Ukraine: One Year On

This is the text of a commissioned article published today in the Yorkshire Post on the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (I write as a former Soviet specialist at GCHQ in Cheltenham and current lead bishop for international affairs in the House of Lords.)

Yorkshire Post: One Year On: Ukraine (23 February 2023

Hubris. When Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on 23 February 2022 he was convinced that his ‘Special Military Operation’ would be over and done within a month. At least, he had convinced himself that this would be the case. He had excluded the possibility of defeat or failure. He fatefully combined destiny with opportunity. And it is worth reflecting on why he was able to do this.

Putin is not just a politician who wields power without really knowing what he wants to do with it. It has been said of certain prime ministers that they wanted to be PM, but didn’t know what for. This has never been the case for the ex-KGB officer who described the end of the Soviet Union as a ‘catastrophe’. There are two powerful drivers of his political ambitions: religious myth (rooted in a perceived historical integrity) and grievance. In the West the former has been grievously misunderstood in the last three decades since the latter radically motivated his decision-making.

Every time he leaves his bubble in the Kremlin Putin passes the statue of Vladimir the Great who, according to one reading of history, established ‘Holy Russia’ in 988AD, uniting what we now know as Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The patriarchate – religion and politics were inseparable – was begun in Kyiv and only much later transferred to Moscow. Putin sees himself as the latest and greatest Vladimir who is destined to bring back together the three elements of Holy Russia which have been disintegrated by a Ukraine that had no right under God in declaring any sort of independence.

This is why Putin is supported uncritically by the Patriarch of Moscow in his war on Ukraine. There is a bigger prize to play for: not just an expedient political settlement for the here and now, but, rather, the fulfilment of a divine destiny for which he is the primary agent of delivery. To think about this conflict simply in terms of secular politics or events of the last century is to miss the deeper reality.

The reason Putin grieves the collapse of the USSR between 1989-1991 is not merely down to some offended nostalgia. While the Soviet Empire survived, the elements of Holy Russia were essentially held together in a single entity. To use a biblical image from the gospels, when it fell apart and left a vacuum, the demons came pouring in and occupied the space. Hence, it is not wrong to describe Putin’s motivation for prosecuting the current war as righting a wrong in the name of God.

However, understanding this does not lead automatically to a solution that guarantees a safer and more peaceful future. For Russia the rupture between the elements of Holy Russia will for ever be an igniter of collective psychic grievance and actual violence. A short-term resolution of the current conflict will not decide for ever the question of Ukraine’s identity – as a people, a nation or a race. That is why these current horrors will not answer the ultimate question.

The West has responded resolutely, confounding Putin’s assumption (based on our failure to do anything of significance when Russia ruined Chechnya, invaded Georgia, annexed the Donbas and claimed Crimea) that we don’t believe anything enough to pay a price. However, the original rationale behind the West’s response was purely to enable Ukraine to defend itself against military aggression. That is now beginning to creep into enabling Russia to be defeated. These are different goals – even if you think that Russia’s defeat is essential. How the move from ‘enabling defence’ to ‘defeating the enemy’ is handled will be vital as the uncertainties of other factors proceed.

For example, while the West steps up the nature and quantity of weapons and ammunition donated to Ukraine, powers such as China and Iran clearly contemplate arming Russia for a longer-term war. India and Brazil just want it all to stop; but, if it doesn’t, they, too, might get drawn into taking sides. The permutations then become less certain and more problematic. The future certainly looks potentially very dangerous.

It is hard to believe now that only one year ago the West thought it highly unlikely that Putin would launch an invasion – even while he was amassing troops and armour on the border of Ukraine. Since that fateful day in February 2022 millions of refugees have fled the country as Russia’s military devastated Ukraine’s infrastructure, flattened its buildings, butchered its people, internally censored all media, stamped on any dissent, and wantonly committed what can only be described as crimes against humanity. Any respect for the rule of law is dead – which it is why it remains so important for even suggestions of breaching international law by our own governments to be opposed at source.

This war will not be over soon. Refugees might decide to stay in the countries where they have settled, and that will change local communities. The cost militarily and economically will continue to grow (as demands expand), as will the cost in human lives and critical infrastructure – the cost of rebuilding Ukraine one day will be enormous.

