Is the British political class really this dumb?
I’ve been away in California the past two weeks and haven’t been reading much news. Coming back and catching up, what are British leaders doing?
We seem perilously close to firing our own long-raise missiles into Russia. Does this not seem like a potentially bad idea to anybody?
Boris Johnson and The Spectator are in full support. As are five former UK Defence Ministers (Grant Shapps, Ben Wallace, Gavin Williamson, Penny Mordaunt, Liam Fox). As is Lord Ashcroft and The Telegraph. As is Sir Niall Ferguson:
Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Minister David Lammy have no trouble switching from trying to convince President Biden to launch these missiles, to casually going to the football for a photo op.
This is chilling. The UK right now has no shortage of domestic social problems (or self-imposed political gaffes), but despite this, we think we are ready to prioritise deep missile strikes into Russia?
In summer 2023, the media was overwhelming in its support for Ukraine’s coming counteroffensive. Ukraine was going to win back territory, kick Russia out, and all would be well. This was shown – clearly – to be hubristic. But the failure appears to have caused no reflection.
- Do our most influential editors (who preach having “the best argument from all angles”) balance maximalist opinion pieces with anything that now takes the other side? No they do not.
- Has there been any serious study of what got us here? If you mention official diplomatic history on NATO expansion – quoting the 2019 book of the present-serving CIA Director/former US Ambassador to Russia – do you no longer get called a Putin apologist? No – you still do. And our intelligentsia is quite willing to memory-hole the diplomatic record.
- Do we still think the West can spend its way to victory – without any work to fix its industrial capacity? Yes. Politicians still do not understand the difference between GDP figures and actually being able to make things.
- Have we started paying attention to what foreign leaders actually say, and realised that Putin 2022–2023 never himself referred to earlier forms of retaliation as “red lines” (the red lines were self-imposed by Western media). Very important clip ~1 min:
But on this in the past few days, Putin could not have said it himself more clearly:
It [Ukraine] is already carrying out strikes using unmanned aerial vehicles and other means. But using Western-made long-range precision weapons is a completely different story.
The fact is that – I have mentioned this, and any expert, both in our country and in the West, will confirm this – the Ukrainian army is not capable of using cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West. This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or US satellites – in general, NATO satellites.
Perhaps the most important, the key point even, is that only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this.
This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.
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Our political leaders do not understand our state of industrial readiness. ATACMS are a “very precious commodity”. They’re not even made anymore. According to Lockheed Martin, the system’s manufacturer, only about 4,000 ATACMS have been manufactured since the missile was developed in the 1980s, and the missiles would be required for any contingency the US has anywhere in the world: Iran, North Korea, China, or otherwise. How can anyone credibly argue that depleting this arsenal would help in other conflict theatres?
Boris’s sense of economics is even more untethered. Writing “we need to produce a package of loans on the scale of Lend-Lease: half a trillion dollars, as suggested by former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, or even a trillion.” Reconstruction costs for Ukraine are already forecast at $486 billion (three times Ukraine’s GDP).
Boris further writes, “We must abandon any idea that the Ukrainians will do a deal. They won’t. They won’t trade land for peace… no Ukrainian leader could do such a deal and remain in office.” Has Boris spent any time reading the history of how similar conflicts were brought to a respectable close? The Korean Armistice was agreed without the signature of the South Korean President (to save face) – but with President Rhee remaining in power. There is no reason the same could not be done today.
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The invasion of Kursk has demonstrated the fallacy that we can escalate with impunity, as if it won’t invite retaliation.
Yet in our ignorance, we say Putin’s not serious.
It’s so bizarre to me the level of collective delusion at the top of British society.
Politicians often do dumb things. But – in the UK – there’s usually someone to call them out on it. On this issue of maximal importance – entering into a war with the world’s largest nuclear power – there is near total uniformity in thinking. Both main political parties agree, goading each other to be yet “tougher”. And normally critical-thinking editors, commentators and academics cheer from the sidelines.
The majority of people are still unaware that there were serious attempts at diplomacy in March/April 2022 – and that the UK took a leading role in undermining these talks. This is hinted at very occasionally in interviews. But does Starmer himself even know about this episode? I would not bank on it. Mainstream media having been so obfuscating of it, institutional memory in government being what it is, and the UK being on its fourth Prime Minister since it happened.
And have Starmer/Lammy ever actually read the 1.5-page Budapest Memorandum document – realising it’s media fiction that the US/UK ever offered a security guarantee?
We have a misguided understanding of the history of the agreements that are the supposed foundation of our support for Ukraine.
In the example of the Korean War, in the words of Robert Caro, President Eisenhower realised “Plans for an all-out offensive were irrational. The situation was intolerable; the only solution was to end the war on honorable terms as soon as possible.” Eisenhower had the insight to realise that unlimited war in the nuclear age was unthinkable, and limited war unwinnable. South Korea is doing quite alright today.
How was the conflict brought to a close?
On coming to power in 1953, Eisenhower ramped up rhetorical threats while asking adversaries to come to the negotiating table.
This is what Trump and JD Vance have stated they wish to emulate. Two minutes:
JD talking about a “demarcation line” and “demilitarised zone” clearly points to the Korean example.
But British leaders today are intending only to ramp up military action.
We have proven ourselves blockheaded enough to do the unthinkable.
The person seemingly preventing all this from actually happening, to his great credit, is President Biden.
Can he and Jake Sullivan stand firm until November 6?
If Trump wins, on foreign policy Starmer and the British establishment will have to wise up. But Biden is a far surer hand on this than Harris – having at least some humility for Russia’s capabilities. If Harris wins, I shudder at the thought of what this will unleash in unmitigated stupidity from UK politicians.
I feel so let down and disappointed by the generation above me – the conservative thinkers I once looked up to and believed in – who have been myopic in their thinking this whole conflict.
PS. To its credit, The New Statesman has offered some sanity in its coverage this week:
Imagine that a number of American cities were being bombed with Chinese missiles guided by Chinese navigational data and that, even though the missiles – Dong-Feng 15s, say – had not been fired by Chinese forces, they had been provided to the perpetrators with the express goal of bombing specified targets. Would one be justified in saying that China was at war with the US? I find it hard to believe that anyone in Washington would conclude otherwise.
It is perplexing, then, that as both the British and American governments consider authorising Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia with missiles provided by London and Washington, they simultaneously insist that there is no question of entering a war against Russia. Keir Starmer has said, “We don’t seek any conflict with Russia, that’s not our intention in the slightest.”
…I am always reluctant to agree with his opinions, but I’m tempted to make an exception and say that Putin has a point.
…If the West allows its missiles to be deployed, a new variable will have been introduced. Russia may respond in kind. For example, it may be tempted to provide Iran or the Houthis with new capacities. Is Britain prepared for the possibility that one of its warships or carriers in the Middle East might be sunk by a hypersonic missile fired from Yemen? My guess is that it is not.
I feel shocked by the speed with which Starmer and Lammy seen to have transitioned into warmongers.
Rather like it's some kind of initiation ritual they needed to pass to demonstrate their commitment to the British Establishment cause.