Member-only story
Why Fight When You’re Doomed To Lose?
The question our smart & stable “leaders” never bothered to ask themselves
It’s no secret that when Ukrainian courage and resourcefulness prevented Russian forces from overwhelming Ukraine during Putin’s third invasion of the country commencing 24th February 2022, Westerners of all stripes were astonished. The usual intelligence community over-estimations of Russian capability (despite the endless flaws shown in Putin’s 2008 invasion of Georgia), politicians’ empty-headed assumptions of Russian power, and the general public’s surprise at seeing a hitherto unknown country hold back the supposed might of a supposed neer-peer force resulted in a brief surge of support for “the plucky little underdog” as Ukraine quickly became portrayed by babbling journalists.
Politicians, eager as always to garner easy votes, did what politicians prefer to do in all circumstances: they generated the illusion of action while persistently refusing to do anything of importance. Sanctions were announced and babbling journalists proclaimed that sanctions would cripple Russia’s economy and the problem would (by magic, one presumes) be solved.
As sanctions have never at any time nor in any place prevented a belligerent from waging war, sanctions were obviously a non-event despite the eagerness with which many commentators — including those here on Medium who ought to have known better — jumped into the party and repeated the claims that sanctions would so undermine the Russian economy that Putin would be forced to withdraw.
Meanwhile, on the overt appeasement end of the spectrum, Emmanuel Macron in France kept telling people the most important thing wasn’t the survival of Ukraine in the face of unprovoked invasion but rather the survival of Putin’s dignity. It was essential, Macron kept saying, that Putin should not be placed in a situation where he might feel humiliated. In other words, better Ukraine should be turned into a rubble-strewn gulag and millions of Ukrainians raped, tortured, mutilated, and murdered, than the squalid little dictator of Russia should be inconvenienced in any way.
Germany, which since the 1950s had been thoroughly penetrated by Soviet and then Russian intelligence officers, their agents, and various helpful…
