ALB
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I’m not and I don’t think they are either. It’s just posturing. But they chose the title of “expeditionary force” which is military-speak for “a group of soldiers sent to fight in a foreign country”.
“Ben Wallace has said Britain would “definitely come to the aid militarily” of Finland and Sweden if such a scenario became necessary.
The Defence Secretary, speaking with The Washington Post, said the UK’s position in the Joint Expeditionary Force (which also includes Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway) meant it would “reassure” countries like Sweden and Finland that it would be “inconceivable” not to help them if attacked.“But
“The entire British Army today has the people, equipment and stocks to defend only half the Donbas region” (General Sir Richard Barrons, letter in the Times today).
This could be Borys’s chance to play Churchill again since the last time Britain sent an “expeditionary force” to Russia was in 1919 when Churchill was Minister of War:
“North Russian Expeditionary Force, Dvina River, actions against Bolsheviks
They called it “Churchill’s War,” “The Great Russian Gamble,” and “Whitehall’s Folly.” More than 600 British and Commonwealth soldiers were killed and wounded …” (see 1954 article here: https://naval-history.net/WW1z05NorthRussia.htm)Revealing passage in the obituary in yesterday’s Times of Leonid Kravchuk, a former member of the Soviet nomenkltura who was the first president of independent Ukraine from 1991-94, who died on 10 May:
“Relations with Russia remained tense after the end of Soviet Russia. Yeltsin had warned him against pursuing too close a relaionship with the West, saying:’Ukraine has been, is and will remain within the system of strategic naional interests of Russia’”
This shows the stupidity of regsrding the current Russian invasion of Ukraine as due to the character of the particular head of the Russian government at the present time. It is clear that whoever is in charge of the Russian State will regard Ukraine as falling “within the system of stategic national interests of Russia.”
They can hang Putin (if they can catch him) but that won’t make any difference to any ruler of Russia regarding Ukraine as essential to its strategic interest as a capitalist state. It’s not a question of personalities, but structral. If they were Russian politicians Boris woild be Putin and Truss would be Lavrov.
So do I. But supposing Russia did attack Sweden, what could Britain do? Fight a war with Russia on its own? In fact if Britain could do anything then there’d be no need for Sweden to join NATO. Like I said, it’s meaningless posturing, typical of Borys.
It will just be a pose. The only reason I can think of is that it fits in with Borys’s political agenda of “global Britain”, ie to try to show that Brexit Britain is a world power in its own right alongside the US and the EU. That’s a delusion of course since Britain like the EU, Japan and South Korea is dependent on the US for its own defence. Which is why they have no alternative to go along with the US on sanctions (which wouldn’t work without US participation). Maybe Borys is expecting a few treats as best poodle.
There is also Borys’s personal agenda of portraying himself as a war leader. I imagine the rest of the cabinet are humouring him on this and leaving him a free hand since they know it’s just posturing (and surely are joking about it behind his back).
It is rather surprising though that, from a bourgeois-democratic point of view, Britain can sign, without any parliamentary or public discussion, a treaty with Sweden to go to war to defend that country in the event of it being attacked. But it means nothing as there is no prospect of this of course. So just a cheap gesture.
They did rather ask for it. And probably wanted it as a means of getting further publicity and maybe support, though as frequently happens in campaigns that break the law, this shifts the emphasis from the original aim to defending those who have been penalised for taking part. Like the IRA and “Republican prisoners”.
Are you sure that is a reliable source? It doesn’t seem to be. The Dutch Forum for Democracy party seems to be a far-right white nationalist party:
I thought Putin explained clearly in his speech at the military parade yesterday in Red Square why Russia went to war. Besides fearing NATO moving its bases and missiles right up to its southern border he also saw NATO arming Ukraine for an attack on the two breakaway statelets. Whether or not he was wrong about the first he could well have been right about the second. Which Russia couldn’t let happen. In which case Russia’s invasion would be a pre-emptive strike. We will see what he settles for after Russia captures the rest of the Donbas region.
