This is another one straight out of The Appeaser's Playbook, pushing data-free Russian useful idiocy. No policy alternatives are offered beyond Ukrainian surrender to the clearly expressed Russian war aim of genocide and erasure. Using Trump-like rhetorical tricks like "there are some who would say", the underlying arguments float comfortably above specifics, are easily identified and just as easily demolished by readily available data, should the author care to look:
1. Ukraine can't win, so don't risk (nuclear) war by supporting it.
Listen to Russian soldiers' intercepted phone conversations show how low their morale is, putting Russia on the wrong side of 3/4 of what Napoleon said war is all about: the morale over the material: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0POleCtfWs
Each is about 2-3 minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPzy5fPr7RDpw_vLSPMHMgQ
Here's one Russian puppet collaborator who thinks Ukraine can win. His last video was shot from the luxurious safety of the Marriott Hotel in Voronezh: https://news.yahoo.com/russian-collaborator-kherson-flees-russia-105600535.html
After the bombing of the Saki air base, the puppet Russian governor of Crimea, his family and mistress fled across the Kerch Strait bridge to Russia.
The Russian army recruiting in prisons.
When the neo-Stalinist 2014 Donbass Putin stooge Igor Girkin whines about HIMARS, believe him: https://www.reddit.com/r/UkrainianConflict/comments/vvsa9w/igor_girkin_whines_that_russia_cant_shot_down/
When every Ukraine war map shows at least a 50% decrease in artillery shelling by Russia due to HIMARS blowing up Russian ammo depots, believe Jomini of the West's conclusion about the war's strategic direction:
"1/ Ukrainian TVD, Day 159-172. The first half of August has seen an emerging shift in the strategic initiative moving decidedly away from the Russia to that of Ukraine. With fall fast approaching the next several weeks may prove as critical as the early days of the war. #Ukraine
If you're not an expert on military strategy, listen to those who are: https://medium.com/illumination-curated/russia-ukraine-war-borderlands-veterans-podcast-5647d84a4ff8
Asserting, without evidence, that Putin's and Lavrov's nuclear threats are credible. Here's why Russia gains nothing from breaking the nuclear taboo and how the cost of using low yield tactical nukes on a 1500 km long front is pointless: (watch from minute 4): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxOO0hCCSk4&t=3s
Mr. Dunn's disrespect for facts digresses into asserting without evidence that Japan was ready to surrender before the atomic bombings. So let's apply some basic standards of academic integrity to this argument as a litmus test for the rest. It's pure nonsense, since the Soviet invasion of Manchuria that pushed the war cabinet and Hirohito to surrender began on August 8, after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. He also ignores the anti-surrender coup on the night of August 14-15. Read Murray Sayle's landmark NYer article of 1995, "Did the Bomb End the War?". (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/07/31/did-the-bomb-end-the-war).
Using Oliver Stone as an historical source while ignoring John Dower, Max Hastings, Murray Sayle and many other, more professional sources, is beyond incompetent. Mr. Dunn, if you don't know who these people are, you have some serious reading to do before writing on this subject. Start with atomicarchive.org.
2. "Some European countries reluctant to ship arms": A variation on #1: international support is insufficient to ensure Ukrainian victory and only guarantees endless war. that risks going nuclear.
Easily demolished in one headline from Yahoo:
Slovakia signs deal with Czech Republic and Poland to help it send MiG-29s to Ukraine
(https://news.yahoo.com/slovakia-signs-deal-czech-republic-104600818.html)
The Poles, Slovaks, Czechs and the Baltics are emptying their inventories to supply Ukraine. The UK is training 1000 Ukrainian troops/month. Germany has given Ukraine Vulcano high precision artillery shells, etc, etc, etc. Putin fanboy and Trump buddy Orban is the exception, not the rule.
3. "Ukraine is not fighting for my freedom". This is a variation on the whataboutist we're just as bad and Ukraine is corrupt and doesn't deserve to win nonsense.
This is the direct descendant of the Communists' "don't fight the imperialist war" from Sept 1, 1939-June 22, 1941, refuted here: https://medium.com/illumination-curated/ukraine-is-corrupt-dont-defend-it-258bd7c1b885.
War has actually made Ukraine more democratic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/07/russian-invasion-ukraine-democracy-changes/661451/
3. "the objective is to completely destroy Russia’s military capacity..." one way deescalation thesis.