But, for today, we must continue to hear and tell the truth, be realistic about the potential for peace, continue to work and pray for those impacted most severely, and look further back and further forward than we in the West are sometimes wont to do.

 

General Synod: Ukraine

This is the text of my introductory speech on Friday 8 July 2022 to a debate on Ukraine. The text of the motion follows the script. This should be read in the context also of (a) a debate I moderated at the Bradford Literature Festival with two academics on Sunday 3 July on the theme: Russia: Expansionist or Opportunist? and (b) my lecture to CCADD on Wednesday 6 July at Westminster Abbey here.

I am grateful to the Business Committee for making time for this topical debate which opens up a number of challenging questions and calls the Church to prayer, listening and action.

It is important for the Synod to debate this as (a) the conflict is impacting the whole world (energy resources, economics, migrations and humanitarian catastrophes, food security, and so on), and (b) there is an unavoidable church element to the conflict (the Moscow Patriarchate’s uncritical support of Putin’s ideological vision and nationalist dogma, noting also the impact on chaplaincies in the Diocese in Europe and our partner churches in the region). It is also inevitably about politics. Politics, however, is about people, the right ordering of society and the distribution of power – all issues that go to the heart of the Judeo-Christian scriptures and tradition.

There might be disagreement as to the specificity of particular policy recommendations, but that should not discourage us from a necessary engagement with matters of people and place that sit at the heart of any incarnational obligation. The Church exists for the sake of the world, not the other way round.

For the sake of this debate, our understanding of neighbour is both local – those affected in our own congregations by the effects of this war (immigration of Ukrainian refugees, high energy bills, food shortages, for example) – and global, including those fighting on the front line in the Donbas or seeking safety in a makeshift air raid centre in Kyiv or Russians seeking respite from and truthful understanding of President Putin’s authoritarian regime.

We have a responsibility to provide generous refuge to those displaced by this conflict – and I hope we hear more about this remarkable work in the debate that follows. But, we must also engage with the causes of their displacement – both the immediate, Russian aggression, and the more long term, including wider missteps in the West’s relations with Russia since the end of the Cold War.  

We also have a responsibility to think through how this war affects those in other parts of the world. Tens of millions of people are now at risk of famine in parts of Africa and Asia, even though they are not party to the conflict. Against this background, the decision to cut Britain’s overseas development budget continues to look short sighted. The cutting of numbers in our Army raises other questions, too.

Beyond the humanitarian fall out, we are all conscious that the risks of strategic miscalculation are very real – threatening not only human life on a scale unimaginable a few months ago, but also the very integrity of God’s creation.

This war requires us to rethink what it means to be peacemakers in an age of global disorder. The conceptual frameworks of the 70 year post-war global settlement have fallen apart in a very short time and the world is now a different place. It requires us to use all the resources at our disposal, and that includes our relations with the Russian Orthodox Church, to try to navigate a way through this crisis. 

In an age when many politicians appear to have lost their moral compass, it is important that we do not doubt the reason why issues like this matter and why we get involved in the way we do.  

Our starting point, our obedience to God, is very different from that of governments and others. It leads us to take a much wider and a theologically searching moral view.

Given this, it is perhaps not surprising that we sometimes find ourselves at odds with government.

To do otherwise, to take a different starting point, is to run the risk of Archbishops and Bishops becoming the ‘altar boys’ to this and future governments – a charge that others have made of the Russian Orthodox Church’s relations with the Russian Government.

Synod, the briefing paper that accompanies this debate attempts to help us think through the war in Ukraine in a serious and integrated way from Christian foundations. 

Contrary to what you might have read in the Press recently, this paper, produced by the newly formed Faith and Public Life Division, does not articulate a fixed position. What it does do is raise from first principles questions that need to be grappled with and the consequences that need to be considered. In doing so, it recognises that it is the politician, not the bishop, who has to make decisions and to bear responsibility for the consequences. 

Loosely put, the questions mirror those that arise from the set of criteria known as the Just War principles. 

To avoid confusion or uncertainty, let me be crystal clear. 

