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President Trump has advanced a new policy proposition that engagement and dialogue is vital if we are to bring an end to the fighting.
When western pundits resist efforts to bring an end to fighting in Ukraine, they never provide an alternative vision of what they would do differently.
A respected associate of mine asked me today if a ceasefire and peace process in Ukraine would simply embolden China and Russia to further aggression.
This is a line oft repeated among the majority of politicians, journalists and so-called academics in the west, who are opposed to an ending of the war. ‘We can’t stop the war, because if we do, China will invade Taiwan and Russia will invade Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland etc.’
My view, for what it’s worth, is that an end to the war in Ukraine might embolden China longer-term over Taiwan in particular. I’ve seen no evidence that it will embolden Russia to invade NATO, precisely because Russia sees itself, in large part, as a country of Europe, even if it has been excluded.
However, and critically, if both China and Russia were so emboldened, then should we not ask ourselves how we have ended up in this position?
Russia’s decision to go to war was driven by a belief that it’s core strategic interests in preventing NATO expansion to its border via Ukraine was being ignored, and that it was subject to permanent sanctions with no possibility of removal through any concessions it might make.
That’s my opinion and one I know that many ‘realists’ share.
But, in any case, the ‘what next’ question should have been considered as part of a longer-term strategic assessment when western nations pushed the NATO enlargement agenda.
We have known since at least 2008 that this was a redline for Russia.
Did we expect Russia’s position to change and if so, how? If Russia’s position did not change, how far would we go to advance Ukraine’s NATO aspiration, including through direct military confrontation?
I’m not aware that those questions were ever asked or, if they were, considered rather than dismissed. And I was at the heart of British government decision making from the latter part of 2013, before the Ukraine crisis started (and must therefore accept some of the blame).
Without the United States, a war in Ukraine was never going to be sustainable for Europe, financially, politically or militarily.
Yet no one thought this through. Or, if they did, they didn’t factor in the eminent risk of America doing an about face on policy one day, as is now happening.
With America now withdrawing, sustaining a losing war in Ukraine rather than calling a halt to the killing cannot be considered a legitimate strategy if its only goal is to avoid losing face.
That makes us look weaker and more feckless.
If other states are now emboldened by the failure of western policy in Ukraine, that is not a sufficient reason to avoid an end to the bloodshed now.
Our self-righteousness indignation to peace is merely a figleaf covering the deflated genitals of our policy failure.
The west so badly mishandled relations in the eight years between the flashpoint of the Maidan and the start of war, not thinking through the consequences.
Russian actions and reactions in Ukraine have always been predictable.
They were predictable in February 2014.
They were predictable in February 2022.
They were predictable in February 2025.
We were never going to fight for Ukraine.
I have heard senior British Ambassadors say that we were never going to fight for Ukraine. And we are the most hawkish nation in Europe.
Why were we never going to fight?
Because it would never be possible to ensure that the 27 nations of the EU or the 31 nations of NATO would come to a collective agreement to fight.
Someone would always block fighting.
Compromises would be made.
We would pursue a lowest common denominator. That led us to a sanctions-only approach.
As I have said many times before, in the game of geostrategic chess, President Putin always knew that large, chattering teams of politicians around the table couldn’t outmanoeuvre him.
In fact, they would take weeks and months just to agree on the meaning of pawn, let alone whether to move it on the board.
We lost through indecision and have yet to learn the lesson.
You can’t fight wars by committee. But you can make peace in a group.
As Albert Einstein said, ‘we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them’. That is seen by some as the source of the misattributed saying, ‘the definition of insanity is to do the same thing but expect a different result.’
As the war in Ukraine grinds towards its diplomatic denouement, those people who would like to avoid a negotiated settlement are not coming up with an alternative approach.
They are not introducing new ideas to up the ante, if that is what they want to do. In fact, I don’t know what they want to do, because they’ve been saying exactly the same things for three years and I am epically bored right now.
The problem here, is that neither are they advancing a credible argument against ending the war.
Their position seems to be, the war is bad, it’s all Russia’s fault and if we give in now, Russia will be emboldened to strike elsewhere.
Their defensive position is held together by straplines not substantive arguments.
In a recent speech, the veteran U.S. Democrat politician Bernie Sanders said,
‘Russia started the war, not Ukraine,
Putin is a dictator, not Zelensky.’
While I am sure he may believe that it’s just another banal outburst, intended more to rail against the political leaders in his own country, rather than to bring peace in Ukraine.
Of course, people view the origins of the war differently and people are entitled to their views.
Debate on the war in Ukraine has become reduced to ‘I’m right and you are wrong’ with voices of reason and realism in the west, like mine, stifled by the mainstream.
But we will never reach a position in which there is a universally accepted view of who was at fault and who was not.
Instead, let’s try to accept that every side in this conflict takes some share of the blame, be that Russia, Ukraine, the U.S., UK and everyone else.
Let’s have a frank but polite discussion about a way forward.
President Trump has advanced a new policy proposition that engagement and dialogue is vital if we are to bring an end to the fighting. British and European leaders can’t continue unchallenged, carrying on as if the world hasn’t changed.
They need to come up with genuinely new and constructive ideas, rather than continuing to say the same things. And reengage in dialogue with Russia.
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Warmongering liberals usually win.
They screamed about Saddam and he’s gone. They screamed about Hitler and he’s gone.
When liberals want to fight, they have most of the institutions and all of the media kissing their bums.
America is heading back to traditional isolationism because internal conflicts are on the horizon. Europe better know they have a bad moon rising too.
