I’ve lived through some extraordinary and far reaching events. The fall of the Berlin Wall, 9/11, a pandemic or two. But the last five days may top the lot when the consequences are fully known. So, like millions of others around the world, I have – at the drop of the hat – switched my expertise from contagious diseases to geopolitics. But why not. Meh. I’d like to think – but you must be the judge – that I have the ability to digest well sourced, credible information and form a reasoned opinion based on genuine expertise. That’s the trick, isn’t it? It’s not magic. But I have noticed that it’s a struggle for some folk.
It starts with finding a decent source of information. I spoke to chap a few days ago who complained that the world was so awash with misinformation, that he frankly doesn’t believe anything at all anymore. That sounds a reasonable point of view, but he’s anything but. What he meant to say is that he’s minded to believe in conspiracy theories and holds some pretty racist views but is just about sensible enough not to blurt them out loud. I was nice enough to pretend to not quite catch what he really meant, and direct him instead to a decent source of news.
You know one of the best sources of information out there? Twitter. I know. Controversial – one person in particular sullied its reputation. But it shouldn’t be. There’s a ton of good folk on Twitter, specialists in their field, who provide a constant stream of fascinating opinions, data and realtime information. There are communities that build up around them. There’s no shortage of quality, informed content on any subject. For the Ukraine War? I recommend, as a quick starting point: The Kyiv Independent, John Sweeney, Lyse Doucet, Bill Browder, Garry Kasparov and the man of the moment, President Zelenskyy.
You could follow me on Twitter too, I guess. But I use the platform for consumption rather than venting. I do have thoughts and questions on the subject of Ukraine though. How cool is it to follow Zelenskyy on Twitter with near instant translation available? But Twitter could do better. Twitter could automatically translate tweets into English. And Russian. So that Russians can see how a leader should act. And it’s right that Russia and Russians – every one of them – are excluded from the rest of the world in every possible way. This will help them to ask the question ‘Are we the bad guys??’ Which in turn will hopefully lead to the answer, ‘Shit, Vlad is Stalin reincarnated…’
What’s the best way out of this for Putin at this point? Surely, if he can grab most of the Donbas, he could withdraw his forces from the rest of the country and declare the operation as ‘Mission Accomplished’. Maybe have some manly photos of himself published for posterity as he steps out of a MIG, bare chested of course, on the Admiral Kuznetsov. He could tell his countrymen and women that he’s ‘liberated’ the Russian speaking folk and demilitarised the ‘Nazi drug takers’ in Kyiv. Hurrah.
I don’t think that would work at shifting sanctions though. So that’s not the best way out of this for Russia. It seems to me that the only decent way out of this for Russia is to have Putin retired to a far away dacha, never to be seen or heard from again. Or to be provided with a more modest style of accommodation, six foot under. There are tough decisions to be made by those closest to him.
Could Putin try his luck and fire off a small tactical battlefield nuclear device in the hope that this brings the conflict to a quick end in his favour? I don’t think there’s merit in discussing how likely that is, because there’s no way of knowing how deranged Putin is. But it’s possible, so I imagine the hot question in the west at the moment is: what does NATO do in the event he does use a nuclear device? Russia is now so isolated, there’s not much left to threaten sanctions wise.
Could the US, UK and EU simply do nothing and allow the use of a nuclear device in battle to go unanswered? That is one option, I guess. Another would be to let Putin know that in the event a nuclear device is deployed, NATO will provide the Ukrainians with equivalent nuclear devices to use on Russian forces. A third option would be for NATO to directly confront Russian forces and take control of the skies above Ukraine, and use air power to drive them out.
Even without the use of nuclear force, could Putin go too far and force NATO to act? Nearly twenty years ago, he dealt with fierce resistance in Chechnya by razing Grozny to the ground. Do we sit by and watch as hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in developed, modern European cities* are killed and maimed? There are no good answers. It’s almost a case of picking your preferred route to Armageddon.
I do despair at people arguing that the expansion of NATO is at the heart of this. The argument that Ukraine is a buffer zone between Russia and NATO is made redundant by just the most cursory glance at a map of Europe. Russia already shares a border, closer to Moscow, with four NATO countries, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland. Ukraine wasn’t about to become a NATO member. And Putin himself has made clear how he views Russia’s future very much through the lens of the Soviet Union’s past.
I have no idea how this will go. We can but speculate, pontificate and…well, hope for the best. I’m bold enough to make only two slightly tepid predictions. The first is this: I know it is only February, but can you seriously picture any other face on the cover of Time when it announces its person of the year at the end of 2022? Secondly, that Russia will never recover from this. Removing Putin might stop the rot and restore some of the privileges and benefits of belonging to the global society. But the damage is done.
