I hesitate to opine on a war involving Russia. I lived and worked there. I have Russian friends and am on record as admiring its culture (arguably the most artistically complete of any human civilisation) and its people. I am open to slurs that this translates into sympathy for its utterly despicable government. It really doesn’t. I wish — for what that’s worth — it would lose this war. The invasion of Ukraine was morally wrong. Ukraine’s defensive struggle is just and brave.

We’ve lived at peace for so long, thank God, that — outside military families — most Britons’ experience of war is limited to movies in which good guys win in the face (for dramatic effect) of overwhelming odds. The plucky and virtuous vanquish evil at the end of an elegant dramatic arc involving some maverick who defies the orders of idiot commanders to snatch a noble victory.

War just isn’t like that. Might is not right, but it prevails. Britain can be proud of plucky ancestors who, for a while, stood alone — just as Ukrainians do right now — against a superior enemy. The courage of the Few made ultimate victory possible but World War 2 would have been lost were it not for the intervention of allies (including Russians under the only contemporary leader viler than Hitler) prepared to fight and die at our side. Pluck was great. Moral superiority was noble. Greater force won.

So when I read that Ukrainian troops are outnumbered ten to one on parts of their frontline and when I recall the Russian military’s historic contempt for the value of its own soldiers’ lives, I sigh at the assumption that President Trump in suing for peace is siding with the monster Putin. Those attacking him never advocated allying with Ukraine in more than name. They would call him crazy if he despatched so much as one Cruise missile. What they’re demanding is more meaningless solidarity by gesture; the geopolitical equivalent of a Ukrainian flag on their country’s Facebook profile.

When Biden promised to stand by Ukraine, it was gesture politics of the most expensive kind. He commanded the most powerful armed forces the world has ever known but planned to send neither troops nor airstrikes nor missiles. He sent only taxpayer dollars to sustain Ukraine’s war effort to its inevitable end. He and his NATO allies praised Ukraine and raised its flags on their town halls while being prepared to watch that plucky nation fight to its last man.

I am not advocating World War 3 on Russia. I don’t think the democracies of the West have popular support for that. American and British mothers aren’t ready to see their sons die for a far off, corrupt nation of little economic significance. Even French and German mothers are not prepared to waste Anglo lives they might later need to defend their own borders. For that’s how — in truth — Continental Europe sees NATO. They’ve long avoided the full economic cost of defending themselves and grown fat and complacent under US protection, while failing even to meet the modest defence commitments they make. They sneer at the naïve, unsophisticated Yanks while relying on them for defence.

Germany under Merkel pursued a suicidally stupid energy policy of increasing dependence on Russia, without worrying about what that might mean for the future. Deep down lay the unspoken, perhaps subconscious assumption that Germany’s safety is for idiot Yanks and their inselaffen (island apes) sidekicks to die for. If making the crazy Green Party happy made that more likely or difficult, so be it. As a partner in a pan-European business, I experienced these attitudes first hand, I also, by the way, experienced visceral hatred of Russia from at least one Ukrainian colleague.

I was living and working in Warsaw when Poland applied to join NATO and I heard how my Polish colleagues viewed that. They wanted shelter under America’s nuclear umbrella from their historic foe to the East. I wasn’t sure it was wise to give it as I feared they didn’t grasp the “no first strike” defensive doctrine at the heart of the alliance. Asked by an official of our Foreign Office what I thought, I said I worried the Poles might bait the Russian bear once under American protection. She told me our then Foreign Secretary had the same concern, but that the US view would prevail. In fairness to Poland, it’s been a responsible and compliant member. It passed a key test when stray Russian missiles landed on its territory and it accepted it was an error. It has also always paid its dues.

Nonetheless the most cynical thing the West under the leadership of Biden did was holding out the hope of NATO membership to Ukraine when the present war is over. They never expected a Ukrainian victory and were not prepared to fight for one, so that was gesture politics of the most despicable kind. In the miraculous eventuality of Ukrainian victory, I would still counsel against introducing a poisonous historical enmity into a purely defensive alliance.

Until we admitted ex-Warsaw Pact countries into NATO it consisted entirely of nations who would welcome peace with a prosperous and successful Russia as a full member of the Free World. Admitting members with powerful historical grievances against Russia merely fuelled the paranoia of the military and intelligence elites there, of which Putin — an ex-KGB spy inside a NATO country — was a typical member. That paranoia was already inflamed after the collapse of the Soviet Union by the failure to wind NATO up. It was an anti-USSR alliance, they argued, so the need for it had ended. If history had ended in the triumph of democracy, why keep the West’s nukes pointed East?

I personally feel it was just another example, familiar to all libertarians, of a governmental (in this case multi-governmental) agency not accepting the need for its own dissolution and the consequent loss of tax-funded jobs. Create an agency against poverty and you ensure the constant redefinition of poverty so bureaucrats can keep on working against it. The less actual need for their jobs there is, the more attractive their jobs become! How perfectly wonderful then, from the point of view of the parasitical class, to be a well paid employee of a military alliance that not only never had to fight but now had no actual foe!

From the American public’s point of view, the end of the Cold War was bound to weaken support for the NATO alliance. It could rest on the laurels of its “victory” for a while but they were bound to question the cost of it while peace prevailed. Putin saved the asses of the NATO bureaucracy by invading Ukraine. He made Russia a threat again. Without his insanity, President Trump might now be calling for NATO’s dissolution, rather than just complaining about most of the other members hitching a free ride by failing to meet their commitments.

