Winter Has Come

Eighty years of western history ended this week. What comes next is not likely to be good.

At least at Yalta there was the grim, if still unsatisfactory, excuse that there really was no alternative. However much Winston Churchill fretted or groused about the matter, there was no means by which the United Kingdom - and its remaining Empire - could do anything substantial to honour the premise, and the promise, upon which Britain had entered the war: securing Polish sovereignty and liberty.

This would have been the case even if Franklin Roosevelt, by that stage ailing and in the final months of his life, had been more interested than he was in standing up to Russian expansionism. And Roosevelt, for reasons of respectable realpolitik, was not at all interested in doing so.

All of which meant that Joseph Stalin was handed eastern Europe, to do with as he pleased. The Soviet Union had earned those perquisites and paid for them in blood. The western allies knew this, of course, and even those most sceptical of Stalin and his intentions could not wholly say the Soviet leader was entirely wrong. No USSR, no victory.

And so Poland, like so many of the other nations of central and eastern Europe, was Stalin’s prize. Or one of his prizes. We went to war to save Poland from one genocidal dictator and ended the war by handing poor Poland to another.

It is not possible to read accounts of Tehran and Yalta and all that happened subsequently without a deep sense of unease and even shame coupled with a weighty appreciation there was little that could have been done to prevent it. Even the leaders of great powers such as the United States and fading powers such as the United Kingdom operate under constraints that are greater than is often appreciated. In 1945 those constraints were found at home and abroad, in war and in peace, in practical and even, for some, in moral ways. They all contributed to the world being as it was; not the world we might have desired or even the one for which we were ostensibly fighting but a world that, however manifestly imperfect, remained preferable to some of the alternatives to it and keenly so in some cases. Defeating Hitlerism was essential; there was no need or use in being too squeamish about how it was to be done, or with whom it might be achieved.

This week, more than any other in my lifetime, feels like a Yalta moment. We cannot pretend we have not been warned or that this was not the likely consequence of last November’s American presidential election. The winning candidate, Donald J Trump, has never made any great secret of his desires, ambitions, or preferences. This week has been coming for a while; a shoe has dropped that everyone who paid attention knew was about to drop.

Even so, it remains shocking. Here is Pete Hegseth, the new American secretary of defence, ripping up eighty years of American strategic analysis: “I’m here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States from being the primary guarantor of security in Europe.”

The simplest way of judging what a politician or an administration will do is to listen to what they say they will do and trust that at some elevated level they say what they mean and mean what they say.

You may argue that this moment has been a long time coming too and that the days of the American security guarantee belong to a bygone age. There have been hints of this before, after all. Barack Obama’s famous “pivot” to the Pacific was both sign and warning. A sign that the twenty-first century was not the twentieth; a warning to Europe to take its own defence more seriously.

There was something in that, though many chose to ignore the implications of Obama’s European frustrations. Like other European nations, Britain did not view this as a useful prod or reminder that defence, now a Cinderella ministry, might need more attention than it had received in recent years. On the contrary, Britain’s declining defence capability continued unabated. So much so, indeed, that it is doubtful that the true, sustainable, fighting capacity of the British Army is much more than a division.

Elsewhere, denial continued. The world was changing but Europe preferred a quieter, comfier, easier life. China was neither friend nor foe but, instead, a vital trading partner whose rise was both inevitable and unstoppable and, as a consequence, not one worth thinking about too deeply, let alone raising concerns over. Russia, meanwhile, might make noises but the bear was quiescent. Everyone had learned the lessons of the twentieth century, after all. Some things just wither away because times change and this is a more enlightened era, isn’t it?

Well the time for such pretence is over. In truth it was over some time ago. This weekend the Munich Security Conference - the largest confab of its time - takes place without the presence of the American secretary of defence. American policy has changed because the American government’s analysis of its own interests has shifted. This is a shift which will outlast Donald Trump, at least to some extent. It is not a blip and even if it were it is a four year storm. A lot can happen in that time.

