This sort of talk must not stand because, believe me, this war is not just about Ukraine, but about the continuation of the world we helped build in the aftermath of World War II. We lost in Iraq, we lost in Afghanistan and, unless we find a little more courage, we will lose in Ukraine.
How many defeats can the West suffer without paying a severe price? The truth is, we’re paying already. Our enemies are emboldened; our deterrence shot.
The world has sundered once more. On one side is the West and its allies. On the other, a conglomeration of squalid states centring on Iran, Russia and China who want to wound us wherever they can. Ukraine is a front in this war (as is Israel) and they will attack us everywhere they see opportunity.
I say to Mail readers: you may not want war, but war is on your doorstep. Ignoring it will not make it melt away. You may not be interested in Moscow and Beijing and Tehran but, believe me, they are very much interested in you.
If we lose to Russia in Ukraine — and we do so because of our own division and lack of resolve — it will prove that all the Iranian and Russian rhetoric about the West’s weakness and decadence is right.
It will validate China’s message to the global south: ‘Hitch yourself to us because the West is finished.’
When China’s President Xi met Putin in March 2023, his words were chilling. ‘Change is coming that hasn’t happened in 100 years,’ he declared. ‘And we are driving change together.’
Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy was right when he described Putin as ‘the ringleader of a new form of fascism’. It is vital that we recognise this.
Ukraine is the conflict of our age because in it you find everything that is forming the present and what might well create our future: U.S. dysfunction, European pusillanimity, Russian brutality, growing Chinese influence and the emergence of two clear sides.
But it has also shown what we can achieve when we are united and determined.
Two years on, Putin’s dream of conquering Kyiv remains just that. The Ukrainians, without a navy to speak of, have inflicted strategic defeat on Russia in the Black Sea (not least because of British help behind the scenes).
This war comes at a high price, no doubt, and at a time when it might seem we can ill afford it.
But if we don’t pay the price now, we will eventually be forced to pay a far higher one.
We must not abandon Ukraine.
If we do, it is not just our allies, it is ourselves we will betray.
