In late July/early August of this year, I tried to get this opinion piece (set out below) on the Russian invasion of Ukraine published, somewhere. While I failed each time to find a publisher, I think it stands up very well. As I cannot find a publisher, but have my own blog, here it is below, unchanged ... albeit as the front-line armies of both the Russians and the Ukrainians seem to have been engaging in much reduced activities and, instead, focused on unit reconstitutions and reinforcements over the late summer, with the northern winter approaching, it seems likely, as of today, that this is all a relative calm before an enormous storm is unleashed by both Russia and Ukraine. As I point out in my piece below, the Russians already have gained/consolidated their hold on significant formerly Ukrainian territories and their agricultural and mineral resources - and yet the fighting is still likely to continue on, and, one fears, may result in an escalated and wider war, with obvious risks.
That the Russian Stavka is still fighting this war, when it has already made these substantial gains, has suggested to me for some time that the Kremlin does want to realise its historic Novorossiya and Tsarist ambitions. One of my key contentions with Russia - as with other historically imperial nations - is that if, in Russia's case, you were to remove the Vladimir Putin apparatus from the Russian presidency and its power, then whoever supplants or succeeds Putin would pursue the same, or indeed, more aggressive Russian foreign and military policies. If, for example, any of the Russian Tsars were restored to rule Russia, tomorrow, they would all pursue policies that are very similar to, if not more expansive than, those of Putin and his advisors.
It will almost always be the case that overriding imperial interests and geographic/political realities will dictate what must be done by a regime to secure its realm - and it is and will be the duty of the Tsar, or Kaiser, or Shah [or President or Prime Minister or Chancellor] to follow these course headings, however rough the weather may be that batters the ship of state. It is also the case that, once a war is begun, the war, as both a moral and political enterprise, must have conquests and gains in order to justify casualties and expenses to subjects and citizens. In Russia's case, having refused or been refused a negotiated settlement and launching the war in February, now is the time to realise the Novorossiya ambition. (NB: only in the post-everything West is it permissible, indeed almost praiseworthy, to fight stupid wars for the most esoteric ideological reasons, and for the making of no gains and the incurring of only tragic losses, for 20+ years.)
Viewed from the Kremlin, Russia fighting on to dominate the northern Black Sea makes enormous sense. Russia has long sought to explore, extract, and exploit, the Black Sea's riches both in and under the sea, continental shelves and seabed. A Russia that can dominate the north of the Black Sea will also be a Russia that raises obviously dire questions for the West, especially for NATO member, Turkey, with whom Russia already has a significant relationship. That no one seems to be discussing these obvious consequences of further Russian advances shows the attenuation, if not shriveling, of the Western capacity to think geopolitically and with a view to how easily an already bad situation can become so much worse. Whether Turkey could resist Russian entreaties to divide the Black Sea, leaving, say, Georgia, to Russian mercies, is a scenario so obvious that one must believe that someone in North American and European defence and foreign ministries is thinking of what comes next. The Russian bear, when repeatedly poked, will create its own more friendly den. This was always obvious, especially from 2014 onwards, and has now only become more obvious with time. One day, hopefully, what is and has always been actually obvious will impact on Western policymaking. That day, sadly, seems as yet far off.
Whether the West through NATO can keep the Ukrainian war effort going over a severe coming winter in which Western domestic societies will be under significant costs of living pressure and energy shortfalls, is itself an open question. There have long been divisions within NATO and the European Union, as I point out below, over how to approach Russia and the threats posed by, and opportunities offered from, Moscow. It may be that far from the Russian-Ukrainian war being merely one of gradual attrition that slowly exhausts the combatants, forcing them to negotiate over what remains, that, instead, the recent subdued fighting has been a mere prologue to a much more savage war. It may also be that the worst peace negotiated now may be preferable to whatever fait accompli emerges from the battlefield in the months and years to come.
It is a rare wish, for me, anyway, but I do hope to be wrong. GC
RUSSIAN WAR IN UKRAINE – 30 July 2022
The story goes, according to the great American historian Barbara Tuchman, that during the worst of the Great War, the Imperial German chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg was asked by his predecessor, Prince von Bulow, 'How did this war happen?' Bethmann-Hollweg replied, 'Ah, if only one knew.’ War always confounds the grand designs of high commands – and always at great costs to innocents, as the July 1914 crisis that led to global carnage, showed.
