In a world of media attention where broadcasters make the news as often as they report it, it has become common for hyperbole to replace facts. I suppose it is understandable. Every day there are dozens of podcasts and interviews exclaiming that Russia is winning, Russia is losing, nuclear war is around the corner, peace is at hand because the Americans have “expert” negotiators…. I won’t go on. 

Allow me to reiterate a position I have held for four years: There will be no negotiated peace plan. Putin does not want a peace plan; Putin will not accept a peace plan. Putin cannot accept a peace plan. There are only two possible outcomes: Ukraine wins; or Russia wins. If the former comes to pass, Russia will descend into chaos. If the latter, Europe will face at least a decade of uncertainty stemming from a land-hungry neighbour, not to mention several million refugees streaming out of Ukraine in every direction except east. It will make Germany in June of 1945 look like a day in the park. 

It has been late in coming, but as I write the leaders of the “Coalition of the Willing” have gathered to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine. Am I the only person who recalls that the US, UK and — you guessed it — Russia already promised such guarantees? On 5 Dec 1994, Ukraine was promised that its sovereignty would be safeguarded by the “Three Great Powers” by signing the Budapest Memorandum. When Russia invaded Crimea that memo became as useful as the newspaper lining the bottom of a bird cage. So why are we so convinced any future promises will be kept?  

I, for one, am not. It is in everyone’s interests (everyone except Ukraine) that they keep fighting using money and materiel supplied by others. Ukraine has one choice, and it is Hobson’s Choice. They either fight or cease to be a sovereign nation. Britain and France (and quietly even Germany and Poland) are making noises that they are willing to dispatch military forces to rear areas to provide security to Ukraine. How will Russia see that? What if Polish “security forces” die because of a rogue drone strike? The underlying warning being discussed is this: Europe must prepare for the coming war. 

An essay in last week’s Economist prompted a discussion among a few of us that was interesting but, in my opinion, just another ill-considered attempt at getting everyone to worry about something that is not happening. Why? Because Europe is NOT going to war any time soon. 

There are two broad scenarios: 

1. Russia crosses into a NATO country and triggers a major land war. There is a medical term for this: suicide. 

2. Russia picks at the threads that hold the EU/EEC/NATO together in all sorts of annoying and ultimately un-clever ways.: this has been happening since Putin took power in 2000. 

So why the European generals’ “call to arms”? Many of us know plenty of generals and admirals, and if we look at how they behave from a dispassionate POV, we see that many of them conflate being important with being insightful. I could turn your hair white with stories of many of the men who rose to the upper echelons and were profoundly unprepared for the major responsibilities that they bore.  These people are not stupid, far from it. But neither did their IQs rise as they added rank to their sleeves. I can name a couple of CDS who were quite open about their disdain for post-graduate education.  

It is a senior general’s job to prepare for the worst-case scenario. That is what we teach them to do; that is what we ask them to do. The generals cited in the Economist essay were doing just that and doing their best to repair damage that has occurred over decades. Nothing more. Europe should prepare to go to war, and so should we all. That is not the same as saying we will be doing so any time soon. 

PS: In law schools, litigators are taught two techniques to win in court. When the blackletter law is on your side, pound on the law; when it isn’t, pound on the table. Lots of table pounding going on here my friends.