As I write this we are currently at 18 going on 19 days into Putin’s Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Here in the UK, on the edge of Europe, things are not looking so good. We were already well down the road towards stagflation after nearly two years of COVID regulation intimidation and outright Government profligacy. Meanwhile we and our neighbors across the Channel in Europe developed an apatite for and a dependency on cheap hydrocarbons from Putin’s Russia.

We had turned away from the obvious warning signs of Russian expansionism and more specifically Putin’s recklessness. His (Russia’s) use of both Nuclear & Biological weapons (poisons) to murder individual Russian expatriates here in the UK, seemingly without regard to the the potential for collateral casualties amongst innocent civilian . His willingness to shoot civilian aircraft from the sky (Malaysia Airlines Flight 17) and to forcefully invade, occupy and annex Crimea were apparently not warning enough. The cheap hydrocarbons trumped everything!

Now Putin has started World War III.

I could be wrong, I hope and (as far as I’m able) pray that I am wrong but the signs are not good. In my opinion, from an historical perspective, the signs are already bad and getting worse by the day. We have a large (Eastern) European nation, led by a Megalomaniac, invading a European neighbor state. It’s hard not to see the historical significance of the similarities; and it gets worse. The Megalomaniac has got both a Nuclear and a Biological Arsenal and has threatened to escalate if the rest of Europe and or it’s Allies aid the victims of his aggression. Meanwhile Xi and his CCP sit and watch from the wings, eying up both Taiwan and Putin’s hydrocarbons while the United States navel-gazes under the leadership of an ancient and infirm political lightweight a long way past his very limited best.

War is not always and only military. War is an economic activity. Anyone in the West who thinks that we are not at War needs to look again. This is Economic Warfare on a Global scale. Commodity prices of all kinds are volatile, way beyond normal Market Forces yet nobody seems to be asking where all this ‘instant wealth’, cash money is going. Suddenly, those Western Governments who have massively underfunded their defense for years think they can play catch-up overnight while their economies are set for potential tail-spins. Does increasing defense spending as a percentage of a declining economy constitute real, actual tangible improvements in military capability. When?

Which brings me back to Putin, the Russian State he appears to control and his military invasion of Ukraine. Already we are seeing signs that many of those politicians who turned a blind-eye to his escalating belligerence, now, less than 3 weeks into his floundering military campaign are promoting ‘cease-fires’, ‘compromise’ and ‘a way out’ for Putin. Of course this is always at Ukraine’s expense. Having seen how Putin has acted in both Crimea and in the Eastern Ukraine does anyone seriously believe this would be anything more than an opportunity for Putin to resupply and reorganize his forces before continuing his attempted takeover of Ukraine?

There is in my view one potential area of opportunity. The Russian Military has proven itself a very blunt instrument. It’s massed military might has been proven to be well past it’s best, it’s most effective. Russian mechanized forces are proving to be poorly manned, poorly maintained and poorly supplied and thus extremely vulnerable to modern Western defensive munitions and weapons systems operated by motivated defenders. So it’s time to shrink their military machine. Old out-of-date equipment must be ground down, destroyed as and whenever possible and, regrettably, their occupants sent home in body-bags. The Ukraine and it’s military must be supported and equipped by the West with the best we can produce. Their defense will become the anvil upon which the remains of the old Soviet Empire’s war machine will be beaten back into Ploughshares even as we disassemble the Russian Economy and it’s Putin supporting oligarchs.

We have spent generations actively preventing characters like Putin having unfettered access to stockpiles of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Now is not the time to stop. His threats cannot and must not be ignored. If Russia cannot or will not remove their nihilistic leader then it too must be reduced to the point where the threat it poses becomes contained and negligible.

We are at (an undeclared) War with Putin’s Russia. There is likely to be considerable and perhaps prolonged hardship imposed on the less wealthy of us in the West. If we must pay the price then our Political Class must understand that, having taken us here without consultation or consent, we hold them responsible for our victory. There will ultimately be an accounting!