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November 21, 2024 - 7:00am
Exit or escalation? This remains the most pressing question for both sides in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. After months of stalemate, a decision might have been made by Ukraine’s allies. Following US President Joe Biden’s move to allow Ukraine to use American ATACMS missiles and landmines in Russian territory, reports on Wednesday said that fragments of British Storm Shadow missiles had been found in the Russian region of Kursk.
Whatever the motivation behind Biden’s decision to climb up the escalatory ladder in the final days of his presidency, it has caught some Europeans, especially the Germans, off guard. Faced with snap elections in February next year, Chancellor Olaf Scholz had a surprise call with Vladimir Putin in the hopes of coaxing Russia to the negotiating table.
Scholz knows that the war is increasingly unpopular with the voter base of his Social Democratic Party (SPD). Since 2022, the SDP has been bleeding supporters to the Alternative for Germany (AfD) or the Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW), both of which oppose German support for Ukraine. Becoming a potential peace-broker could shore up Scholz’s popularity and also ensure that he will in fact be the leader of his party in the upcoming election.
There is a growing movement within the SPD that would prefer the current minister of defence, Boris Pistorius, to be the new leader of the party. At the same time, pressure is mounting from the political Left, where the leader of the Greens Robert Habeck has announced that Germany should follow the US and provide long range missiles to Ukraine.
For Scholz, the early elections have transformed the war from a foreign to a domestic issue. As Germany’s position has changed, the European consensus has given way. Poland and France want to permit Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory, Italy wants to restrict weapons use to Ukrainian territory, Austria wants neutrality, and Hungary remains ambiguous as always.
All of these factors increase the likelihood that Berlin will do whatever it can to bring the war, at least temporarily, to a conclusion, because this is the only scenario that would benefit Scholz both domestically and internationally. Peace or a ceasefire could persuade some AfD and BSW voters to return to the SPD and also put an end to the debate about missile deliveries to Kiev, solving one of the most contentious issues in European politics.
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SubscribeIt is a long time since “progressive” Western governments bent to the will of their parties, let alone public opinion. Sunak, Macron, Kamala, I’m looking at you. They’d rather lose elections and face electoral oblivion than do anything “popular”.
Scholz will do the bidding of those who helped get him where he is for as long as possible no matter the damage to his party and the interests of his country, safe in the knowledge there will be very generous rewards for his efforts after he leaves office. That means Scholz will continue his entirely performative hints at ending the war without actually doing anything to end the war. Scholz is hoping spin, messaging and signalling will shore up his party’s support for long enough to ride out the next elections.
Meanwhile, the same Biden that refused to agree the use of these missiles for 1000 days in office has suddenly authorised their use. But only after his and his party’s loss of government. Timing is everything. Trump will now inherit a far hotter war that will be far harder to de-escalate without appearing weak. Biden’s decision is a calculated gamble to bind Trump’s hand. There is a lot more mileage left in this war and Scholz and his people know that.
Yes absolutely right!
And the UK has just signed a defence pact with…Moldova…from which the UK can gain no benefit whatsoever, only liability. The parallel with the 1940 guarantee to Poland is self evident…no benefit, just liability and no prospect at all of actually defending Moldova.
The UK’s pact with Poland was streadfastly ignored by the UK when Germany invaded. The UK did nothing. And then when the USSR invaded the UK insisted the pact only concerned invasion by Germany, paving the way for continued occupation by the USSR.
As British diplomat Alexander Cadogan wrote of the pact with Poland, and is true of the pact with Moldova, “Naturally, our guarantee does not give any help to Poland. It can be said that it was cruel to Poland, even cynical”.
This is quite simply untrue.
Britain and France immediately declared war and started an immediate naval blockade of Germany. France actually started an invasion of the Saarland in 1939 (crossed the border into Germany).
Britain started air attacks against German military targets in 1939.
Britain fought and won the Battle of the River Plate against Germany in December 1939.
But I guess you must count that as “did nothing”.
What else were you realistically expecting we could have done in 1939 ? I’d suggest we did everything we practically could.
Let’s face it… it wasn’t Biden’s decision, either to withhold or now to allow the use of US weapons within Russian (or Russian-held) territory. Both decisions have been taken by those who’ve been keeping him in office (but not in power) for most of the past four years.
This latest act could actually be deemed Un-American, i.e. against the strategic interests of the US, and all out of spite at losing the election. What history will make of that (and the repercussions are yet to be fully felt) will be entirely negative.
Does anyone think Scholz actually has any influence on this ?
The only people that really matter here are Biden, Trump and Putin. Everything else is pretty much noise.
Good. Scholz is a lead weight around Germany’s neck, like Merkel before him.
And like whoever follows him. An election next year will crown another globalist continuity candidate as Chancellor. A grand and unworkable, unstable “progressive” coalition will be assembled if necessary to keep agents of change from winning.
Is it really ‘escalation’ to provide arms to a country for defensive purposes? Ukrainian incursions and aerial attacks on Russia have no offensive purpose; they are to degrade Russia’s ability to maintain and expand its unprovoked attacks. What’s it all about: this current , wishy-washy obsession with calling any form of legitimate self-defence ‘escalation’?
The difficulty is not the arms themselves. The difficulty is that the missiles require programming and satellite guidance which is provided by the countries which supplied them. Ukraine cannot do this alone.
Therefore the supplying countries are co belligerent and entirely legally open to attack on that basis.
Further the missiles supplied are nuclear capable. Russia cannot tell if they are actually nuclear armed. It makes the situation totally unstable and subject to emotional, rather than rational, decisions.