After weeks of build up and years of Russian military involvement in the Ukraine which included the 2014 seizure of Crimea from the Ukraine, the Russians have finally crossed the border into those areas of Ukraine that have Russian speaking majorities. This invasion was to be expected. The Russians could not create such a massive military build up and then stand it down without the Russian government losing a lot of face by doing so. It would look to the world as if the whining of the Western Powers had achieved a win without an actual fight had Vladimir Putin just accepted a negotiated settlement and pulled his troops back. As soon as the build up of Russian troops at the border between Russia and Ukraine started then war of some sort became almost inevitable.

Russia also has some time constraints hanging over it regarding action in the Ukraine. The time to undertake an invasion of Ukraine would be one when the West is particularly weak. At present the West is extraordinarily weak as it is recovering from the pandemic, which has hurt the economies of the West. The West also has a very run down military system unsuited for long war against a large and determined aggressor and the West is also hampered by the social and cultural problems that have been in large part been caused by the political Left. While the Russians were polishing and preparing the weapons that they need to invade Ukraine, the Western academic and political classes have been bitching about pronouns and shafting our own energy security with the net zero nonsense. The West’s weakness has I would say gone some way to emboldening the Russians and creating the conditions for adventurism and expansion by Russia.

How long this war will go on is hard to say at this moment. It could go on for months or even years as was the case with the biggest war in Europe since World War II which was the breakup of Yugoslavia. However it could equally be a pretty short war with the Russians taking land from the Ukraine, digging in so as to hold that land and launching an economic and cyber war against the Ukrainians to keep them from taking back the land that the Russians occupy. Whether the Russians will go for a full on occupation of the entirety of Ukraine or just occupy those areas which are predominantly Russian speaking is difficult to say at this stage. A full takeover of Ukraine brings with it both benefits and problems for the Russians. It would benefit in this case from removing a potential new NATO member on their doorstep but a full occupation would likely bog down the Russians in the sort of urban warfare that makes pacifying a nation quite difficult.

This is a time when the West needed strong leaders in order to deter Russia completely from annexing Ukraine or installing a puppet regime there or even taking significant chunks out of Ukraine and to make the Russians think about the implications of a full scale invasion. Unfortunately there are few strong leaders in the West at the moment. America is headed by Joe Biden whose only qualification for the role that he has been elected to is that he was not Donald Trump. Britain, the other major European nation that has a record for force projection is led by Boris Johnson a man who is embroiled with scandal at home and who is complicit in some of the bad decisions that have left Britain with energy insecurity issues the likes of which have not been seen for decades. Biden and Johnson are not the modern day equivalent of Thatcher and Reagan or Churchill and Roosevelt, they are much weaker than that and the Russians know this.

The sanctions put in place against the Russian government by the UK and the USA might work in bringing the Russians to the table but from what I’ve read the Russians have built up a considerable financial war chest that would allow them to ride out much of the sanctions regime. The Russians also have as an ally China which is also flexing its muscles against the West. The Russians could continue to trade with China and China’s allies outside of any sanctions regime and any support that China gives to Russia could prolong any conflict between Russia and the West over Ukraine.

I fear that we are in for interesting times when it comes to the Ukraine. I really really hope that on this occasion that I’m wrong and that this conflict is short lived and doesn’t spread outside of the current conflict area.