Simon Jenkins’ warning about the alleged risk of escalation in Ukraine is the latest example of what’s become his kneejerk anti-interventionism that would leave the west frozen into inactivity while our adversaries make hay (Nato is growing reckless over Ukraine – and Russia’s German military leak proves it, 5 March).
The wisdom of intervention needs to be assessed case by case, not with his blanket critique. He should reflect on where he has gone wrong before. In 2001, before 9/11, Nato launched Operation Essential Harvest, sending in thousands of troops to what is now North Macedonia to collect weapons from an insurgent group as part of the Ohrid agreement.
It worked: a looming civil war in the Balkans was snuffed out; North Macedonia is at peace and now a Nato member. However, as it got under way, Mr Jenkins, then with the Times, referred to Essential Harvest as “bizarre” and “the craziest mission British soldiers have endured at the hands of politicians”. Predicting a mission of indefinite duration done to save face for the then British defence secretary, George Robertson, he predicted: “These half-baked, short-term interventions merely turn local brushfires into major conflicts.”
Given the outcome, he could not have been more wrong, but in the succeeding two decades he has clearly not learned. Intervention has not always turned out well, but arguing we should never intervene is as useless as arguing we should always intervene.
Mr Jenkins was wrong on North Macedonia, and he is wrong on Ukraine. Russia is relying on dire warnings about escalation to scare us into giving them a free hand to do more, and that is what we should fear most. It is not our action that is the biggest risk of escalation, but our inaction.
Mark Laity
Nato spokesman in North Macedonia, 2001
• Simon Jenkins’ interpretation of the west’s justified objective in Ukraine as being “to help foil Putin’s attempt to topple Kyiv’s elected government” is interesting, if idiosyncratic. As is his view that “this was achieved in a matter of months”. To topple Kyiv’s democratically elected government was but one element in Vladimir Putin’s intention to wipe Ukraine off the map of Europe and annexe it as a province of Russia.
This was clearly stated in his infamous essay, written before the Revolution of Dignity was even dreamt of and reiterated in Dmitry Medvedev’s inflammatory statements. The invasion was and is in flagrant breach of international law and threatens far more than Ukraine. As the Baltic states keep warning us, this threatens the whole world order and the inviolability of sovereign state borders as recognised in international law. It has global consequences.
Nato has havered and been slow in its support, though it has members that recognise the enormity of the situation and is getting clearer in its intentions. These are times when we cannot afford to be intimidated by Putin’s threats, when peace has to be fought for if it is not to turn into appeasement, with all the dire consequences that follow from that.
Ruth Windle
Frome, Somerset
