Instead of indulging in bluster and provocative rhetoric, the UK should make clear that Nato has no designs on the country
It has not taken long for the Ukraine crisis to be seized on by vested interests in the west. Nato commanders and British generals, as well as those lobbying for a new Trident nuclear missile fleet, are warning about the potential dangers of a resurgent Russia. Whatever their motives, the messages behind this strategic rhetoric are clear enough: Nato forces may be pulling out of Afghanistan but the alliance still has a role; cuts in the British army should be restored; and the UK's nuclear arsenal will deter Russia in a new cold war.
General Philip Breedlove, Nato's supreme commander, has warned that Russia had assembled a "very, very sizeable and very, very ready" force on Ukraine's eastern border that could be planning to head for Transnistria, a Russian-speaking enclave that declared independence from Moldova in 1991. "That is very worrisome," Breedlove said, adding that Nato should rethink the positioning and readiness of its forces in eastern Europe.
Meanwhile, General (now Lord) Richard Dannatt, former head of the British army, says diplomacy must be backed up by greater military capability. Rather than committing itself to removing all its 20,000 troops from Germany, where they have been stationed since the end of the second world war, a newly formed brigade of 3,000 soldiers should be deployed there, Dannatt said. In an article in the Daily Telegraph, he described tensions between east and west as "uncomfortable shadows of the Thirties".
British generals, past and present, are deeply unhappy about the government's decision to cut the regular army by 20%, from 102,000 to 82,000 by 2020. "Military manoeuvre capability … takes us generations to create and we may need it sooner than we think," the head of the army General Sir Peter Wall told a meeting earlier this month hosted by the Chatham House thinktank.
"We have only got to look to the tension in the Ukraine to see a situation that was not foreseen and is confounding our previous assumptions about stability across Europe," he said. "The sense of what some have described as moral disarmament in the west … may already be a factor in others' expectations of our reaction to provocation." He continued: "Having ready [land-based] forces sends strategic messages to potential adversaries that will shape their behaviour towards us, ab initio … they serve as a deterrent."
A threat of deploying British soldiers against Russian forces (500 are being sent on a Nato exercise in the Baltic) may be a slightly more realistic deterrent than a Trident long-range nuclear ballistic missile, but it will not help to prevent more violent ethnic disputes along the national state borders of central and eastern Europe. Far from it.
Anyway, Barack Obama has in effect ruled out any military component in America's response to Russia's military action in Crimea. In an interview with the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant ahead of a nuclear security summit in The Hague, Obama said he did not view Europe as a battleground between the east and the west. "That's the kind of thinking that should have ended with the cold war," he said, adding: "On the contrary, it's important that Ukraine have good relations with the United States, Russia and Europe."
Instead of indulging in bluster and provocative rhetoric, David Cameron and William Hague should make clear that whatever economic help the EU can provide Ukraine (on condition that it recognises Russian as an official language, agrees to defend minorities and takes energetic steps to root out corruption), and however Vladimir Putin and his entourage may be punished, Nato will not have designs on the country. That would be a healthy confidence-building measure.
Ukraine – the "borderlands" between east and west – would thus remain militarily neutral, a status guaranteed by Moscow as well as Washington. Nato has extended far enough, from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Far from amounting to a policy of appeasement, the offer of such a guarantee would place Putin, now revelling in the west's combination of bombast and the threat of limited sanctions, on the back foot. Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 hours ago.
It has not taken long for the Ukraine crisis to be seized on by vested interests in the west. Nato commanders and British generals, as well as those lobbying for a new Trident nuclear missile fleet, are warning about the potential dangers of a resurgent Russia. Whatever their motives, the messages behind this strategic rhetoric are clear enough: Nato forces may be pulling out of Afghanistan but the alliance still has a role; cuts in the British army should be restored; and the UK's nuclear arsenal will deter Russia in a new cold war.
General Philip Breedlove, Nato's supreme commander, has warned that Russia had assembled a "very, very sizeable and very, very ready" force on Ukraine's eastern border that could be planning to head for Transnistria, a Russian-speaking enclave that declared independence from Moldova in 1991. "That is very worrisome," Breedlove said, adding that Nato should rethink the positioning and readiness of its forces in eastern Europe.
Meanwhile, General (now Lord) Richard Dannatt, former head of the British army, says diplomacy must be backed up by greater military capability. Rather than committing itself to removing all its 20,000 troops from Germany, where they have been stationed since the end of the second world war, a newly formed brigade of 3,000 soldiers should be deployed there, Dannatt said. In an article in the Daily Telegraph, he described tensions between east and west as "uncomfortable shadows of the Thirties".
British generals, past and present, are deeply unhappy about the government's decision to cut the regular army by 20%, from 102,000 to 82,000 by 2020. "Military manoeuvre capability … takes us generations to create and we may need it sooner than we think," the head of the army General Sir Peter Wall told a meeting earlier this month hosted by the Chatham House thinktank.
"We have only got to look to the tension in the Ukraine to see a situation that was not foreseen and is confounding our previous assumptions about stability across Europe," he said. "The sense of what some have described as moral disarmament in the west … may already be a factor in others' expectations of our reaction to provocation." He continued: "Having ready [land-based] forces sends strategic messages to potential adversaries that will shape their behaviour towards us, ab initio … they serve as a deterrent."
A threat of deploying British soldiers against Russian forces (500 are being sent on a Nato exercise in the Baltic) may be a slightly more realistic deterrent than a Trident long-range nuclear ballistic missile, but it will not help to prevent more violent ethnic disputes along the national state borders of central and eastern Europe. Far from it.
Anyway, Barack Obama has in effect ruled out any military component in America's response to Russia's military action in Crimea. In an interview with the Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant ahead of a nuclear security summit in The Hague, Obama said he did not view Europe as a battleground between the east and the west. "That's the kind of thinking that should have ended with the cold war," he said, adding: "On the contrary, it's important that Ukraine have good relations with the United States, Russia and Europe."
Instead of indulging in bluster and provocative rhetoric, David Cameron and William Hague should make clear that whatever economic help the EU can provide Ukraine (on condition that it recognises Russian as an official language, agrees to defend minorities and takes energetic steps to root out corruption), and however Vladimir Putin and his entourage may be punished, Nato will not have designs on the country. That would be a healthy confidence-building measure.
Ukraine – the "borderlands" between east and west – would thus remain militarily neutral, a status guaranteed by Moscow as well as Washington. Nato has extended far enough, from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Far from amounting to a policy of appeasement, the offer of such a guarantee would place Putin, now revelling in the west's combination of bombast and the threat of limited sanctions, on the back foot. Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 hours ago.