The political statements by US, EU and UK leaders this week were a gift to Chess-Master Putin and an acknowledgement of what I wrote in my last posting. Sure enough, Trump delivered his “Bizarre-eccentricity”, which caught the World by surprise. Except that it shouldn’t have because he has been singing from the same songsheet for ten years. He believes European countries are not pulling their weight in matters of Defence (a fair criticism); he admires the way Putin turned Russia around from the failed state of the 1990s into a global powerhouse; and he cares as little about the territorial integrity of Ukraine as he does about the right of Palestinians to live in Gaza. So will his rapprochment with the Russian President lead to Peace In Our Time, or will it lead to a European Union force deploying boots on the ground in Ukraine?
Despite the predicament that Ukraine finds itself in after three hard years, I do not believe that her army will capitulate like Syria’s did in December last year. However, if the US withdraws its military assistance, it is only a matter of time before the Russian Army breaks through the front line. In the short term, I do not see the EU having the capabilities to replace the USA or even to deploy an effective Peace Support Operation because they always place ridiculous caveats on commanders when it comes to casualties.
I have written before about what Putin wants from this war, which above all is to end NATO’s encroachment of Russia. With Finland and Sweden joining NATO in 2023 and 2024, it looked as if he had failed in this objective, but if he persuades Trump to cut the lifeblood to the 75 year-old pensioner, he will have achieved more than any of his Soviet predecessors. The stakes are really high because so many European countries have run down their Armed Forces and relegated their military to Cattle Class. As Kipling wrote: For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ Chuck him out, the brute!” But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country” when the guns begin to shoot…
Tommy Saving His Country
Rupert Wieloch 