Putin and Beyond - Commentary

Rod Lyne has written an admirable piece on the personality and motives of Vladimir Putin (article here). With some humility I offer further reflections.

I have always believed that the only way a ceasefire could be achieved is with an agreed 'Green' line, ideally secured by the UN, with the Donbas acquired land considered 'disputed' territory and Crimea a reality; not too far off the USA proposals. On top of this, there have to be clear and credible security guarantees for the remaining territory of Ukraine This would leave Putin able to claim that he has secured the safety of the largely Russian speaking areas of Ukraine - a lie, of course, but 'Pravda' is not in his vocabulary. His ambitions on Georgia and retaining overwhelming influence in Belarus would remain undiminished.

There are two other forces at play here: 

- firstly, the weakening position of democracies. Rod is correct to say that the bonds are stronger in NATO, that the European nations have had a wake up call and that the Alliance has two new strong members, but the core of our democracies is fragile - politicians are held in low esteem, especially amongst the young, who largely take their lead and their information from social media, and the phenomenon of the 'right wing Spring' across Europe reflects a deep discontent with centrist politics. Almost anything is considered better than what we have endured over the past twenty years, which perhaps explains both the popularity of Reform and the election majority of Labour in the UK. On top of this, for many years USA has progressively diverged from a largely consensual society, with overlapping policies from the left and right, to a deeply divided nation with views so extreme that the use of force is now deemed by many to be a legitimate way of achieving authority.

- secondly, the split across the Atlantic, which only weeks ago would have been unthinkable, but now has even the Canadian PM seeking more reliable partners elsewhere. It is worth reflecting on the consequences of this split to the Alliance, and to Article 5 especially. There is often confusion over the provisions of Article 5. Whilst an attack on one is indeed deemed an attack on the whole, the next para goes on to limit reaction to the wishes of individual governments. Given Trump's recent utterances, is there any remaining credibility in our deterrent posture; the very bedrock of our security since 1949? Does anyone seriously believe that Trump would react aggressively to an attack on the Baltic States, especially were Putin to fabricate a reason to defend the large Russian population?

So on to the 'So what?'

The biggest issue is, of course, the weakness of Non-USA  states (including Canada now) to deter and if necessary engage with Russia. OK, Putin has to regenerate his forces, even if a ceasefire under the conditions I outline above were to take place. But this could be accomplished in two years or less, which presents us and others with a problem: could we build our deterrent posture sufficiently across the whole spectrum of capabilities in such a short timeframe? Whist the politicians have been making the right noises (over and over again), there are no explicit plans to rearm where we have gaps in the rungs of deterrence, especially IAMD and tactical nuclear weapons. In short, Rod is right, but it's worse than he is suggesting: we have weakening democracies, a split in the Alliance and an incredible deterrence against Russian aggression without the traditional assurance given by the USA. It seems, therefore, that we are in 1930s situation - but with even less time to rearm and prepare our populations for war. Putin's current intransigence over agreeing a peace deal with Ukraine underlines the gravity of the situation and his self-evident belief that he has the upper hand.

    Unless our political leaders grasp the nettle and act now we are in a perilous situation.