I wonder if anyone else finds th MoD's morning briefings regarding the perfomance of rhe Russian military troubling? I do not think that they are necessary but also find them to be provocative. It strikes me as Palmerstonian sabre-rattling of the worst kind and just a littles smug given that the performance of the British army has been debatable in Iraq and Afghanistan in the recent past. Naval interference in the Black Sea must be considered a last resort.
On top of this, Liz Truss's tones are also increasingly aggresive and seem aimed at confronting Russia on a wider front. The situation in Africa is now being mooted. I am not sure where this is headed but I think the kind of comments she is making underscores the confusion as to what NATO's role is. It certainly is not defensive and I just feel that with Truss in charge of foreign policy this could quickly get out of control. It is wrong that the Russians are meddling in Africa albeit this is certainly not on the scale of what the Chinese have been doing for years which is even more pernicious than what the British Empire did. In the end, any involvement by Russia will be likely to backfire of it's own accord and what NATO does not want to be doing is opening another front on another continent.
I would prefer that we maintain the sanctions against Russia and not become involved in any military action and am still on the fence as to whether the supply of weapons to Ukraine is ultimately the correct decision. I feel that the economic isolation alone will ultimately bring down Putin just as a Russian embargo of fuel and grain imports will have a negative effect on the global economy. Conflict is in no one's interest and the jingoistic rhetoric by all parties has no role in trying to find a solution.
There does not seem to be much concern in the UK as to how the Russian conflict in the Ukraine could escalate. I do not believe we should appease Putin yet, at the same time, the message put out by the West and NATO clearly sees any satisfactory solution to involve the humiliation of Russia. Without doubt the Russia assault in Ukraine is one of the most ridiculous and costly mistakes made in Europe since the Nazis invaded Russia and cannot be condoned in any circumstances. By contrast, I think the West has been extremely poor in how it has managed Putin and it blinkered in the fact that it has similarly failed to recognise that NATO aggrandisement has been central to why this has happened. I cannot believe that the public has not really made much of a stand against military action by all parties. Stop the War has effectively been villanised and it is only this week that some trade unions such as the PCS have correctly voted to recognise in their conference that NATO is not a defensive alliance and that it is aggressive and perhaps "imperialist" too. It does worry me that we are effectively in a proxy war with Russia and yet I am not aware that this either has the full approval of parliament or has been properly debated. Certainly the position taken by Starmer has stiffled all debate on this matter by the opposition.
I find Johnson and Truss both to be extremely reckless and, in these circumstances, they are wholly the wrong kind of individuals to be place in such authority during a period of such heightened tensions. We would have had a more mature and sensible response had Corbyn been PM.
