Irish Examiner view: Possible Ukraine invasion the greatest threat since Cold War

A convoy of Russian armoured vehicles moves along a highway in Crimea, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022. Russia has concentrated an estimated 100,000 troops with tanks and other heavy weapons near Ukraine. Picture: AP

When John F Kennedy was in his senior year at Harvard university, he wrote a thesis called ‘Why England Slept’, which was later published in book form. Its title is an allusion to Winston Churchill’s 1938 book, While England Slept, which examined the buildup of German power and Nazi aggression.

Kennedy’s book examines the failures of the British government to take steps to prevent the Second World War and its initial lack of response to Adolf Hitler’s threats of war. If there is a copy of either of those books in the White House, it would do well for President Joe Biden to read it and learn that appeasement is not the path to peace.

The same goes for European leaders, because Europe is facing one of its greatest security crises since the Cold War.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that an “extremely dangerous situation” is building along the Ukrainian border. 

We believe we’re now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack on Ukraine,” she told a press conference.

The US is not asleep, but neither is it fully awake to the consequences of an invasion. 

Secretary of state Antony Blinken was in Kiev yesterday to meet Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a diplomatic mission that signalled the urgency of the crisis. Blinken is also due to meet Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, in Geneva tomorrow, after negotiations last week failed to produce a breakthrough. 

Experts fear that Russian president Vladimir Putin is planning another invasion, following 2014’s annexation of Crimea.

The signs are ominous. A massive build-up of Russian troops along the Ukrainian border is fuelling speculation of an imminent invasion. Western leaders have warned Putin against military action, but, especially after the catastrophic American withdrawal from Afghanistan, they appear divided and weak.

On December 3, the Washington Post reported that it had obtained an American intelligence document which assessed that Russia is planning a multi-front offensive involving nearly 200,000 troops within the next few months. The document includes satellite photos that show Russian forces gathering in four locations near Ukraine.

Like it or not, Vladimir Putin is hugely popular among the people of Russia and is likely to remain leader for many years to come. The West has no choice but to continue to engage with him, but it must do so in a more nuanced and clever way.

Western leaders have consistently failed either to rein him in or to negotiate with him, but, mostly, they have failed to understand him. 

Putin is a strategist with a touch of paranoia, who sees the US and Europe as constant threats to Russia. His tactics are geared toward gaining advantage over his opponents — be they oligarchs and opposition figures in Russia, or Western leaders and international organisations like the UN and Nato. 

A Russian invasion of Ukraine, if successful, would expand Moscow’s sphere of influence along its western border and pave the way for Eastern Europe and the Baltics to come under Russian domination once again.

It is essential that US and EU leaders present a united front. We cannot sleep our way to disaster.