Borys restates his war aim:
“UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed to remain a “steadfast friend of Ukraine as it continues its heroic struggle against Russia’s invasion,” in a written foreword to the Queen’s Speech, marking the state opening of Parliament on Tuesday.
“We will not waver — and we will not let up — until Putin fails,” Johnson said.”He is obviously in his element but to what end? The chances are that he will fall before Putin does.
I can’t think of any, though forcing Germany to pay more for its gas will undermine the competitiveness of a commercial rival.
Britain’s belligerence, as expressed by Borys, Truss and Wally, would seem to be political, even personal. It has even been described as delusional in that Britain thinks that it still has the global clout that it had in the past. Whatever it is, it is malign.
At some point British oligarchs can be expected to put pressure on the government and get it to tone down its rhetoric and bring the matter to an end so that normal profit-making can resume. But there’s no sign of this yet. Maybe we will have to wait until the cost of living crisis and slump in world trade provoked by sanctions get worse.
Good question. Biden has just signed a lend-lease bill to send war supplies to Ukraine. It contains this clause:
“Under the measure, Ukraine can request streamlined transfers of U.S. weapons and other security assistance. The U.S. will get guarantees that the country will replace or reimburse the assets at a later date.”
Not for free then. A merchant of deaths charter. They will paid upfront and the US pick up the tab and then get the money back from Ukraine (if it can). Britain didn’t repay the Ww2 US lend lease till 2006.
Something to be taken into account when assessing some of the wilder speculations expressed here. It’s from Al Jazeera:
“Putin’s speech shows he won’t use nuclear weapons: Ukraine official
An adviser to Zelenskyy has interpreted Putin’s Victory Day speech as indicating that Russia has no interest in escalating the war through the use of nuclear weapons or direct engagement with NATO, the Associated Press reports.
Oleksiy Arestovych pointed to Putin’s statement that Russia would honour the memory of those who fought in World War II by doing “everything so that the horror of a global war does not happen again”.
Translating from “Kremlin speak into Russian,” Arestovych said this means: “There will be no nuclear war. There will be no war with NATO. What will there be? There will be a sluggish attempt to solve three main problems,” which he identified as taking control of the entire Luhansk, Donetsk and Kherson regions.
Arestovych said in an online interview that Russia would drag out the war while bleeding the Ukrainian economy with the aim of getting Ukraine to agree to give up these territories.”Of course Arestovych may just be trying to convince NATO that they can safely give Ukraine more and more arms without provoking such an escalation by Russia. But I don’t suppose NATO’s war strategists need his opinion but his assessment of what Russia would settle for doesn’t seem implausible.
Exactly. That’s why NATO won’t do it. Captain Wally is just a windbag like Truss and Borys. But it is still dangerous and provocative talk with the malign aim of prolonging the killing and destruction.
Looking at the serried ranks of trained killers marching past Putin and his generals this morning, I couldn’t help wondering how NATO thinks that Ukraine has any chance of defeating Russia in the end, even with NATO weapons. The Ukrainian armed forces are maybe a couple of rungs above the Afghan army NATO put together but they seem to be an uncoordinated collection of professional soldiers, militias and people who until a month or so ago couldn’t tell one end of a rifle from another. I bet they can’t even march in step, part of training a disciplined army composed of killers who will obey without thinking.
My guess is that if Putin wants the Donbas he will get it. Might is right. That’s the way of the world under capitalism.
The British Minister of War, Ben Wally (also known as Wallace) is now apparently calling for Putin to be killed.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ben-wallace-putin-must-suffer-same-fate-as-nazis-xppslf2kv
What other interpretation can be put on his call that Putin must meet the same fate as Hitler? To be fair to him, he is saying that Putin should be killed only after a Nuremberg-style show trial and not summarily executed like Bin Laden and the ISIS leader.
Easier said than done of course. To impose victor’s justice you have to be victorious. That would mean not only defeating Russia in Ukraine and driving it out of there but pushing on to conquer Moscow, something neither Napoleon nor Hitler were able to achieve. Wally is billed as a former Guards officer but he never rose above the rank of captain. So his credentials as a military strategist are not very high.