Yet, even so, the Russians, in month 5 of their invasion of Ukraine, have sustained a military effort of slow but steady advances, occupying territories that the West had, foolishly, denied could, instead, be the subject of negotiations.
At worst, if Russia declared victory today and stopped its war, the Russians would occupy most of what was eastern and southern Ukraine, the whole of the Azov coast, as well as further expanded Russia’s military presence in Crimea.
True, the Ukrainians have resisted with great ferocity and courage – they, too, share the Cossack lineage – but War is an entirely unsentimental affair. No people, however brave, could repel the Russian garrison state next door.
For we in the West, there is a stark contrast between Russia’s valuable acquisitions in mere months versus our years of stupid wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan. The West expended blood and treasure for 20+ years in the perverse belief that we could occupy and remediate Arab and Afghan societies brutalised by centuries of foreign and local tyrannies. The Russians have simply applied force, next door, to gain more ethnic Russians, as well as resource-rich lands and Black Sea coastal areas.
So many Western delusions about the true state of this war result from commentary by our own failed Generals and ex-government officials, whose only successful conquests have been of TV cable news green rooms – and who, in Thucydides’ time, would have been exiled in disgrace. Absurd tales of ‘ghosts of Kiev’ and ‘martyrs of Snake Island’ were consumed by journalism’s rubes, who clearly learned nothing from the lies told last year when Afghanistan’s regime was obviously collapsing.
Western responses have been chronically chaotic. A Russian invasion of Ukraine has been an obvious danger since at least 2008, when Russian forces first pushed south against resource rich Georgia. If NATO’s plan was to support a Ukrainian military resistance to a Russian invasion, then Brussels should long ago have ensured it had its own manufacturers of Soviet bloc munitions of the kind Ukraine uses. Instead, the Ukrainians, bravely resisting Russian advances, have continually awaited shipments of whatever ex-Russian munitions can be bought from global arms bazaars. It has all been something of a ‘cluster’.
To be fair, the Anglo-American-Polish axis (with which Australia aligns) has supplied arms and munitions to Ukraine. Australia has even sent significant quantities of armoured fighting vehicles across the world to aid Ukraine. Australia is a loyal ally and giving materiel support to Ukraine – and thus supporting our British, American, and Polish, allies – is certainly in our strategic interest.
At the same time, as a matter of sheer realpolitik, the views of our closest military allies are not shared by most Europeans. Whatever Germany’s public spin – and most of the EU is fully behind Berlin, if only as a diplomatic shield – it is the British, Americans, and the Poles, who are the real problem, not Russia.
Viewed from Berlin, and by those allied to the EU’s Franco-Teutonic core, the EU had a workable relationship with Russia: the EU purchased cheap and reliably supplied gas from Russia, as well as metals, woods, and fertiliser, and Russia purchased vehicles and machinery from the EU.
Europe’s enriching of Russia would, the Berlin consensus thought, make for peaceful times on either side of the Dnieper River, and no one, especially not Angela Merkel (who grew up in Soviet occupied East Germany!), thought becoming Russia’s energy hostage was unwise. That so much of Germany’s political class has been the Kremlin’s human resources department is seen as economic integration - not foreign corruption.
To many western Europeans, the compulsive Anglo-American desire over the last 25 years to expand NATO to Russia’s frontier was and is still seen as shackling reluctant Europeans to ex-Soviet security corpses. It was, after all, Bismarck who said that a successful politics is founded on a good treaty with Russia. Even Pope Francis, whose Jesuit order was patronised by the Russian Empress Catherine the Great, has said, publicly, that the Russians are an imperial people who cannot have foreign powers on their borders.
These public divisions within NATO and the EU endanger us all. Europeans living next door to this slugfest cannot, unlike Anglo-American ‘laptop bombardiers’, relish an ongoing proxy war, fighting Russia until the last Ukrainian. Moreover, for most Europeans, a very cold winter approaches, without any realistic substitutes for Russian gas.
The wiser heads of the allied powers should be trying to negotiate a ceasefire that leads to talks and the arbitration of the grievances of all the belligerents and their sponsors. As in war, so in peace: ‘If you will the ends, you will the means.’
The ghosts of July 1914 should be exorcised, not followed.
Gray Connolly is a Sydney barrister and writer. He served previously as a naval intelligence officer in Asia, the Middle East, and Afghanistan.
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