* Yes I know. Four words that could spark a mighty debate on our sense of morality.
The Mexile 
“Could the US, UK and EU simply do nothing and allow the use of a nuclear device in battle to go unanswered?”
Atomics are all in, the cities of Russia would be in ruin, I see no way around that calculus. It is not just Russia that might take a flyer, should the west blink, Russia’s great metropolitan centers would be destroyed. How did we react to Japan and Germany? Fire bombing and then atomics were our reaction to their aggression. The Russians and the Chinese think the west weak, as did Germany and Japan, this is not the case. If the Russian population centers want to see the spring blooms, they had better keep their atomics in the barn. I see no choice in the matter.
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I’m inclined to think that a nuclear conflict would likely escalate gradually, one for one. Having said that, escalation from one bomb to unleashing them all could, I guess, happen in minutes.
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I have to be honest and say I’m very basic when it comes to polemics. In this modern age when almost everyone can put their nib in and opine in the most rudimentary manner on every quip scribbled on a digital page it becomes very tiring sifting through the dross for intelligent discourse about any one subject.
Putin’s punishment for his unwarranted attack on Ukraine should be swift and painful, unfortunately he probably will get off scot free unless some of his henchmen see the light of day and despatch him. Obviously he didn’t expect opposition when he moved his army into Ukraine and now it has stalled as it has run out of provisions and fuel. Now would be a good time to diffuse the issue and move NATO’s combined troops in.
I do understand NATO’s handling of the issue, they don’t want to bring all the big guns to the banquet and possibly start a third world conflict in that undertaking however I feel a rather large deposit on the Kremlin would make a lasting impression and possibly remove the tyrant in the turmoil and all his minions. Sadly though in this modern age all it takes is some clown with a Chromebook with internet access to launch Armageddon from an Internet cafe on the hill of Megiddo to wipe the slate clean removing all of us in the process.
Vlad the Invader’s unfortunate threat of repercussions if he is attacked or thwarted in anyway may put him on the no fly list but it does beggar the thought that he might push that big red button just for fun.. which might give someone the green light to excise the blight.
In the meantime there appears to be some wishful thinking about that some kind hearted oligarch will deposit a well placed satchel in Putin’s war room that will dispatch him to kingdom come! That may have been in the Valkyrie schoolboy’s hand book but I don’t see it happening to be honest but stranger things have happened.
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We are all amateur pundits trying to see into a world cloaked in smoke and mirrors. But I guess some outcomes are more likely than others. A lot of folk talk about providing Putin with an off ramp. And whilst NATO is not really the source of this conflict, an offer of Ukraine not joining it could be a significant part of the off ramp. Ironically, I suspect Ukraine will still move towards EU membership, which was part of the origin of this whole mess.
I reckon that Putin’s army will have to take some more beatings before he starts eyeing that off ramp seriously.
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So far the response has only been economic except for Ukraine itself. Maybe NATO will become involved militarily, maybe they won’t. Maybe we’ll go nuke, maybe we won’t. But I think one thing is definitely clear, we are more than willing to step back into the cold — a reboot of the Cold War. And I’m sure that the US and NATO already have all their possible responses all worked out and programed into the computer. It’s the same old Deadly Game played out all over again.
As Gang of Four said long ago, one step forward, six steps back, six steps back. And I fail to be surprised these days by human stupidity.
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There is a section of the U.K. military that is advocating the idea of waging war against Putin in Ukraine, on the basis that they believe Putin will continue to escalate and we be forced to do so sooner or later. And ‘sooner in Ukraine’ is likely to be a far, far better option that ‘later elsewhere’.
The correct answer to this dilemma can be found in the yet to be written chapter entitled Hindsight.
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I imagine that the point of awashing the world with misinformation is to give people permission to believe whatever garbage they were inclined to believe in the first place.
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And to encourage people to believe in particular brands of garbage that suit the aims of those distributing the misinformation. Oh but for a return to simpler times when all we had to worry about was whether Oswald shot Kennedy, or a complex mash-up of CIA, FBI, KGB, Castro, Mob and Mossad operatives. It made for interesting conversation but it wasn’t worth an argument. The past is the past.
Then came the death of Diana, 9/11 and other events. Still not worth an argument. Then came elections and the coronavirus and misinformation happening in real-time during a live event. Far more problematic.
Now we have the unmistakable stench of fascism in Europe. Again. And some folk think that Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson and their ilk are voices of reason and have sided with fascism. This is the future on the line. It’s definitely worth the argument.
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