The latest NATO get-together in mid-July once more promised the Ukrainian government funds and weaponry to continue the war and an “irreversible path to full Euro-Atlantic integration, including NATO membership”. This is a recipe for continuing slaughtering tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and puts into jeopardy the future of the country. But few dissenting voices are heard in Europa.
A year ago most Western politicians and military commentators were confident that Russia was about to be defeated in Ukraine. There are still those who believe that, but they are fewer and farther between. Still, EU and the US want the war to continue. Some argue that Ukraine may be losing the war, but “we cannot permit it to happen” (for example Macron and Scholtz). Others say that Ukraine may lose in the end, but then what? Russia will in the process be weakened, militarily, economically, and politically, so it is worth it.
So the war has to go on.
Russia recently put forward its latest conditions for a peace agreement: A neutral and nuclear-free Ukraine with no foreign troops on its soil, and withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the four regions that Russia has annexed. This has been flatly rejected by NATO and Ukraine. US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels: "He (Putin) is not in any position to dictate to Ukraine what they must do to bring about peace."
It is worth noting that the Russian conditions for peace have gradually become tougher, the longer the conflict has been going on. In the 2014 Minsk agreements (signed by Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France), the break-away regions Donetsk and Lugansk were set to rejoin Ukraine, but with regional autonomy, while Crimea would continue to be Russian. Ukraine later reneged on its signature complaining they had signed it with a pistol to the head. Germany and France (Merkel and Hollande) surprisingly afterwards also said that they didn’t mean their signature. They only signed it to give Ukraine time to rearm, they now say. The first lost opportunity.
In 2021, before the military intervention in Ukraine, Russia demanded a new security structure for Europe, including a legally binding guarantee that NATO would not admit any new members, especially Ukraine and Georgia, and that it would not deploy any additional troops or weapons in the existing member states. Russia also wanted a moratorium on the deployment of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles in Europe, and a dialogue on strategic stability and arms control. This was flatly rejected by the US and other NATO countries. Another lost opportunity.
In the first months of the war, there were direct negotiations between Ukraine and Russia (first in Minsk and afterwards in Istanbul). A draft document, which stated that Ukraine would stay neutral (but could join the EU if it so desired), was in principle agreed upon. There were many open questions, which would have to be negotiated afterwards (among this the status of Donbas), and there were disagreements regarding the limits for the Ukrainian armed forces (250,000 troops vs. 85,000, 800 tanks vs. 341 and so on). Apparently, it was Boris Johnson who convinced Zelinsky to abandon the negotiations, while others think Zelensky interpreted the Russian withdrawal from the outskirts of Kiev as a sign of weakness, and therefore decided to quit. Whatever the reason, the war went on. One more lost opportunity.
The sad reality is that the killing fields in Ukraine will continue to no avail. And for the Ukrainian nationalists the outcome will only get worse. The Russians have already stated that the latest peace proposal is a chance for Ukraine that may not be offered again, if the war goes on. So Kharkov and Odessa may now be hanging in the balance.
As discussed here before, the main problem for Ukraine is the lack of men to continue the war. Since the start of the war, men between 18 and 60 have been prohibited from leaving the country, and as more and more people are resisting drafting, Ukraine has practically been converted into a large prison camp for them. Thousands of men are trying to leave the country, but many are captured and sent to the front. Men are captured on the streets and in shopping centres, cafés, gyms and so on. The forced mobilisation is becoming increasingly unpopular in the country, and, perhaps not surprising, more than half of the Ukrainians don’t think draft-dodging is wrong.
It seems that NATO is putting its hope on Russia being unable to sustain a continued loss of soldiers in the war. The UK defence ministry hopefully claimed that 70,000 Russian soldiers likely were killed or wounded in May and June this year. The losses on both sides are difficult to assess, as both sides are trying to hide them, but they are no doubt horrendous. For us laypersons with no particular insight in military matters, the fact that the Russians are able to contract voluntarily around 30,000 military personnel monthly, while Ukraine has to coerce people into the trenches with increasingly harsh methods, indicates that the perceived risk of being killed is much higher for a Ukrainian soldier than for a Russian one. So NATO’s hope is illusionary.
Cars of military registration officers are burning in Ukraine. Recruitment centres are under attack. The Ukrainian media blame saboteurs hired by the Russian Secret Services. But as the forced recruitments are resented by many, this may not be the whole explanation. Photo: Getty images.
This ought to be a moral dilemma for the NATO countries. Their deal with the Ukrainian government is, as mentioned, that they will provide the arms and the money, and Ukraine has to come up with the men, one way or another. The leading politicians in most of the NATO countries couldn’t care less about the fate of these hundreds of thousands who against their will are packed off to their likely death in the trenches. You can’t make an omelette without crashing some eggs, right?
This lack of sensitivity is all over the political spectrum, strangely enough including most of the left, greens, and social-democrats. They stand firm in their support for a continued war and against a negotiated solution. In the Nordic countries you won’t find any politician from parties represented in the parliaments who are for peace. Putin is for them the new Hitler, and peace negotiations would amount to appeasement, as the Munich agreement with Hitler in 1938. Anybody arguing for peace is considered a Putin-agent. So if some hundred thousands more Ukrainians have to be sacrificed for the good cause, then so be it.
While the European social-democratic parties are historically firmly pro-NATO, and often even more catholic than the Pope in this respect, some people considering themselves socialists say that the war in Ukraine is a just anti-imperialist war against the Russian empire. Even if they are in principle not pro-NATO, they say that a strategic alliance with NATO is necessary to secure Ukraine’s independence. You will find different variants of this argument in most of the leftist parties in the Nordic countries. The fate of the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians forced into the trenches? They couldn’t care less either. “We can’t let Russia win this war! Right?”
But what would the consequences be of a NATO defeat in Ukraine?
Will Russia then invade Poland and the Baltic, as for example Biden and Frederiksen claim? This is obvious nonsense. As if Russia hasn’t had trouble and losses enough in Ukraine. Russia will certainly not stop until it has a guarantee that Ukraine will not join NATO, but it has nothing to gain from attacking NATO, which economically and militarily is much stronger. Only a madman would do that, and contrary to what we are told, President Putin and the Russian leadership are not madmen.
Would the US and NATO be debilitated by a defeat? Inside Europe, no. NATO will still have more member countries and a higher military budget than ever before. But outside Europe, the answer is yes. As the defeat in Ukraine would come on top of the defeats in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, the NATO countries’ capacity to project power all over the globe would be strongly reduced. To the disappointment of the US and EU, the countries in the Global South have not come to their rescue in Ukraine. These countries refuse to accept the new cold war division of the world into the good guys and the bad guys, and are instead looking for their own interests. Their interest is to work with whoever they think is beneficial for them, and if that means cooperating with both the US, EU, China and Russia, then it is OK for them. They refuse to be forced to choose between ‘them’ and ‘us’ according to the US-EU formula: “those that are not with us are against us”. In the Global South, most would like to see a negotiated solution in Ukraine. There are probably not many who want to see NATO win in Ukraine, but there are quite a few who would like to see a defeat for their old colonial masters in NATO.
They feel safer with NATO as a 'paper tiger'.
“Paper tiger” is a traditional Chinese expression referring to someone that appears to be powerful but is actually ineffectual and unable to withstand challenge. Image from Wikimedia (from 1950).