Turn that around. Any success against Russia or China would only embolden the US and NATO countries towards further aggression around the world and must be stopped in its tracks. It was an anti-Russian project all along to enlarge NATO and bring it to the borders of Russia, to seal it off, to isolate and weaken them and have some forward bases aimed at Russia. Everybody knows this and the Russians didn’t co-operate in their own subjugation, hence all this gnashing of teeth. Peace proposals or not, they’re just a ploy to salvage what’s left. The Ukrainian regime has lost on the battlefield, they’ve suffered catastrophic losses of killed and crippled military personnel and millions have left the country as refugees, much of the infrastructure is destroyed. They’ve used Ukraine as a proxy, leaving it ruined. The US is not going to fight WW III over this by now apparently stupid and failed anti-Russian project.
China? What aggression? They’ve said they’ll unify Taiwan with the mainland sooner or later and that’s ironclad. Close to half of those living in Taiwan are in favor of some form of unification anyway. What’s there to fight over, some chip factories?
It’s a different world now. Are the US-NATO countries capable of learning from experience?
Bernie Sanders once said that the pickles in the Soviet Union tasted better than the pickles in America.
The article (Ian proud) tells us exactly why is the Strategic Culture Foundation banned by the U.S. It is a propaganda outlet, nothing less and nothing more. It is doing what propaganda outlets always do, waiting until Trump lift the ban.
Can someone quantify this emboldening of China? What does it mean in practice?
Does it mean that an end to the war in Ukraine will result in China not willing to agree to Taiwan’s quasi-independence under American occupation in the long term?
Does it mean that if the war in Ukraine never ends (that’s not physically possible, but let’s say it is for the sake of the argument) then China will be willing to agree to Taiwan’s quasi-independence under American occupation?
This argument feels like something written by a chatbot. It’s grammatically accurate and the meaning of each word separately is clear, but as a whole it doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t mean anything.
propaganda outlet, so no different than all of the western media in that department then, only real problem with it is that it counters the western media propaganda narrative.
The West loves insane wars but the ones they should have fought such as protecting White South Africa and Rhodesia from the black communist revolution, they supported the wrong side. Now look at those places,
The problem is: They don’t have anything new to say.
The pro war party needs to answer the phone. Hey lying bastards, the 4600+ gi’s who died in Iraq called, they want their lives back.
I agree with Anonymous534.
I stopped reading at that point in the article. Ian Proud is ill-informed and reading anything else he has to say in the article based on what he believes is going on in Ukraine and what China might do in regards to Taiwan would be a waste of time.
It seems his perspective was forged by the dirty fake Hebrew Zionists Khazar jews’ mafia media crime syndicate.
The Ukraine war has always been a Zionist war to extend their Empire of Lies into traditional cultural countries not yet subdued by the filth and debauchery our fake Hebrew Zionist Khazar jew rulers have conquered America with.
Our fake Hebrew Zionist Khazar jew rulers are on a mission to impose their lies and illusion on Russia and rest of the world. I’m happy they’re losing the war.
It’s obvious that Europe needs the Ukraine war to continue, they’re out of ideas and options.
Why is the U.K with all their domestic problems going all in for war funding?
For one thing Musk isn’t talking about Starmers role in covering up the exploitation of white girls to Asians, that seems to have disappeared, but it goes to a deeper crisis, Europe no-longer has a technological edge over the world and they’re assets poor so what is their future?
We are seeing energy as a big issue already in the U.K as heating costs just keep going up, this is Britain’s future. As other money laundering centres are established around the world Britain won’t be able to import their needed resources, this will lead to domestic unrest.
Starmer knows that this is the last chance to try and break Russia up so as to steal their resources, the U.S was on board until a change in administration now it’s up to Europe.
We see one last effort in trying to brick Trump into a corner with the “coalition of the willing” a hark back to heady times of the past but it won’t work.
I believe Europe is desperate enough to go it alone…WW3 is still on the cards.
It wasn’t “liberals” who screamed about Saddam and Hitler, it was the tribe whose name must not be spoken. The “liberals” only began to scream when they had received their thirty pieces of silver.
“Might”, etymologically speaking, the past tense of “to be able”. Today, it is the hypothetical “may”.
It “might embolden China longer-term over Taiwan” is like saying I might win a lottery.
Of course it was the Little Hats who bent both elbows till America screamed “OK” in regard to all wars that happened in the Middle East since the Daddy Bush years. I am using Daddy Bush as some sort of cut off point. We’ve have been unilaterally pro-Little Hat and anti-Arab since the LBJ years. Before that we waffled when it came to the Zionist state. Then Bubbe Golda Meir shook her Hebraic finger at us saying that we should support Israel. Don’t forget Golda was born in the US (and I think at that time it counted for something, although she made her aliyah to Israel.). As far as the liberals go –in modern current times- they are more concerned with cultural Marxism than actual war. They see blacks, Latinos, gays, trannies and anyone else who is “fighting against the system” -ultimately the “white man” — as an actual war, or as much of a war than those military involvements in the Middle East where American soldiers died. It’s not that they ideologically support Zionism without question, because that is not their focus. They are equally brainwashed as large sections of the right —-think born again Evangelical Christians. When Little Hat says jump, with all the buzz words that go with that command -they jump. Perfectly trained poodles.
Yes, mate. It “counters the western media propaganda narrative,” but with outrageous lies and falsehoods.
I replied on my phone and the post just… disappeared.
Without repeating the ghost post, I can only say the tribe mimics liberalism as a kind of default position since they know it so well. There are an awful lot of accomplices though. This is the part of the Douglas Reed position I find difficult. Is it when men have a certain income threshold they become indistinguishable from Jewish elders? Or is it a religious thing that starts in certain Christian denominations when high-ranking clerics are rabbis, whatever their religion might be. It’s been obvious for a long time, no one explanation is sufficient.