How Wars End

A final word about the Ukraine War - and then I'll shut up and switch (for a while) to something else in future posts. It's hard to see how this bitter conflict will end given the present stalemate on the battlefield and the unwillingness of both sides to compromise on their most cherished aims - albeit Moscow, the aggressor, is still demanding Ukrainian territory which it looks increasingly unlikely to conquer (if it could ever have done). If we look at the two world wars of the 20th century - by early June this year the Ukraine War will have lasted as long as the First World War - it's clear that in both cases decisive military defeat ended any hope that the Central Powers and Nazi Germany, respectively, could keep on fighting. Certain groups in post-war German society continued to argue that their country had not surrendered as such in 1918 since their army had withdrawn back to barracks in good order - the 'stab-in-the-back' myth that Hitler would go on to exploit - but all the evidence now shows that German morale and reserves had utterly collapsed by that November, being preceded by mass German surrenders on the Western Front on an unprecedented scale (we're talking hundreds of thousands of men at a time, led by their NCOs, calmly leaving their trenches and giving themselves up to the enemy). The armistice that followed - dictated to the German delegation under threat of further Allied attack - was simply a brutal acknowledgement that Germany had lost the war. As for WW2's end, there's no dispute that in 1945 both Germany and, a few months later, Japan formally surrendered to the Allies when their respective countries were comprehensively destroyed, overrun and occupied. It's hard to see this decisive WW2 outcome happening in the Ukrainian conflict, while WW1's finale - one side decisively forcing the other to stop fighting - defies the present attritional state of the battlefield. Ukraine, at the most (if it could), would be happy to drive the invading Russians off its sovereign territory - certainly, if necessary, by inflicting unacceptable damage to Russian infrastructure and resources - but it has no interest in invading and occupying Russia (except, as it has shown, as a way of using captured Russian territory as a bargaining chip in peace negotiations). For their part, the Russians seem unlikely, on all the evidence of the war so far, to overrun let alone occupy Ukraine as their casualties mount alarmingly (serious estimates run at 1.2 million and counting) and their economy shows signs of severe strain. In such a situation, it would be foolhardy of the Russians (and, I suspect, they know it) to try to spread the conflict to other countries (e.g. NATO ones) as this would likely encourage a much more proactive coalition behind Ukraine that could tip the balance against Moscow, and so make possible something closer to a WW2 result (not occupation of Russia, of course, but existential for the Putin regime all the same). Of course, WW2's end was decisive in a way that WW1's wasn't for two very good reasons. Firstly, 1945 marked the first and only time in history that atomic weapons have been employed in anger. So, for that reason alone, this first major war in the heart of Europe since WW2 is hard to predict: would Putin, for example, countenance tactical nuclear weapons at any point? He's talked about them and, if he felt cornered, it's not impossible he would resort to them. But, realistically, that's a line which probably nobody wants to breach, for fear of what lies beyond. Mind you, they said that about bombing civilians from the air and poison gas - but, despite pre-war international agreements prohibiting both, both were rapidly adopted by all sides in WW1. And the second reason? In a word, Trump. In 1945 the extraordinary might and resources of the USA led the fight against the Axis powers, critically supported on the eastern front and northern China by the massed divisions of the Red Army. Today, who knows really what Trump's America is up to in this war. But all its actions (and most of its rhetoric) has suggested that it wants to please Moscow rather than arrive at a just and equitable settlement. This makes the Ukraine War unique in recent history - and all the more difficult to resolve.

Surrendered German troops march in orderly fashion into Allied captivity, autumn 1918. The lack of armed escorts suggests these men have willingly given themselves up to end a war they no longer want to fight.

If you think you know about WW1 and WW2, it's time to think again.

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