War, and the conjoined immorality of the EU and Russia

TYPHOON FIGHTER'S were scrambled yesterday as a Russian Tupolev-95 bomber (known as the Bear) flew into British airspace. The Tupolev-95 is an ancient aircraft, and would have been no match for the Typhoons.

            

            But in an excellent and informative article by Andrew Critchlow in today's Daily Telegraph he writes: "Although the sight of Britain’s most sophisticated fighter jet shadowing the ageing Russian Tupolev-95 – a dinosaur from the Cold War – gives the reassuring impression that we have a military edge over Moscow, this image could not be further from the truth."

            

            The Russian military could advance into Ukraine and beyond if it wished and there would be very little Europe and Nato could do to prevent it short of a nuclear confrontation. Russia has a vast military capability. Not all its weaponry is modern, but it outnumbers anything Europe and the UK can put together. The age of the weapons being used is not important if you have an overwhelming advantage in numbers.

            

             Putin is set to spend over £400 billion on his nation's defence over the next decade, and has promised a professional, better paid army. All this while European nations including our own are reducing our defence budgets, relying once more on the Americans to come to our rescue.

            

             However, Obama has already ruled out any direct military involvement in the Ukraine. The military weakness of Europe and Nato without America, is all too obvious to Putin. He knows, even if the West's military were capable of destroying his; the West does not share Putin's ruthlessness when it comes to armed conflict. If our troops were allowed to behave in Afghanistan as Putin allowed his to perform in Chechnya, then perhaps the Taliban might not be so cocky as they are today after driving out the West.

            

             If Europe were ever to engage with Russia militarily under Putin's watch. The politicians and generals would have to tear up the Geneva convention and allow its military to combat Russia with equal ruthlessness, as happened in the Second World War against Nazism. Today there are those who see the bombing raids undertaken by the allies on Germany as war crimes; and such naivety will undermine the extent of what would be needed to be done if ever Russia (or any other military power) broke out into Europe.

           

             When a nation invades another nation. The nation invaded has every right to do whatever is needed to oppose the invader; and the Geneva Convention, the UN, and the various international courts of human rights; as well as groups like Amnesty International… must be told to go hang.

            

              Churchill had a chilling phrase. Total War. It meant that when a nation is under threat. That nation has to do everything in its power to keep the nation free and alive; and whatever the extent of the actions taken, they have to be lived with afterwards when the nation under invasion has victory.

            

              Why so many people, outside of Metropolitan London, in this country admire Putin is not because they have any innate sympathy for his cause. But because he is acting like a strong leader. While in Europe, including the UK, we are led by what Mao-tse-Tung once described as 'paper tigers'.

           

               It is no good name calling, or barraging your enemy with rhetoric, as our prime minister and his foreign secretary does. Such sophistry on the world stage only adds to the embarrassment of the British people who know that there is little else we can do.

            

              Our military is in no shape to do anything to harm Putin. It has been allowed to wither on the vine through defence cuts; while the billions taken from this nations defenses have been re-directed to the international aid budget, which has, would you believe, been ring fenced?

THIS COUNTRY'S politicians have always left this country militarily weak in a crises. The defence budget has always been the first port of call whenever our politicians, having fucked up the economy, seek to make cutbacks.

            

             If, and it is a big if, Putin rallies his country to stand against whatever economic sanctions the West are capable of making; then Europe is in deep trouble. The Russian people have always been survivors, and the enticements of capitalism have not existed long enough, or extended far enough into the Russian population to turn all of them into consumers that would sell themselves to the devil if they could own a piece of plastic.

           

             It will all come down to Putin in the end. I think that the Russians can absorb economic sanctions because they will then see, not only the Ukraine; but the West as their enemy. When the Russian people are threatened with starvation by outside forces, then, like the people of London during the Blitz, they will stiffen their spines: and have proven themselves capable of much inexhaustible suffering to save their homeland under the Nazi invasion which many Ukrainians partook in on the side of Hitler. Which is why millions of Ukrainians were rounded up and sent to Siberia by Stalin after the war to die; and why the ethnic Russians in the east of Ukraine stand full square behind Russia.

            

             The Russian people are used to suffering, whether under the Tsars or Communism. I hope they manage to resist the West's sanctions. I believe in the nation state, as does Putin; but the European Union seeks its abandonment among its member countries. Which I think is why there is sympathy for Putin. He stand up for the nation state. Whereas in the EU, they believe it and democracy, to be an anachronism.

            

             More and more people are beginning to understand what is meant by a European federal union; and they are not happy with the prospect. These people admire Putin, not for his views, or ambitions to make Russia great once again. But simply because he stands irrevocably in the continuance of the nation state. While Brussels seeks to turn once great nations into mere provinces, internally divided into regions.

            

             Putin stands above Western leaders - not morally - although when it comes to corruption it would be a close call to make. Another close call morally, would be the ambitions of Putin the EU.

           

             Putin, if we are to believe the West. Seeks to re-establish the old Soviet Empire, or what Putin would call, a greater Russia. While in Europe the Brussels political elite are seeking the Napoleonisation of the continent - or a greater Europe.

            Even the way both of the parties go about this presents us with yet another close call, morally speaking. Putin will use force to get what he wants; while in Europe the abandonment of democracy is the preferred method of advancement.

           

            In the EU referendums can be made to be re-taken until nations, like Ireland, 'get it right'. Elected leaders can be dismissed and be replaced by technocrats as we saw in Italy and Greece during the euro crises.

            In the UK, the people are being denied a say on the future of their nation. UK politicians have signed away parts of our sovereignty - some 50% of our laws come directly from Brussels and take precedence over those enacted by our own elected parliament.

            

            We in the UK are denied an in/out referendum - at least those living in countries Putin has his sights set on, can fight back. We in the UK can do no such thing.

            

             So when it comes to the Ukraine, and Putin's intention toward it; the picture is not so black and white as the West, but particularly Europe, would want its citizens to believe. There are swaths of grey of different hues between the moral positions of the two combatants; and the people of the UK at least, fully understand this.