AP

Robin V. Sears

March 11, 2022

Many of the world’s foreign affairs pundit class – and some in the Canadian contingent – seem trapped in a time warp. Before Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, they tut-tutted about how the West and NATO should not have provoked Putin into threatening his invasion, by welcoming new members 25 years ago. Within days of the first attacks, they were already mumbling about the need to provide Putin with an “exit strategy”, and the importance of not “provoking” Putin further. As the body count mounted, they began to speculate about when the Russian oligarchs might push back on Putin. What nonsense. The only pushback he fears is from the siloviki, the security establishment. They may yet decide he is a liability to their control of the kleptocracy they govern.

This is not 1989. This is not the era when Helmut Kohl, George H.W. Bush, Brian Mulroney and many other world leaders were able to gently nudge the Russians away from confrontation. Putin is not Gorbachev. We are at the end of the quiet decades of Russian integration into the global community, with occasional wrist slaps for Putin’s earlier, smaller aggressions against neighbours.

This is 1939, when a crazed autocrat drove his hundreds of tanks across the Polish border, only a few hundred kilometres east of where Putin invaded across the same vast, rolling plains, ideal for tank warfare. Then as now, the invader downplayed his strategic ambitions, attempting to soothe the world into not reacting. Both dictators got it badly wrong. Putin has made it clear he not only wants to annex Ukraine, but also to remove NATO forces from his borders, by force if required, even threatening to use tactical nuclear weapons if needed. Our Putin sympathizers might ask themselves the question, “How would Poland or Ukraine feel about not having a security perimeter against Russian incursions?”

There is no “exit strategy” for Putin, today. As there should not have been when he invaded first Georgia and then Crimea. As Churchill made clear to a similarly wobbly foreign policy elite in 1940, the dictator’s only exit strategy is defeat.

Now, the wobblers publicly wring their hands over the certainty of Ukraine’s bloody defeat at the hands of the massive Russian war machine. They declare that we must negotiate an end before many thousands of Ukrainians die defending their country. First, by what right do we reserve to ourselves the prerogative to negotiate their country’s future? Ukraine’s astonishing president has made it very clear to the world that it is their prerogative, and they choose to fight.

And what a shallow vision of history does this claimed “inevitability” reveal. It was inevitable that Vietnam would be walloped by China in 1979 when Beijing decided it was time to punish its tiny, disrespectful neighbour. Inevitable, too, was Israel’s defeat in 1973, when they were caught napping by much larger invading Arab armies on three fronts. A broad cross-section of military and security analysts made it clear in 1939 that Finland could never defeat the Russians’ invasion of their nation in the “winter war.” Except that in each case the ‘inevitable’ didn’t happen. David defeated Goliath.

What is the thread that runs through each surprising outcome? A highly motivated, well-trained, local army defending its national sovereignty was challenged by a conscript army with no investment in the outcome, except personal survival. But there is one distinct difference in the Ukrainian case today: they are armed to the teeth with the most advanced weapons in the world, which continue to flood onto the battlefield. An advantage the Vietnamese, the Israelis and the Finns never had.

The rose-tinted vision of these “negotiate always” analysts is what? Ukraine cedes the Donbass to become another Belarus, or Transnistria, a heavily armed Russian vassal state on their borders? Or perhaps, an “Austrian solution” where Ukraine gives up its sovereign right to be well-armed, and backed by powerful allies, in return for what? A promise of good behaviour by Putin? Really?

No, Ukrainians’ brave soldiers and armed civilians are well-equipped to defeat Russia, by steely determination and a resolute national will. When a future of servitude is the alternative, the resolve of those defending their homeland from occupation is a serious force multiplier. Western military analysts estimate that Russia has already lost between 8-10 percent of the fighting capacity it invaded Ukraine with. They are estimated to have lost 6,000 soldiers – a level of casualties not seen since the Second World War. This is an extraordinary achievement by the “inevitable” losers. Russian losses, by the way, include two of the senior generals leading the invasion.

There is not yet a victory to celebrate for Ukraine. But it is surely now time to say thank you, from all of us lulled by 30 years of peace into a dangerous complacency. Decades when we cast a blind eye to Russian transgressions in Syria, Libya, the Caucasus and Central Africa. Decades when we refused to hear Putin’s stated ambition, made in a public speech to a high-level security forum in Munich 15 years ago, and repeated many times since. Decades when Google and its cousins accepted that the price of making money in Russia was surveillance of its users. Decades when an entire industry was created in the West – call it Oligarchs R Us – made up of lawyers, banks, money launderers and yacht makers.

There is no “exit strategy” for Putin, today. As there should not have been when he invaded first Georgia and then Crimea. As Churchill made clear to a similarly wobbly foreign policy elite in 1940, the dictator’s only exit strategy is defeat.

We have Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the incredible Ukrainian people to thank for this wake-up call. For this opportunity to return to a focused and implacable defence of peace and freedom, backed by force when required.

The Nobel Prize-winning West German Chancellor, Willy Brandt, was once asked by an impertinent reporter how he could support the armed struggle of the African National Congress to defeat apartheid but be opposed to the violence of the Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang in Germany.

After a long pause, he stared directly at his interrogator in a press conference room of hundreds of journalists and said very slowly, in a longer answer than this, that when he was a young man he and his generation had failed to recognize evil as soon as it emerged. He and they had failed to understand that the only response to evil was force. As a result, he said, “Many of my friends and millions more died at the hands of that evil.”

He closed by saying that he had made a pledge to himself to never again make that mistake. That he would always remain vigilant to the rise of evil, would know the difference between enemies and those who were truly evil. And that he would never again flinch at the use of force to fight evil.

Applause broke out, some among the roomful of cynical journalists gave him a standing ovation. Were he alive today, Brandt would no doubt repeat that homily to those encouraging a deal with the devil.

To be clear, this is one of those rare Manichean moments in global affairs. There is one painful and one unacceptable choice, and no others. Unacceptable would be a ceasefire in place or a partial or even total withdrawal of Russian forces without penalty. That would merely leave Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe as Putin’s permanent hostages.

The alternative is defeat of the invasion forces – and turning the billions of seized Russian assets to the rebuilding of Ukraine – despite the painful loss of lives this will mean. We are obligated to ensure they have the means to achieve that victory.

Contributing Writer Robin V. Sears has lived and worked overseas for many years, from Berlin to Hong Kong, He is now an independent communications consultant based in Ottawa.