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.
This will also put pressure on Volodymyr Zelensky to start negotiating seriously. The Ukrainian President was not happy with the phone call between Scholz and Putin, but he must have realised that, despite Joe Biden’s actions, time is actually running out. As a politician he knows that he cannot count on Scholz to prioritise a Ukrainian victory over his own political survival.
Ironically, Olaf Scholz could become the most ardent supporter of Donald Trump’s promise to end the war, because it is no longer exclusively the fate of Ukraine that is at stake. Under these circumstances, one should not be surprised if there are more calls between Moscow and Berlin in the coming weeks.
Ralph Schoellhammer is assistant professor of International Relations at Webster University, Vienna.
Raphfel
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SubscribeGood. 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.
It 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.
But that surely is the point; there was very little meaningful action which Britain could take.
For the Guarantee to be of consequence the USSR needed to be “on side”…but Ribbentrop got there first.
Maisky was astounded that the Guarantee was given.
More ahistorical nonsense.
I really don’t know why some of you make this stuff up.
Not ahistorical at all…and not made up…
Utter nonsense. Refresh your history of 1939.
It isn’t my history. The quote comes from the diary of a very senior British diplomat of the period. Halifax is on the record saying much the same. Today’s Polish statecraft is based on lessons learned on the uselessness of that pact. And even the commentator above criticising my comment concludes that circumstances meant the British couldn’t do very much, which was rather my point: they signed a pact they knew wouldn’t materially help Poland.
We went to war a day after the largelu unexpected invasion of Poland. As we had promised. We did eventually prevail, but were left too weak, as you say, to fulfil that promise. But we tried, success is not always guaranteed.
As for Halifax….let’s not go there.
But would Poland have been in a better place, or acted differently, had we not issued that guarantee?
Regrettably “we”, as in Britain, did not “prevail”. “We” were bankrupt and the British Empire in terminal decline…as Chamberlain knew would happen. Britain could not win a short war, or afford a long one, hence the great efforts to avoid war.
In Europe the Soviet Union prevailed, having suffered immense losses of assets and people but having taken Eastern Europe and a large portion of Germany. Having been a pariah it became a superpower.
In Asia, the USA prevailed and effectively replaced Britain as an Asiatic power.
As the saying goes “Britain beat Italy (North Africa), Russia beat Germany, and America beat Japan”.
And Halifax should be discussed. There is no evidence whatsoever that he sought “terms” from Germany or intended to do so.
As for the Poland of that era it was extremely anti-Jewish and not a liberal democracy. In any event it was later sacrificed by Churchill and Roosevelt to appease Stalin.
You may wish to note:
1) The Allies won WW2, at a terrible cost
2) The UK was almost bankrupted by the costs
3) Chamberlain was not avoiding war because of the cost but because of the feared wholesale slaughter which had affected him in the first war and because he could not believe that Hitler would not feel the same, a fine if naive belief
4) Halifax and Chamberlain argued within and outside Churchill’s cabinet that serious efforts should be made to.negotiate peace terms. Not totally discreditable but again, very naive.
1. The USA did very well indeed out of the war. The terrible cost was paid mainly by the USSR.
2. “Almost” is putting it very lightly indeed. Once Lend Lease was precipitously ended Britain had to get a loan from the USA…the terms were considered unfavourable.
3. Possibly so but the main reason was practicality…cost, in short.
4. Please advise your source on this…it seems highly unlikely.
The British cabinet knew the invasion was coming weeks beforehand. It was the logical next step of Hitler’s strategic vision. What it didn’t know was Stalin would agree to help carve up Poland in a strike from the east.
The guarantee was a bluff to buy time for restoring British military capabilities and everyone knew it at the time, particularly Hitler and Stalin. There was no way Britain could have rendered military aid to Poland because Germany was literally in the way and the cowardly French wanted nothing to do with another war where they knew they would be defeated yet again by the Huns.
Cowardly French? No, they were realistic. Having suffered huge losses in the Great War, France didn’t want another one…unsurprisingly, particularly one to benefit another country whose existence was not a major concern.
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.
Biden didn’t make that decision any more than he did to vaguely wander off in the jungle the other day and then hide behind a palm tree when the group photograph was taken. His mind is so far gone that the shadowy cabal actually running things can do anything they like on behalf of the best interests of the deep state and the military-industrial complex.
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.
Who or what do you mean by “Biden”?
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.
I’m failing to see how any single day of the past 1002 since Russian’s expanded invasion of Ukraine, including yesterday’s employment of ICBMs, has been “stable”. In fact, the situation for the only party with skin in the game – the Ukrainians – has never not been unstable.
The probability that the current long-delayed permissions to fire inside Russia will foster greater instability is negligible. Putin’s entire argument for invasion as well as his tactical approach to the war’s prosecution have been irrational since Day 1. Nazis? Military threat? Gay parades? Bio weapons labs?
His rare, scattered moments of rationality have come exclusively when his bluff has been called.
Biden’s potentially too-late decision is certainly cravenly political but it does call Putin’s bluff. Like the proverbial blind squirrel, Grandpa Joe has finally found the nut. The permission to fire presents the kind of threat that has, historically, caused Putin to behave rationally and, should Ukraine be sufficiently armed, will cause him to re-think.
Speculation: Trump will use the decision, weaving it in with policies toward other bad actors, profitably for Ukraine.
If, as you say, Putin is irrational all the more sensible not to give reason for a major irrational use of ultimate force. In short, if the dog is mad, best steer well clear.
Bad analogy. If the dog is mad, you shoot it. That’s probably not a good idea here.
Not if it can shoot back you don’t…
Isnt that Russia’s argument exactly,
The German Greens are a notorious bunch.