Why are you unafraid of Germany and Japan? Because these two empire-aholics hit bottom 1945 and were remade as democracies. TINA-There is no Alternative to this complete demolition of Russian imperial identity. Russia must, at the end of this war, be incapable and the Russian elites and people uninterested in empire building: https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/russias-ukraine-war-ends-only-with-empire-demolition-abaf44e08bc7 No peace is possible until the ongoing dissolution of the Russian empire begun in 1917, interrupted by the USSR in 1922-91, partially renewed in 1991, is completed.
4. If we deescalate, Russian aggression and export of authoritarian kleptocracy will cease.
This fundamentally misunderstands Russia as a rogue commodity export mafia empire built on genocidal conquest and theft. The Hudson Institute was already rethinking containment of such institutional transvestites six years ago:
https://www.hudson.org/research/12928-the-kleptocracy-curse-rethinking-containment
It has already threatened Estonia to test NATO. In the Baltics and the rest of Eastern Europe we know from bitter experience that this neighbor understands only one deterrent: superior power.
Ukraine poses the threat of the good example: a prosperous EU member democracy next door to Putin's political meth lab. The post-Dugina assassination manifesto of the National Republican Army--"poverty for many, palaces for some"--shows why the threat of the good example is terminal for a kleptocratic mafia empire.
5."I have to wonder what they’re thinking when they send arms with no troops." This is a variation on the NATO is ready to fight to the last Ukrainian and that only boots on the ground = real support.
First, only a Russian attack on a NATO member can trigger Article 5, which is the legal requirement to send troops. No boots on the ground also refutes the argument that NATO isn't a purely defensive alliance. You're trying to have it both ways about NATO: why not send troops, which ignores the Article 5 legal impediment, while crying poor Russia had to start a war to avoid "encirclement".
Also, the Ukrainians don't want NATO troops since they would validate Russian propaganda that it's at war with NATO. Zelenskiy has said, as the British did 1940-41, "give us the tools, and we'll finish the job."
The British and the Soviets before December 7, 1941 would have disagreed about boots on the ground being the only worthwhile American support. America's oil embargo against Japan forced it south and the American decoy at Pearl Harbor kept the Germans from taking Moscow. Big support with no boots on the ground.
American and British bombers over Germany kept thousands of Luftwaffe fights and anti aircraft guns off the eastern front. Again, no boots on the ground
European food shortages: I just spent March to June 30 in Portugal. No food shortages. In Latvia no food shortages and full restaurants in Jurmala. I couldn't get a researvation last Sunday evening at our favorite Georgian restaurant. Which countries have food shortages? As usual, the author floats comfortably above specifics. When we return to Porto in October, the fish restaurants in Matosinhos will still be full of freshly caught fish.
Energy: "Russia was selling the cheapest gas on the market". Pure nonsense. Qatari gas is much cheaper.
German storage is already at 80% of winter needs and ahead of schedule. American LNG exports already exceed EU imports of Russian gas. EU commissioner Van der Leyen is pushing a plan to decouple overall energy costs from the last marginal price of $490/BOE. If you don't know what BOE means, you need to do more research before expressing any opinion about energy policy.
Decertified Russian aircraft won't be able to fly equipment and maintenance crews to pipelines inaccessible by road. Russia is flaring gas that can't be shipped, burning $10m/day in revenue.
Russia has no significant pipelines to reroute gas to China and India from its Ural and Western Siberian fields that currently flow to Europe. Once Putin shoots his gas load with the latest Nordstream shutdown, his gas blackmail weapon is finished and Russian market share goes to the American, Canadian and Australian FSRUs using Germany's new LNG terminals by next spring.
Gas from Israel's Tamar field will flow to the EU through a new pipeline to Cyprus.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-inks-mega-gas-pipeline-deal-with-greece-cyprus/
If you don't know what an FSRU is, stop writing about energy..
In 1862 John Stuart Mill ("The Contest in America") wrote how the fate of freedom in the world was being decided in the American Civil War. The same was true in the Spanish Civil War in 1936-39. The appeasers like Mr. Dunn won the policy battle in the British-sponsored Non-intervention Agreement the Germans and Italians flagrantly violated. We know what the far higher price paid for that was.
