Ukraine Is Now About Realpolitik

Might may not necessarily be right, but who listens to the weak?

The rough treatment that President Trump handed out to President Zelensky has set the chattering classes into full witter mode, thereby proving the adage about empty vessels. Few (or less) have pointed out that, as any schoolchild could tell them, biting the hand that feeds is foolish and idiotic. President Zelensky misread the situation or refused to accept what he heard. President Trump wants a ceasefire first, and the sooner the better. That then provides a start point for building a lasting peace, or at least a truce.

President Zelensky disagrees, wanting “American security guarantees.” By making these demands publicly on live TV Zelensky set himself against the bombastic Trump. President Trump thinks a ceasefire deal between the United States and Russia would hold, due to the (undisclosed) nature of his envisaged deal, the parties involved and the terms of that deal. By creating a precondition for a ceasefire that President Trump sees as unnecessary Zelensky painted himself into an untenable corner and has now had American military aid paused.

Currently US financial and military aid to Ukraine totals around $3,500 per household, over $1,000 per household per year. There is absolutely no obligation on the United States to provide such largess, at a cost of $350 billion and counting. Pre-war Ukraine was not a major business partner, nor really of much relevance. It was, and probably still is, less of a concern to American interests than China, which has been more central to American global concerns than Russia since the Obama days.

President Trump knows that the American public is not fond of foreign wars, particularly the blue collar workers who usually end up doing most of the dying. He also knows that bringing NATO and Russia into direct combat is probably World War Three, with the potential to turn into Armageddon. Like any sane person, he is keen to avoid that and doesn’t want to take any further steps on that path. Hence his immediate priority – stop the shooting. Now. Then sweat the detail on geography, reparations and the like.

The Wittering Class, which includes most of the doyens of Westminster, Fleet Street and the BBC, doesn’t understand this. Still smarting from JD Vance’s “if you're running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you” line in his Munich speech (because they are) they chose to demonise President Putin. They forget that in 1999 President Putin prevented the collapse of post-Yeltsin Russia. In 2003 he came to the UK on a full state visit, not least because the collapse that he prevented could easily have ended in a nuclear war between the various Post Soviet republics. It didn’t and, with western support, all nuclear warheads were returned to Russia, including from Ukraine.

This doesn’t make President Putin a saint. He lives in a world of realpolitik and that’s rather messier than the world of the PPE course. President Putin is rather good at realpolitik – how else would he have survived for a quarter of a century at the top of a country which spans 11 time zones and whose capital is closer to Washington than it is to Vladivostok? It really doesn’t matter, the reality is that President Putin is key to any ceasefire, and thus to any peace. The botched invasion of Ukraine is a cost and problem to him too. He’s keen to salvage something for the appalling cost.

The Witterers thought that economic sanctions would destroy Russia. They haven’t; currently Russian GDP is growing at some 3.5% https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp-growth-annual and its GDP per capita is higher than it has ever been. https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/gdp-per-capita The Witterers thought the world would isolate Russia. Most of the world (by number of countries and by population) has not. The Witterers thought 14 Challenger tanks and a bunch of broken artillery would halt the Russian advance, yet the Russians inch closer west almost every day. The Witterers thought western weaponry would trump the Russians. It did for a bit, but then they ran out. The Witterers need to consider the facts as they are, not as they would want them to be.

The reality is that the Ukrainian war is now one of attrition, and Ukraine is losing. While its stubborn resistance and occasional successful counterattack are impressive, bordering on the heroic there is little chance of the Ukrainians restoring their 2014 borders by military means. They struggle to hold what they still have and are generally retreating while inflicting and suffering casualties at similar rates to World War One. They can’t sustain that indefinitely.

Secondly the European bit of NATO’s military capability is risible. Other than Poland, NATO lacks scale, equipment, readiness and training. These things cannot be restored overnight, even if the funds are made available, as Ursula von der Leyen has just done (in a smoke and mirrors kind of way). Similarly the Starmer’s much touted acceleration of the increase in defence spending won’t deliver military capability for years. Manufacturing weaponry takes time. Building stockpiles takes time. Training troops to use them takes time. Promises made to Ukraine today can’t be fulfilled because the military capability does not exist.

One sensible voice in Europe is Georgia Meloni (not a Witterer) whose description of the Starmer – Macron plans as “premature” was a masterpiece of understatement. Some in Europe and Westminster seem to think that the Anglophile President Trump is a threat. He is, in as much as he’s calling time on our pathetic defence posturing. Some even think him ineffective, yet he’s just got Europe to up its military spending, as he wanted. The Witterers (and there are many in Brussels) really struggle to see alternatives to their flawed, self-important world view.

Back in the real world, Ukrainian and Russian soldiers will continue to be slaughtered until there is a ceasefire. The only people who can deliver that are Presidents Trump and Putin, so they’re going to be the only people doing the negotiations.

Once that’s delivered there will not doubt be a series of peace talks and Ukraine and, to a lesser extent, Europe’s view will be important. If, as is likely, the ceasefire requires observers (unarmed) or peacekeepers (armed, heavily) then Europe may or may not be invited to take part. Presidents Trump and Putin will tell them. As regards the future defence and security of the hypothetical new Ukraine (and therefore the rest of the world) Presidents Trump and Putin will tell them within the ceasefire agreement.

President Trump has already told the Europeans that they need to spend lots more of defence if they want him to re-commit the United States to the hilt the future defence of Europe from marauding Russians. Whether that includes the Baltic states seems open to question; President Trump was less emphatic about them in the press conference. But his style seems to be to throw lots of things on the table, or close to it, which is one way to get a deal done and stop the killing and the risks of escalation.

What the United Kingdom should be doing is further accelerating the restoration of its military capabilities. Without credible military we have little geopolitical influence and certainly no seat at Trumps negotiating table. It could immediately end the nonsense of Whole Fleet Management (the process that means most of the Army’s tanks and heavy equipment are in storage, not with troops). The Navy needs more frigates and more pilots for its F35s. The RAF shares the pilot log jam. All the services need more training time, more fuel, more spare parts and more ammunition stockpiles. If we’re sending more ammunition to Ukraine then even more ammunition manufacture will be required. Above all, the Armed Forces need to reverse the outflow of trained personnel.

That will cost money, and it needs to be spent now. Unfortunately the reign of Reeves has delivered stagnation and a dwindling tax take. Starmer’s choice is between abandoning his Marxist economics, getting another chancellor (who will also fail to deliver growth) or start cutting government expenditure. The latter will inflame the Wittering classes, who are more comfortable with “war footing” as a sound bite than the reality of what that means.

A wiser Westminster would accept that the UK can’t fight a minor war for at least five years, that there is no sign that President Putin will attack NATO - certainly while the United States is still engaged and that we had no strategic interest (other than avoiding Armageddon) in Ukraine. We didn’t have one in 2014, when the little green men invaded. Nothing has changed, our major interest in Ukraine is that the war there does not spread. The best way to stop that is to get a ceasefire. President Trump can deliver that, Zelensky can’t and neither can self-important European leaders, including Sir Keir.

We’ve spent three years backing a weakling in a proxy war and our proxy can’t win. Why throw good money after bad and more bodies into the cemeteries? The notion of the “rules based international world order” doesn’t work. Why pretend that it does, or even that it exists?

Realpolitik isn’t nice. But it does bring peace. It’s time for the Witterers to get real, or shut up.

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