Ukraine

Boris Johnson is coming under criticism for his initial sequestering of the funds of a small handful of banks, hardly any of which have operations here, let alone assets, and the assets of the 3 oligarchs who have been on the American hit list since 2018 and have therefore had plenty of warning to get their money out of the UK. They are pretty lacklustre in terms of sanctions.

I'm going to do something here which I rarely have cause to do - defend his initial decision on sanctions, in a very limited and specific way. That said, I don't believe it was a decision he came to of his own volition, as he must have expert advice on hand and, this time, decided to heed it, as he's very obviously in over his head on this one. The clue is the manner in which in which he goes into bumbling mode when answering questions that are not on the pre-prepared, parliamentary script developed for him by the experts, if he uses experts that is. 

It's a game of psychology and brinkmanship which depends of having the upper hand in the eyes of the other party. Boris, however, has a history of losing every negotiation with the EU and has the unique distinction of being the only British PM to effect economic sanctions against his own country though Brexit. It's not a good starting point.

When you use threats they are valid only while you're making them, not when you've used them - their purpose is a deterrent. Once you've used them you lack any further bargaining power unless you have a substantial reserve of new threats that escalate in severity - threat of violence happens before actual violence. It's clear to me that the initial sanctions were an initial, but ineffective shot across Putin's bow in response to Russian incursions into areas heavily populated by Russians, whatever the manner in which those regions became so predominantly Russian. 

Threats of heavier penalties have to be held back to counter any escalation in hostilities, as has now happened, and it has to be made clear that they will now be used, given yesterday's events. Clearly the initial response wasn't enough, as many thought, and now is the time for Boris to go in hard with all the remaining sanctions, as he now has done.

That's not to say the initial threats should not have been substantial (and it's now clear they weren't), but they could not be larger than any other threats down the line that are to be used to counter what you're trying to avoid. Increasing the level of preliminary threats necessarily reduces the impact of later threats when there's only a finite total in the threat pot.

The other side of the argument is the tit-for-tat Russian sequestration of British assets in Russia, which will be substantial. UK investment in Russia stands at some £11bn and has increased by 40% over the last 5 years. Before going critical with threats, one needs to know the relative volumes at risk and whether any initial threat use is going to result in a tit-for-tat, and the best way of determining that is to use a minimal initial threat and wait for the reaction - which we now know. 

Then there's the Russian RT News Licence. Do we revoke the licence because of Russian misinformation and tell them to pack their bags? The corollary of that is the BBC in Moscow having its licence revoked and, in an information war, it's quite important that Russians have access to outside news. Not a hill I'm willing to die on, as the BBC can be received on satellite or via a VPN and the same goes for RT outside of Russia.

Should we be worried about retaliation to sanctions? Well, it's a form of warfare and heavy casualties are sometimes a consequence, but casualties have to be balanced against meeting objectives. 

Here's another argument in favour of doing little initially, which is concerned with end objectives. Putin could, albeit inadvertently, have been persuaded to overplay his hand through feigned weakness within the West, which is dangerous to him within Russia, as he doesn't, by any means, have universal support. The Russian population, which has a high affection for Ukraine, could now be persuaded that Putin is a total liability and moves could be made to remove him by fair means or foul. The problem with this analysis is that not all of the West has feigned weakness - the EU put a lot more initial sanctions in place than the UK. However, protests took place across 53 cities across Russia last night against the invasion with over 1,700 arrested and it will be interesting to see how this plays out. 

The question is, what is the objective? Is it to get Putin out of the Ukraine and leave him in place to do more damage at a later stage, or to conspire to remove him from the world stage completely? The latter would be a better objective and would be best achieved internally within Russia. Putin is not a megalomaniac, he's not mad - he merely wants to hold on to power and knows his time is limited, as is the reign of any dictator unless he intermittently presses the buttons of Blood and Soil (why is it always a he?). 

To those who think him unhinged, the question to ask themselves is whether they think he can get away with it, as he already did in Georgia, Crimea and eastern Ukraine. If the answer is a yes, then he's not mad. It could, however, be the start of the end of Putin with the protests, which could be Putin's \Vietnam moment.

If there's one thing Ukraine is doing, it's diverting attention from Russia's other borders, where Putin's forces will necessarily be weakened. That is, perhaps, where NATO, and indeed the entire West, has an advantage.

The problem Johnson has is that at some stage he will have to freeze the assets of the Conservative Party. His response to receiving Russian money is that the donations were from registered UK voters, who were citizens. The outstanding question is how they became UK citizens and who allowed it.

It's rather unfortunate that we have the worst possible leader in charge of the UK at this time. If only there were a federal Europe with a combined army and we didn't have a leader who was intent on fragmenting Europe while Putin is intent on consolidating Eastern Europe. Oh well... If only the Conservative Party had chosen someone like Rory Stewart as their leader. Oh well....

I have cause to believe that this episode heralds the start of Russia's version of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, and we know how that went.