While the rights and wrongs of the war in Gaza consume our ideological passions, a strategic blunder of the first order is unfolding on our doorstep.
There is a real danger that a fickle and distracted West will let Vladimir Putin get away with his conquests in Ukraine, with frightening implications for the credibility of the liberal democracies and the Nato security system in Europe.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. Russia has announced a 70 per cent increase in its military budget for next year, funded largely by oil revenues.Credit: AP
“These are dangerous times for Ukraine,” said Ian Bond, a former UK defence planner and ambassador to the Baltics.
“It is increasingly clear that Ukraine cannot achieve a quick victory. But is it at risk of a quick defeat?” he asked in a lacerating report for the Centre for European Reform.
The Prigozhin mutiny seems long ago in military time. Ukraine’s offensive has ended in the mud of the rasputitsa. The country is running out of men. The average age of mobilised troops has risen from 35 to 43.4 years since the start of the war.
The EU cannot continue to subcontract its outer defence to Ukraine’s armed forces on the cheap. Bond has called for a suspension of the Maastricht deficit rules, allowing for wholesale rearmament and a partial “war economy” until Russia is defeated, and universally seen to be defeated.
Nothing of the sort is happening. Rules are rules. Brussels and Berlin insist that the machinery of fiscal contraction must come back into force in January. Any extra spending on defence must be offset by retrenchment elsewhere.
Russia has announced a 70 per cent increase in its military budget for next year, paid for with booming oil revenues. The G7’s $US60 price cap is by now a fiction. S&P Global says the discount on Urals crude has narrowed to $US4.
The West needs to do more to slow down Putin
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01.12.2023
While the rights and wrongs of the war in Gaza consume our ideological passions, a strategic blunder of the first order is unfolding on our doorstep.
There is a real danger that a fickle and distracted West will let Vladimir Putin get away with his conquests in Ukraine, with frightening implications for the credibility of the liberal democracies and the Nato security system in Europe.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.........
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