A lot of nonsense has been written about Ukraine this last few weeks.
For example, there is the suggestion the Ukraine should never have engaged in the war as they should have known they could never win it, and secondly, that the USA and other countries have spent so much money on supporting Ukraine that the USA in particular is entitled to demand reparations in the form of 50 % of that sovereign country’s minerals.
Let’s put this in context. On 5th December 1994, at Budapest, the Russian, Ukraine, the USA and UK governments signed an international treaty called the “memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons”. The terms of the treaty can be summarised as follows: Ukraine was to give up and destroy 1,900 nuclear war heads, and in return the other parties to the memorandum undertook to guaranty the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine.
Each of the 1,900 nuclear warheads had an explosive yield of Each of these warheads had 27 times the explosive force of the bomb which destroyed Hiroshima.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukraine had every right to expect the UK and USA to intervene – not just by providing weapons and money – but by boots on the ground. So, on the basis of the assurances given in the treaty, Ukraine could reasonably expect overwhelming assistance against the Russian invaders. So, resistance was by no means futile, and, with the support of such powerful allies, President Zalensky could reasonably have expected to win the war.
Boots on the ground is a difficult and uncomfortable issue which journalists and politicians avoid. The point is that Ukraine should never have been asked to give up its nuclear arsenal if America and UK had not been prepared to enforce the treaty – if necessary, by boots on the ground. And what use is an American “backstop” anyway if America does not now regard itself bound by the guaranty it gave Ukraine under the treaty thirty years ago?
When Ukraine asked for assistance, a weak US president, confronted by Russian lies and propaganda, was only prepared to provide just enough assistance to prevent Ukraine’s defeat. It was always too little too late – and no boots on the ground. If the USA, UK and other western democracies had shown stronger resolve at the start, the war need never have gone on for so long, and if any country is responsible for this, it is not Ukraine.
Now we have a venal USA government which seems intent on extortion. They want paying for the assistance provided to date. They demand reparations from the victim and not from the aggressor, from the ally and not from the enemy. The billionaire plutocrats who now rule the USA hover like vultures over Ukraine’s rare earth mineral wealth. Trump cut arms deliveries and intelligence to Ukraine until President Zelensky agreed to Trump’s demands.
The truth is that there is nothing in the treaty which requires Ukraine to compensate any other country for the cost of enforcing its terms. Ukraine paid for the guarantees given by UK and USA by surrendering its nuclear arsenal. Ukraine could only give up its nuclear arsenal once. So, there was no end date to the treaty. Russia has broken it. Now it looks as though the USA is about to break the treaty too. The treaty was intended to make the world a safer place. Instead, it has been used by Russia to weaken its neighbour.
It follows that there is a clear obligation for USA and UK to intervene and enforce the treaty, and no right to expect payment for that intervention. If the USA seeks to extort a financial reward from Ukraine in this way, it looks like blackmail. The trouble with blackmail is that you never know where it is going to end. If you pay the blackmailer once, you can expect him to come back for more – over and over again.
So, what more can we expect over the next four years? If Ukraine has to pay for America’s support, how long before Trump requires America’s other allies to give up their mineral wealth?
President Trump has so far turned out to be as bad as many people feared. If the American people could elect a convicted felon and consummate liar to be president, the USA has become an unreliable ally. So, a way has to be found of resisting aggression without America. This means that somehow the UK, the EU and NATO countries, the commonwealth and other nations need to work together to defend the free world, and this could well mean “boots on the ground”.
