2025 + x = 1938
Jan 7 2025 WiredGov
Updated Jan 14 2025 The New York Times
This is by Tim Willasey-Wilsey CMG, a Senior Associate Fellow in RUSI, i.e. the UK’s Royal United Services Institute.
Will 2025 be a Repeat of 1938 for Europe?
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And this one is from Chatham House, by Orysia Lutsevych OBE, Deputy Director, Russia and Eurasia Programme; Head of the Ukraine Forum
A rapid ceasefire in Ukraine could lead Donald Trump into a Russian trap
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The Jan 14 Update is by Lloyd J. Austin III, the US secretary of defense, and Antony J. Blinken, the US secretary of state.
Putin’s Plan for Peace Is No Peace at All
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These are way more detailed and much better written than my posts, and I agree 100%.
But a few issues I want to bring up, before I let you get on with the pieces.
There will eventually be negotiations to end the War in Ukraine, (sorry, not a war, The Special Military Operation).
If this will be a “Land for Peace” deal, then I will not exactly be very optimistic about the future in Europe. A “Land for Peace” deal will be short for a ”Land for Temporary Peace in Our Time” deal.
That was tried in 1938 and it did not work then, why on earth would it work now?
Russia started this, it is the aggressor, the invader, not Ukraine. Why on earth would Russia be rewarded with Ukrainian territory in a peace deal?
If some punks stole your car, got arrested and in the trial were given no sentence, and were allowed to keep the tires, “because they feel that they need them”, you probably would not say that the Rule of Law prevailed.
Why is the collective West saying that Ukraine joining Nato is off the table? I know that according to the rules a country at war can not join Nato, but once there is peace, what is the issue? Ukraine is an independent country, right? And BTW, they do have the most recent real battlefield experience in using Nato arms.
Why are we not giving more and better weapons to Ukraine, and why are we restricting the use of some of those weapons? Ukrainians are fighting and dying, and we are saying to them that they can only use some weapons in a certain way or only in Ukrainian territory. We do know this is War, with a capital W, right? Right?
We are rearming, at least some countries are, but collectively we are not rearming fast enough or decisively enough. Rearming sends a message to Russia, it does not mean we are rushing to start a war.
Expanding on this point, Russia has decimated its army and its military stockpiles, but it is using a third of its budget for the war, and even if it spends half of that rebuilding its military, it will have a much better trained and modern, and battle tested, army in the near future. We should be rearming to face that army, not the one that is fighting now.
Are we too focused on “First world problems” to see the real problem that aggressive Russia (or China) presents? Are our leaders politicians who worry about the results of the next election, and prioritise staying in power over long term security for our countries?
Have we forgotten that Russia started this war already in 2014, when it invaded Ukraine and illegally annexed Crimea? And in 2022 after a few years of another Phoney war, Russia continued the war and tried to finish the job, though that did not go according to plan.
Now, I have to ask, do you really think that if Russia gets a ”Land for Temporary Peace in Our Time” deal now, that it will not try again in a few years, once it has rebuilt its military? If it managed to hold some territory twice, why not Third Time Lucky.
As I said above, rearming sends a signal, and that signal would be that we will drive a hard bargain and we will be ready for whatever Russia plans.
A ”Land for Temporary Peace in Our Time” deal also sends a signal, and unfortunately that would be the same signal as in 1938; and that is that aggression works.
A quote from Seneca will be an apt ending for this post.
“Successful crime is dignified with the name of virtue;
the good become the slaves of the wicked;
might makes right;
fear silences the power of the law.”