Trump promised “peace” in Ukraine and that is what he will deliver. It will not be a true peace, of course, and any bargain struck is liable to be a shabby, deplorable, dishonourable one. A peace, of sorts, is to be imposed on Ukraine. That much is clear; all that remains is the detail. That detail will count, yes, but the broad outline is evident.

Putin will gain some rewards and these will not just be measured in terms of territory. Better still, from the Kremlin’s viewpoint, is the western alliance’s disarray. Nationalists are always more interested in “respect” than people or even borders but splitting the west is its own reward. Russia has been patient since the humiliations of the 1990s but this is Moscow’s moment. How do you put a price on a stupid America and an ever-weaker Europe? Revenge is always a dish worth savouring.

That, more than eastern Ukraine, is the prize for Putin. Psychology, not geography, is the main front here. Chaos in Washington; bewilderment in Brussels.

When the histories of this betrayal - for such it so plainly is - are written there will be many villains but let us not forget the role played by Joe Biden and his administration. On one level, Biden provided significant support for Zelensky and Ukraine but it is also clear, I think, that his administration decided at a very early stage that Ukraine could never win this war. Washington did enough to keep Kyiv in the game, but not enough to help it prevail. Zelensky was led to water but he was not quite permitted to drink.

A last-minute scramble to increase aid to Ukraine in the dying weeks of Biden’s failed presidency - failed because he was the Stop Trump candidate who then helped re-elect Trump - merely confirms this view. It was a kind of admission of guilt.

Not everything is clear yet but some things surely are. It is by no means obvious that the United States of America can still be considered a trusted ally. What confidence can friendly intelligence services now have that sensitive information shared with Langley will not henceforth also be shared with Russia? Not as much as might be desirable, I would say. There is a whiff of Le Carré abroad right now, only for real and with deadly seriousness.

Of course there are fine words emanating from ministries across the old continent. There always are. Push always comes to shove and will these words be matched by action. I doubt it because I doubt the pennies have really dropped. They certainly have not here.

The great British public is not ready for foreign policy to return like this. Sapped by Afghanistan and Iraq, it has developed an aversion to foreign entanglements. Ukraine is to be supported and certainly sympathised with but not to the extent that doing so causes any great domestic inconvenience. The idea that defence spending will have to rise has not yet sunk in, let alone been appreciated.

But it will and not only to replace supplies of ordnance and material sent to the Kharkiv front. The Treasury, naturally, resists this. The word is that Lord Robertson’s urgent defence review is already being squeezed by the Treasury. Military chiefs warn - though they would, I suppose - that raising defence spending to 2.5 percent of GDP will only be enough to keep the armed forces more or less where they were before Russian tanks rolled towards Kyiv. More, much more, will be required.

Does the public have the stomach for this? Does it accept the trade-offs, that more money for defence means less money elsewhere? I doubt it. But this is where we are heading and it would be wise for politicians - starting with the prime minister - to make the case for this sooner rather than later. (This is also, to turn to domestic politics for a moment, an opportunity for the prime minister and his chancellor to escape the strait-jacket of their pre-election promises on tax and spending. They need to escape those anyway; now they have their copper-bottomed excuse.)

There are two paths to peace in Ukraine. The first is as simple as it is unlikely: Vladimir Putin calls his boys home. The second is a peace made on terms acceptable to Ukraine, indeed on terms largely dictated by Ukraine from a position of strength. This too seems dismally unlikely.

But a peace imposed on Ukraine by Washington and Moscow? That is no peace at all. It is, instead, a betrayal of almost unconscionable proportions. Yet that is plainly the American president’s preference. Russia can hardly believe its good fortune.

And it will not stop there. That all this has been coming for a long time makes it no less appealing or honourable. It’s a new world now and the time for pretending such grim realities can be avoided is over. Winter is here.