There was serendipity reading War with Russia yesterday morning whilst listening to Rhapsody on Ukrainian Themes by Sergei Lyapunov on BBC Radio 3.
Written in the 19th century by a Russian the latter predates the disastrous upheavals in Eastern Europe in the 20th century. When Lyapunov composed the piece the Czar ruled an Empire. After the revolution much of the Imperial Empire briefly achieved sovereignty but most of it was swiftly reclaimed. World War Two gave Stalin a chance to regain more of it – an opportunity he exploited ruthlessly. Then all this territory was whisked away again when the Former Soviet Union collapsed. I know you know all this, and it’s like writing Russian history on the back of a small postage stamp, but remembering helps an understanding of what Russians think about their nations place in the world today.
They are effing furious about Western interference, that means American, in their sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. The US saw the collapse of the Soviet Union as an opportunity to extend its democratic values. The two most provocative insults to Russia were getting FSU states to join NATO and adopt Western democratic principles through the OECD. Mr Bridger (Noël Coward) in The Italian Job said: “the Mafia won’t take kindly to that”. No more have Russian governments. That’s why Putin wants to extend the borders of his Motherland and Sir Richard Shirreff thinks the West may not have either the resolve or the resources to oppose him.
Do you remember the green plastic poker chips handed out at Waitrose tills? Customers used them to vote for funding a local charity. Voters do much the same at the ballot box; NHS, Education, Overseas Aid, Defence? Funding the UK Defence budget is no easy matter. There is an inexorable shift between manpower and technology; it’s hard to predict where British forces may be deployed; it’s hard to commission expensive, long term procurement projects. Most importantly, asking somebody (a government) to spend somebody else’s (a tax payer’s) money usually ends up in money mis-spent at best or embezzled.
The UK is spending some £42 billion on defence, much more than on overseas aid. In a nutshell Sir Richard Shirreff thinks it’s not enough and more importantly the UK’s NATO allies are not committing enough to defence or, as he sees it, inevitable war. What do other people think?
Prof Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy director of the Royal United Services Institute, said: “It’s not clear the UK needs to have a division-size force on standby for deployment in three months’ time in a foreign war; what’s needed is the ability to put a few hundred in a crisis zone in a few days.” (The Guardian)
I think Prof Chalmers is thinking of an army that can fill a few sandbags in Surbiton when the Thames floods. Bertie and I are not so sanguine. We will keep an eye open for trouble.