaps also something about the Ukraine’s first attempt at real independence in 1917 might also be useful.
’.
1917? Really? You can find about the Donbas genocide (from before 2010) on the web (of course not on neo-con/neo-lib sites such as UnHerd). For example, look for Donbas documentary (I think is now available on YT – Donbass – 2016. Documentary Anne-Laure Bonnel) I hope they did not remove it. Btw, they refused the screening of this doc on any TV channel in Europe.
1917. Ukraine gained quasi independence thanks to the Imperial German Army led by that military genius, one Max Hoffman.
Thanks for the YT info, I shall explore.
8 years? It is a wonder there are any Russian speakers left! You haven’t actually provided any arguments, though you do tell a number of outright lies. Then again, you are a pro-Putin troll, or judging by your weird language, an outright nutter.
Shelling Kharkov, a Russian speaking city, to smithereens. What a brilliant policy promoting the brotherhood of the East Slav peoples!
It is a shame we can’t contribute to the wide ranging debate going on in Russia, that land of freedom, rather than this western hellhole. And of course we know how Putin is famed for his humanitarian interventions in Chechnya, Syria and now Ukraine.
There, as we all know, he constantly demonstrates his love of the East Slav and especially Russian speaking population of Kharkov by providing copious supplies and aid – oh no, he DOESN’T?! What the hell do you mean, he shells the city to smithereens?! You are a western liar!! Or, if you are not then the local commanders must be to blame!
Hail Putin, the glorious freedom loving leader of the Eastern Slavs (plus various Muslims etc..)
Nobody ever got shot going over the Berlin Wall to climb into the promised land of East Germany and it’s the same today. Plenty will criticise the West and Western democracies and leaders..not one would leave to live in Russia- let alone go there and criticise that leader.
weird
Are we bed wetters or are we crooks?. Something of a contradiction there I feel…