Rearming Ukraine is still a dumb idea even as Minsk 2 collapses.


'Peace is Our Profession': Brigadier General Jack D Ripper steels America.

Chancellor Angela Merkel knows that the collapse of Minsk 2 makes it much harder for European leaders to resist calls by American politicians for the military rearmament of Ukraine. And yet the correct response remains to ramp up sanctions, bolster NATO capabilities on its eastern borders and increase economic aid to Ukraine, not to rearm her.

To see why, let us examine the arguments put forward by a leading proponent of rearmament, James Jeffrey, a former deputy national security advisor to President George W Bush. In an article last week in Foreign Affairs entitled ‘Smoking Putin out of his Cave’ - but which might just as well have been called ‘Give War a Chance’ - Jeffrey admits that rearming Ukraine is fraught with danger:

“Even if the lethal defensive weapons like anti-tank missiles that Ukraine’s government is calling for were shipped quickly to Kiev, the hard truth is that it really won’t make much of a difference on the ground. While better weapons would likely allow Ukrainian forces to do greater damage to insurgents and Russian paramilitary forces, Vladimir Putin is not likely to be dissuaded by body bags. American weapons would be a shot in the arm for the Ukrainian government, but that likely will not change the outcome of disguised Russian control of much of eastern Ukraine.”

'Moral & diplomatic clarity'

So far, so sensible. But then Jeffrey throws common sense aside in favour of something he calls ‘moral and diplomatic clarity’: “Providing arms would end Washington’s 'not providing arms' policy, thereby establishing moral clarity as a first step in a long duel with Moscow. It is the established position of NATO, the European Union, and the United States that Ukraine is facing external aggression from Russia. Under those circumstances, not to provide arms is to undercut that position — to intimate that somehow the democratically elected government in Kiev is not fully legitimate and is to blame for the conflict.”

This is quite untrue. The world is full of examples of aggression against legitimate governments. The correct response might be to punish the aggressor and to assist the victims, but this does not entail arming them with lethal weapons.

Jeffrey acknowledges that “arming Kiev would only intensify Moscow’s reaction” but argues that forcing Putin into an open fight "has utility": “Weapons shipments would force Putin into a less covert means of pursuing his aggression — which has both moral and diplomatic value.”

And there you have it! His circular reasoning runs like this: We want to ship arms to Ukraine. Arming Ukraine will provoke Putin. It is useful to provoke Putin because this gives us the moral and diplomatic cover we need to do what we want to do, which is to ship arms to Ukraine.

'Provoking Russians, steeling Americans'

Good sense resurfaces in Jeffrey's argument before being submerged again by a wave of pseudo historical comparisons: “Of course, US arms deliveries are not cost-free; they would generate diplomatic headaches by splitting Washington from most of Europe, and possibly even encourage intransigence in Kiev.” Indeed, but these are not sufficient reasons to give up on US arms deliveries because, in Jeffrey's opinion, Putin is a dangerous lunatic comparable to Hitler, Stalin and Japan’s wartime leader, General Tojo Hideki: “A Russia stuck in that worldview [of Hitler and Stalin and Tojo] not only cannot participate in post-war European society; it actually threatens it.” Well, yes, if Jeffrey is right about Putin's Russia being comparable to Hitler's Germany, we would have to agree. But he is not.

Jeffrey should get off his moral perch for a moment and take a long look in the mirror. Instead, he resorts to curt dismissal of all who resist rearming Ukraine as Putin's ideological fellow travelers or business partners.

Jeffrey ends his feeble-minded sermon with a call to arms (supplied by US arms dealers). Putin is a new Hitler and “that is why the time has come to take risks, and why Barack Obama must introduce military force into a dynamic that affects more than just Ukraine. Not because these steps will necessarily deter Vladimir Putin, but because it steels America and our allies, generates a new unity around the reality that is today’s Kremlin, and sends a clear signal to Moscow that we have bent and acquiesced for long enough. That the period of testing is over, and that Washington will resist, not submit.”

Oh dear! This is better than Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper of Burpelson Air Force Base!