My sympathies are with the peoples of Ukraine and Russia, both of whom live under corrupt governments and political systems that — even more than elsewhere — gamify evil. No military outcome of this war will change that, alas. Only the Russian and Ukrainian peoples can sort out their oppressors and I hope one day that they do. For now, President Trump is morally right to seek peace, rather than keep extending the slaughter with pointless, expensive gestures. As for leaving the European nations out of the discussion, they have nothing to contribute. When you’re cowering uselessly behind your big friend, you don’t get to tell him how to fight. Sorry. Step up and do your bit or keep your annoying whimpering to a minimum.

I don’t know if President Trump will succeed in securing a decent peace or even if his tactics so far are the best. I know he’s right to try and I know the interests of the European members of NATO are best-served by somehow keeping the long-suffering American taxpayers he represents onside. Perhaps even by - quelle horreur — meeting their obligations?

I lived and worked in Continental Europe for nineteen of my twenty years overseas. I have more friends there than here in London and often think I should have refused my late wife’s dying wish for me to come home. I’d have a better life in Warsaw.

It’s interesting to watch my Continental friends react on their socials to President Trump’s overtures to that monster Putin — the greatest modern example of a real life Bond villain. Their sympathies, like mine, are with plucky Ukraine. Its soldiers, outgunned and outmanned, have fought like lions and their place in history is assured. Toasts will be drunk and songs will be sung, for sure. But they’re losing and not one European power is ready to send in troops. Under Biden the policy of the West was to fight to the last Ukrainian. Trump sees it in more practical terms.

If anything more is to be done, my European friends, as usual, expect the United States to expend the required blood and gold. Their contributions to NATO never meet the agreed level — with the honourable exceptions of Britain, Poland and Greece. Greece only hits the percentage of GDP target, by the way, because its GDP shrank faster than it could shrink its army!

I exempt Poland from this criticism. It has stepped up its contribution to NATO to more than the minimum and it won’t be long before its army is bigger than Britain’s. The Poles, if anything, are too eager to fight Russia. That doesn’t change my prediction of the outcome, sadly. History shows how much they love a bloodily glorious defeat. When I told a Polish friend once that the whole point of war is victory he replied 

That must have been many a Polish soldier’s dying thought!  

Partly from the envious anti-Americanism that is Joe European’s least endearing feature, they are condemning Trump before a word is spoken. Like many politically-minded (rather than business-minded) people, they underestimate the man rated by the best negotiator I ever knew as the best negotiator *he* ever knew.

Decades ago, as a trainee lawyer, I asked an experienced litigator — and devout Christian — how he reconciled what he’d just done in the meeting we were walking back from with his religious principles. Startled, he asked what I meant. I said we both knew what our client hoped to get from the insurance company we were suing, but he’d demanded four times more. Hadn’t he just lied through his teeth? He laughed and told me;

Negotiations aren’t about truth. They’re a ritual dance. If I’d said the real number they’d have assumed we wanted less. Their numbers were also a matter of negotiation. My conscience is clear and I can face my God.

Trump’s drama, trolling and exaggeration is in the same category. Most people just don’t get it and react to his bluster like that naive articled clerk I once was. Everything he says and does is calculated to find a path to the best achievable outcome. There’s not a virtue-signalling molecule in his body and yet there’s more actual virtue than in his hypocritical critics. 

My European friends are comparing Trump to Chamberlain and Putin to Hitler. Europe seems unable to move on from World War II. Every issue is analysed through the historical lens of how they mishandled the rise of the Nazis. As someone once said, all we really learn from history is that we never learn from history.

The hypocrisy here is breathtaking. If his critics were any more ready than him to send in their troops, they’d have the moral high ground over him. They aren’t and (Poland perhaps excepted) they never will be. So whether it’s just or not, Ukraine can’t win. The only people the Germans and French are ready to see die in this war are Ukrainians, Americans and their loyal English-speaking sidekicks — as usual. So they have no moral basis for their maiden auntery  

The post-war settlement has expired. Continental Europeans have to meet their long-neglected NATO obligations and stop expecting Uncle Sam (already carrying more debt than the world has assets) to pay for everything.

Putin is evil, yes, but Ukraine is every bit as corrupt as Russia and would add nothing to NATO’s strength. It’s in the right here as a matter of international law and (for what it’s worth in war) morality. But international law is a myth unless the rich nations enforce it by (plausible threat of) military action. Europe is just standing by signalling virtue while breaching sanctions and sending half the military matériels it promises. Meanwhile Ukraine loses men and wealth with no hope of victory. When the last Ukrainian soldier has died or surrendered, what do Europeans think the outcome will be? Ukrainian flags on your socials won’t win it mes amis.

My advice to my Continental chums? They should let the President try to make peace and hold their comments until they see the result. Based on all my years working in Continental Europe, I expect them all to decry the result and pretend their leaders (prepared to sacrifice nothing) would have done better. It’s bullshit. War is hell and has to end eventually. This is not a Hollywood movie. There are no guarantees that the (relatively) good guys will win. If you won’t end it with arms, then jaw jaw is all you have. This man is much better at jaw jaw than you are so shut up and stop assisting the enemy by showing him how divided the West is.