Andrew Wood is a former Tower Hamlets Councillor, and a graduate of Kings College London’s War Studies Department.
As Grant Shapps starts his new job as Secretary of State for Defence, one of his first tasks will be to clarify what our objectives are in Ukraine. They appear to be confused. For example, recent comments by Ben Wallace suggest we are providing Ukraine weapons as some kind of Amazon delivery service, servicing Ukrainian requests for help and very nobly supporting them (with mainly old weapons).
His words implied that our help is a form of foreign aid. Another example was the Prime Minister’s negative response to the request by Ukraine for cluster munitions. It sent a signal that the UK does not place a Ukrainian victory as the top priority, despite our signature of the Budapest Memorandum.
The objective seems to be to help Ukraine survive and to stay in the fight (with perhaps 70,000 dead already), but not for it to win back its lost territories in a timely manner. The Ukrainian Army is having to fight its way through thick defences and minefields, but with only a fraction of the resources that the Desert Rats had when they took on Rommel at the 2nd battle of El Alamein (half the tanks that Montgomery used then were American). Ukraine is getting new capabilities, but months and years after the war started. It’s almost as if help is being drip fed – each additional capability helping in isolation, but not enough in aggregate to ensure victory.
Crudely, do we want Russia to lose this war or not? The answer should be an obvious yes. Russia (whether as part of the USSR or subsequently) has been the primary threat on which we have built British military capability since 1945. Most of our military equipment was designed to fight Soviet- designed weapons. The Russian military is the only one capable of threatening the UK directly, whether by means of long-range missile attacks on British infrastructure or submarine attacks on our vital shipping lanes.
We should be actively helping in the defeat of our only peer level competitor in Europe especially when it comes at no cost in Brtish military lives. And in defeating Russia, we reduce its usefulness to China, the only other peer level competitor to the West.
Economically, we also need this to be a short war – the disruption in trade affects the global economy and therefore also our own prosperity. The Iran-Iraq war, the last full-scale on between two nations, went on for eight years before eventually, the smaller country won through its greater ability to acquire modern weapons. Will we learn the lesson of that war, or will we take another six years?
As Ukrainian soldiers slog through the mines and artillery shells of Russian defences, in British warehouses (both private and government) sits the equipment that could both reduce their casualties and further diminish Russian military capabilities. Ukraine desperately needs some of the 800 plus Warriors and Warthog armoured vehicles that we have in the UK. We are about to retire the first tranche of Typhoon fighter aircraft: presumably we intend to sell it, rather than gift it to the Ukrainian air force to shoot down Russian aircraft which are also a threat to us?
The historical parallels are fascinating. We provided relatively far more military aide to the Soviet Union after the German invasion of 1941 despite it being an ideological enemy then we are doing to Ukraine, a friend and ally, even though we are not at war ourselves. We supplied over 1,300 new Spitfires, almost 3,000 Hurricanes and over 5,000 British tanks to the Soviet Union. Proportionally, these represented much more weaponry than we have provided Ukraine, with the exception of some categories of missiles where we have fortunately been more generous.
And on the horizon looms a possible Republican President. It is clear that all three of the top Republican candidates – Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy – would be bad for Ukraine and European security (although they might finally force Europe and the UK to take their own security more seriously).
Unless we are clear about what the war’s purpose, we will continue to drip-feed support, the war will go on for longer, the greater the global economic impact will be, and the more Ukraine’s future will be negatively affected by its losses. And what happens if Russia wins? We need to help Ukraine to win in order to ensure our own long-term security.
Andrew Wood is a former Tower Hamlets Councillor, and a graduate of Kings College London’s War Studies Department.
As Grant Shapps starts his new job as Secretary of State for Defence, one of his first tasks will be to clarify what our objectives are in Ukraine. They appear to be confused. For example, recent comments by Ben Wallace suggest we are providing Ukraine weapons as some kind of Amazon delivery service, servicing Ukrainian requests for help and very nobly supporting them (with mainly old weapons).
His words implied that our help is a form of foreign aid. Another example was the Prime Minister’s negative response to the request by Ukraine for cluster munitions. It sent a signal that the UK does not place a Ukrainian victory as the top priority, despite our signature of the Budapest Memorandum.
The objective seems to be to help Ukraine survive and to stay in the fight (with perhaps 70,000 dead already), but not for it to win back its lost territories in a timely manner. The Ukrainian Army is having to fight its way through thick defences and minefields, but with only a fraction of the resources that the Desert Rats had when they took on Rommel at the 2nd battle of El Alamein (half the tanks that Montgomery used then were American). Ukraine is getting new capabilities, but months and years after the war started. It’s almost as if help is being drip fed – each additional capability helping in isolation, but not enough in aggregate to ensure victory.
Crudely, do we want Russia to lose this war or not? The answer should be an obvious yes. Russia (whether as part of the USSR or subsequently) has been the primary threat on which we have built British military capability since 1945. Most of our military equipment was designed to fight Soviet- designed weapons. The Russian military is the only one capable of threatening the UK directly, whether by means of long-range missile attacks on British infrastructure or submarine attacks on our vital shipping lanes.
We should be actively helping in the defeat of our only peer level competitor in Europe especially when it comes at no cost in Brtish military lives. And in defeating Russia, we reduce its usefulness to China, the only other peer level competitor to the West.
Economically, we also need this to be a short war – the disruption in trade affects the global economy and therefore also our own prosperity. The Iran-Iraq war, the last full-scale on between two nations, went on for eight years before eventually, the smaller country won through its greater ability to acquire modern weapons. Will we learn the lesson of that war, or will we take another six years?
As Ukrainian soldiers slog through the mines and artillery shells of Russian defences, in British warehouses (both private and government) sits the equipment that could both reduce their casualties and further diminish Russian military capabilities. Ukraine desperately needs some of the 800 plus Warriors and Warthog armoured vehicles that we have in the UK. We are about to retire the first tranche of Typhoon fighter aircraft: presumably we intend to sell it, rather than gift it to the Ukrainian air force to shoot down Russian aircraft which are also a threat to us?
The historical parallels are fascinating. We provided relatively far more military aide to the Soviet Union after the German invasion of 1941 despite it being an ideological enemy then we are doing to Ukraine, a friend and ally, even though we are not at war ourselves. We supplied over 1,300 new Spitfires, almost 3,000 Hurricanes and over 5,000 British tanks to the Soviet Union. Proportionally, these represented much more weaponry than we have provided Ukraine, with the exception of some categories of missiles where we have fortunately been more generous.
And on the horizon looms a possible Republican President. It is clear that all three of the top Republican candidates – Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy – would be bad for Ukraine and European security (although they might finally force Europe and the UK to take their own security more seriously).
Unless we are clear about what the war’s purpose, we will continue to drip-feed support, the war will go on for longer, the greater the global economic impact will be, and the more Ukraine’s future will be negatively affected by its losses. And what happens if Russia wins? We need to help Ukraine to win in order to ensure our own long-term security.