1/ As Ukraine advances and Russian troops around Kherson soil their recently stolen underpants, it feels a good moment to unpack the Hitchens et al hypothesis that Ukrainian concessions for peace are inevitable and NATO aid merely prolongs the suffering until that moment.
2/ If you take away all the grandiose language and puffery, the argument is quite simple:
Regardless of how much aid the West sends, it is inevitable that the Russian army will eventually push Ukraine to where it is prepared to offer land for Putin's guarantee of peace.
3/ It's based on a assumptions that really don't stand up to even basic scrutiny.
First, it envisages a moment where things are going so badly for Ukraine that Zelenskyy can (politically) offer major concessions but not so badly Putin wouldn't just push for total victory.
4/ Ukrainian public support for handing over Luhansk and Donetsk for peace, and trust in Putin's word was very low even before HIMARS and MARS started turning Russian ammo dumps into firework displays.
I imagine it's lower still now.
5/ In order to shatter that support, the war would have to be going very, very badly.
Under such circumstances, why wouldn't Putin just push to finish what he started or demand Kharkiv, Odessa, Kyiv? A land bridge to Transnistria?
6/ Second, it assumes the Russian military can sustain its invasion, and indeed make substantial gains, regardless of attrition, sanctions and whatever a Ukraine supplied by the West can throw at it.
We can't rule that out, but it's a bold claim.
7/ The Russian military fighting in Ukraine has showed none of the unstoppable grandeur someone might have assumed it possessed from their time getting shitfaced in Moscow watching tank parades roll by.
-cough cough-
8/ There is substantial evidence that Russia is having to scrape the bottom of its barrel harder and harder to muster increasingly inferior troops and equipment.
You don't beg Zimbabwe for reinforcements and Iran for drones when things are going well.
9/ Putin could still declare mobilization, but it's not clear that would solve the army's immediate problems and it would make the war very real for the urbanites he's currently desperately trying to shield from it.
It's not some 'easy win button' he's neglected to hit yet.
10/ Now sure, a cold winter and the passing of time could erode Western support for Ukraine, though we hope it doesn't.
But that's a possibility and not an inevitability, and articles suggesting such aid is cruel or counterproductive aren't helping.
11/ This war will eventually end in negotiation. That's inevitable. Russia has proven it can't take Kyiv, and Ukraine isn't marching on Moscow.
That does not however make it inevitable that Ukraine will eventually be negotiating from a position of weakness.
12/ At every stage Western aid has improved Ukraine's negotiating position immeasurably.
In February, Javelins and NLAWs helped ensure Putin wasn't negotiating while holding Kyiv and standing over Zelenskyy's broken body.
13/ In March, Bayraktar drones and western trained, night vision equipped Ukrainian SOF hunted Russian fuel trucks and helped turn the highways into gridlocked starvation traps.
14/ In April, May and June, increasingly sophisticated shipments of artillery and AA gave Ukrainian troops their own teeth to help blunt Russian advances with something other than man portable weapons and bravery, and all but kicked the Russian airforce out of the country.
15/ In July and August, HIMARS and MARS are following NATO intelligence guidance, SOF targeting, drone sighting and brave partisan tips to pummel Russian bases, headquarters and logistics, supply lines and now infantry with near impunity.
16/ Throughout it all, Western money and supplies have kept Ukraine afloat in the face of unprecedented economic hardship and disruption.
17/ Every shipment, and every hard won victory that shipment enabled, has increased Ukraine's bargaining power, humiliated Russia, and left it more and more isolated on the world stage as the quick victory it promised allies like China turned to smoke.
18/ Don't listen to the fatalists and the fools. Give Ukraine what you can spare, and trust they'll use it right.
Victory may not be inevitable, but the defeat contrarians prognosticate is more distant every day.
Sláva Ukrayíni and heróyam sláva!
/end
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2/ If you've seen Die Hard, you've heard of Diplomatic Immunity.
193 countries are signatories to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which legally obliges them to treat embassies, diplomats, their property, vehicle and their families as 'inviolable'.
3/ Inviolable is a fancy way of saying the state can't use its coercive force on you the way it can on other citizens. It can't detain, hurt or threaten you or your family, and it can't seize your property.
Eg. It can issue you a traffic fine, but can't MAKE you pay it.
1/ Jenkins has another magical thinking piece in the Guardian about how if you make bullies mad they might be bully-er.
Since this is apparently what I do now, let's dive in.
Note: Taiwan isn't my area at all, but I'll say a few words on it on the way to the Ukraine nonsense.
2/ The idea that Jenkins and his ilk have been somehow quieter or less prone to assigning labels than the people they disagree with is a bold one.
As is the idea that letting Russia overrun Ukraine or China to seize Taiwan by force is automatically the 'reason' option.
3/ There's a lot to dissect here.
First, accepting the premise that a visit by a US Congressional Speaker to Taiwan is hugely provocative is itself a concession to Chinese sensitivities.
She's an elderly civilian woman, not the 82nd Airborne.
1/ It feels like many of the "don't arm Ukraine" crowd premise their position on the idea that in the absence of Western arms, Ukraine loses so badly it sues for peace, gives away a bunch of territory which somehow satisfies the Russians and everyone goes home.
That's... bold.
2/ Another, entirely likely scenario is that Russia keeps coming & without Western arms to stand against them in open terrain Ukraine retreats into the cities where local support, local knowledge and the urban setting neutralizes Russia's advantage in tanks and air support.
3/ Do people understand what that would look like?
Russia has proven it basically can't take cities by assault against determined opposition, and so it would do what it's doing now to Ukrainian defensive positions... pummel them with MLRS and shells until there's nothing left.
Before everyone starts yelling, writing concisely but with precision is the number one skill of a civil servant and it is entirely legitimate for a Minister to expect concise briefs, especially in a take-home Red Box.
The number one skill I recommend young people practice for a career in anything even vaguely policy related is taking a long, complex document and summarizing it in one page as if for a busy decision maker.
It's really hard and Uni is garbage at teaching it.
The biggest whiplash a lot of top students get when they go from higher education into the private or public sector is that the challenge goes from "Fill 10,000 words" to "squeeze all this into 300."
For the avoidance of doubt: saying "we shouldn't arm Ukraine" is supporting Russia's imperialistic goals in the country even if you first condemn the invasion.
Words are great but Ukrainians can't protect themselves from tanks and missiles with your strong statements of concern.
Putin's hope in launching the invasion in February is that he'd be able to capture Kyiv so fast that issuing statements and maybe a few sanctions would be the only options left to the West.
Ukrainian bravery and Russian military incompetence foiled that.
Russia is never happiest than when they can manoeuvre their geopolitical enemies into positions of impotence or political paralysis, leaving them with only the angry statement as an option.
They fucked it up this time, but we can still kick own goals if we're not careful.