OPINION — On my first visit to Poland an old lady I met gave me a stern lecture about the weakness of the west, waving a crooked finger in my face. We should not compromise with Russia, she said. Détente was a con. Her great heroes were, of course, the Iron Lady and Zbigniew Brzezinski.
I arrived in Poland as a student in the late summer of 1983, only a few days after the lifting of Martial Law, which the Polish Communist government had imposed to stifle the independent trade union, Solidarity. The crucial thing for Poland was to do the stifling itself, and not have the Russians come across the border and do it for them.
Poland saw its once proud kingdom chopped back and finally partitioned, largely for the benefit of Russia, in the 18th century. Now, two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, it looks warily to the east.
Whatever its political divisions, governments of right and left have agreed that Poland must face up to the threat. The threat comes from the east, and the east only. Poland’s position on Russia is loud and uncompromising and it puts its money where its mouth is, with a defence budget that is higher per capita than America’s.
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Go north from Poland and into the Baltic states and it gets even harder to find surrender monkeys. Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia did not even exist as independent countries between 1945 and the collapse of Putin’s beloved Soviet Union. Now they exist as stunning examples of how to transition to an open democracy and thriving economy, with a little help from NATO and the EU. Now they too look fearfully but defiantly at their eastern neighbour, fearing the same old threat to their existence.
It’s worth remembering countries like these. It’s too easy to generalise about Ukraine and other European countries. Some critics may grudgingly concede that moral and practical support from the EU and the UK for Ukraine has been remarkably resilient. But they doubt whether the Europeans’ hearts are really in it.
Europeans face big internal economic challenges: Britain and Germany are in recession. Morally, support for Ukraine remains solid. The blue and yellow flag flies not only over grand government buildings in London, but over small village post offices and under the windows of working-class housing estates. People know that Putin did an illegal, brutal and intolerable thing when he invaded Ukraine. But does this support extend to paying more taxes to support the underdog, in a war that seems to have no end?
The old Polish lady I met in 1983 put her finger, aimed accusingly at me, on one very important point: you need the right leaders. Whatever else you may think of Thatcher and Brzezinski, it’s a fair bet that they would not have been overwhelmed by the challenge we are facing now and would have relished the chance to do Putin some serious damage.
The problem is that European powers have been too passive and risk averse in responding to Russian actions. Of course, they deserve credit for the support they have given Ukraine but the strategy, as much as there has been one, has been to try and help the Ukrainians edge the Russian invaders eastwards. Now it looks as if that strategy may be failing. Further support may not be forthcoming, as the U.S. fails to get funding through Congress, and the Ukrainian effort starts to atrophy.
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This does not mean that Europe must or can give up. Poland and the Baltic States remind us of that. We cannot reward Putin’s aggression and violations of international laws and norms. We have no reason to think that, if he paused fighting over “a deal” now, he would not start fighting again when it suited him. If he is to be stopped, the fight has to be taken to Russia.
Putin has innumerable vulnerabilities in theatres other than Ukraine. Western governments know what those weaknesses are. They must now have worked out that Russia’s bluff can be called.
The Putin doctrine is that whatever is bad for the U.S. has to be supported. Europe can be divided and picked off to isolate the U.S.. Iran is providing critical support for Russia against Ukraine. So is North Korea. Russia is allied to pariah countries that want to overthrow the international order. In effect, Putin has declared war on the west. He is fighting it on several fronts. Rather than just shore up Ukraine, we have to take the fight to Russia.
This brings us back to leadership. When Europeans are inspired by the message that Russia has to be stopped if what we love and believe in is not to be destroyed, and that this is how we will do it, no amount of Kremlin funded propaganda and disinformation will deter them. To quote Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, after a recent meeting with President Zelenskyy in Kyev, “It is here, in Ukraine, that the world front between good and evil runs”.
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