Holding Out For A Coward 'Til The Morning Light

NATO Should Abandon Its New Exercises and Pursue Disarmament Talks with Russia

I KNOW, I know - everyone loves Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “I need ammunition, not a ride,” the Ukrainian President allegedly said just as Russia invaded in 2022, coolly brushing off US offers to evacuate him from Kiev.

We seem collectively unfazed by a man with a voice like Emperor Palpatine and who shares a name with the baddy from Harry Potter. Are we not just a bit superstitious about such full-throated support for a short-arse mid-talent artist and fiery orator in uniform who is obsessed with retaking territory from the Russkies?

Zelenskyy’s precise foibles are not the point. Maybe he is heroic. But heroic isn’t always a good idea. My mate Cliff says last Friday he did a heroic line of cocaine. It's crucial to emphasize that this does not justify allocating $240 million worth of stinger missiles to Cliff.

Frankly, what this world needs right now is cowards. Lots and lots of cowards. I mean, I’d volunteer my services but I’m quivering behind my son’s beanbag.

The latest in Eastern Europe is that NATO will this week deploy 90,000 troops for alliance’s largest military exercise since the Cold War.

What exactly are we doing? It comes down to our hatred of Vladimir Putin. To defeat this psychopathic new “Hitler”, apparently we must show resolve and solidarity with Ukraine.

This isn’t about democracy, of course - Zelenskyy has ditched all that. I even saw a survey which found Russia was the most corrupt country in Europe. Know who was 2nd? Ukraine. I guess they would have been first - probably they bribed whoever made the list.

So, are we faced with a new Hitler in the form of Putin? Let’s compare. In 1939, Germany had the biggest and best trained armed forces in Europe. Modern Russia spends 17 times less on its military than NATO collectively and, even on a one to one basis, is average among the great powers. Economically, in 1939, Germany was the most powerful country in Europe - and keen to bust out of its geographical heart. Situated on the edge of the continent, Russia maintains a middling economy.

Ideologically, too, while Russia has a predictable mix of resentments and border disputes, Nazi Germany was an occult asylum run by the inmates. I mean, Heinrich Himmler kept thousands of "death's head" rings in a spooky old castle in a f—-ing crypt.

Within eight years of coming to office, Hitler had smashed tanks through ten countries, was fighting a world war on two fronts and systematically murdering every minority group in Europe. Eight years into Putin, he was still cooperating on the NATO-Russia Council.

Why not try this thought experiment? If anyone says Britain needs nuclear weapons, ask them to specify a scenario - because there's only one worth considering: Russia inexplicably decides to march its army across Germany, Holland, and Belgium. These countries inexplicably offer no resistance and this 400,000 square miles of new Russian territory is easily governed by the triumphant aggressors. France sits by as its neighbours are over-run. At this point, Russia has to decide whether to cross the English channel - an amphibious landing that has deterred invaders for a thousand years - and try, again for no reason whatsoever, to govern Britain by force.

It might be at this point that Britain would find some use - limited, risky, symbolic - in having a nuclear weapon as a deterrent.

But in reality the furthest Russia ever came towards us in two centuries of history was the Eastern half of Berlin in 1945 - and that was after six years of war and with help from the entire rest of the world, including us. Currently, Russia has half its armed forces fighting to control the eastern fifth of Ukraine.

And our adventurism in Eastern Europe is not just some distant, dumb, derring-do. In 2022 an RAF plane was flying surveillance over the Black Sea when it encountered two Russian jets. Following an ambiguous command from its ground station, one of the Russian pilots fired - and missed. The second pilot went nuts but pilot one ignored him and fired again.

The incident would have killed 30 British military personnel and, as such, certainly would have led to an immediate state of war between NATO and Russia. Somehow, that second missile had jammed. It was only reported a year after it happened.

We know these sorts of cock-ups and close-calls happen fairly frequently: The Race for Pristina Airport (1999); the Spy Plane incident (2001); Israel’s strike on an alleged Syrian nuclear facility (2007); Various border transgressions with North Korea; US/ Chinese military planes coming within 3 meters of each other (2023). That’s not even to include the long list of nuclear “close calls”.

Would a Western-led peace initiative be seized on by Putin as weakness? Conceivably. But that isn’t our or my fault. It’s the fault of our lying leaders who could still have secured a peace on favourable terms as late as April 2022 if NATO, in the form of Boris Johnson, hadn’t told Zelenskyy not to do so. I will not take responsibility for their recklessness when people like me have very clearly called it out again and again and again - and have been right again and again and again.

We must press for peace in Ukraine. When all the kids first got all frisky over “Slava Ukraini” in Spring 2022, did they even know it meant “Glory to Ukraine”? I said right at the start, “Vryatuvaty Ukrayintsiv, Vryatuvaty Svit” - “Save Ukrainians, Save Everyone”. We already have nuclear weapons - how about we use them. Use them as leverage to negotiate disarmament agreements with all nations. Now, that’s not cowardice.