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine constitutes an act of evil that cannot go unchallenged.  Ukraine has a legitimate right to self-defence and a right to seek assistance from others in doing so. 

The Government and the wider international community must stand with Ukraine and provide financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support as part of its broader efforts to uphold international law and the norms underpinning the international community.

Yet, as the MOD suggested last week, such support cannot realistically be unlimited and this war cannot be waged without restraint.

The focus of our efforts must be bringing this conflict to an end in a way that respects Ukraine’s independent sovereign status. 

This objective risks being thwarted by the lack of clarity amongst states as to whether the aim of Western actions is the upholding of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, weakening Russia, or regime change in Moscow.  Such ambiguity invites mission creep and increases the risks of strategic miscalculation.

It is these broader objectives that risk Britain becoming embroiled in a protracted and proxy war in the Ukraine. It is for Ukraine to decide if, how and when the war might be ended … and on what terms. It would be morally problematic to oppose a conclusion to the war that would save Ukraine from further devastation in the hope that we might secure wider geo-strategic advantage, if Ukraine so decides. 

Military force has utility; but, it does not follow that military force alone will be sufficient to reverse the territorial gains that Russia has secured since February 2022 or even 2014 when Putin’s money was flowing through the sewers of London. 

The risks of this conflict spreading beyond its current borders are real. It is therefore reassuring that the armaments that the UK has provided are of a defensive rather than offensive nature.  Britain’s support must remain proportionate to the ends we are seeking and those owned by Ukraine itself. 

We know that atrocities have been committed in this conflict – the full horrors of which will probably only be known well after this war ends. It is incumbent on all parties to the conflict to uphold the principles of discrimination and non-combatant immunity.

Where atrocities have been committed, these should be documented and those responsible held accountable, even if that is at a much, much later date. It should not be forgotten that earlier this year, the International Criminal Court opened its trial against those considered responsible for war crimes committed in Darfur over two decades ago.

The principles of discrimination and non-combatant immunity do, whether we like it or not, invite questions as to the efficacy of the sanctions regime assembled against Russia. It is clear that Russians have limited access to truthful media and are subject to authoritarian propaganda. Which is why many politicians and commentators have been clear to distinguish between ‘Russia” and ‘Putin’s government’.

We should not be so naïve as to think that sanctions, as a form of political intervention, do not cause serious human damage, and therefore do not also raise pressing ethical questions. If we conclude that they are morally justifiable (whether effective in securing appropriate ends or not), then we must also be open-eyed about their costs and consequences.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has descended into a brutal war of attrition, with outstanding questions over how long Ukraine’s forces can continue to resist Russian advances. The geopolitical and security implications of the conflict for Europe have already been profound, from German militarisation to accelerated NATO expansion: these will continue. Global ramifications will only become known over the long term. 

Synod, in a world which looks more dangerous and unstable, we need to look again at what it means to work for the reconciliation of humanity to God. We do so with prayer and humility. I suspect that this will not be the last time that we reflect on this conflict and the issues arising from it.

I look forward to the debate.

WAR IN UKRAINE (GS 2259)

Bishop of Leeds to move:

6.  ‘That this Synod, committed in Christ to support peacemakers and to work for the reconciliation of humanity to God in a world marked by division and conflict:
   1. (a)  lament Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, the suffering and terror experienced by Ukrainians and the repercussions and anxiety felt globally for our common future;
   2. (b)  urge all Christians and people of faith to pray that the war in Ukraine be ended justly, that the risk of strategic miscalculation between conflicting parties be avoided and that the Russian people find respite from an authoritarian government;
   3. (c)  call on each diocese and each parish to work towards providing long term refuge and hospitality to refugees from Ukraine and other conflicts and forms of danger, and to contribute to the Disasters Emergency Committee’s Ukraine Appeal or the appeal organised by USPG and the Diocese in Europe;
   4. (d)  call on Her Majesty’s Government to work to secure a just peace that provides for the flourishing of relations in Ukraine and between nations in Europe and to provide a generous response to those seeking refuge from the conflict.’

 

Here we go again: learning from history

This is the text of the 2022 annual lecture for the Council on Christian Approaches to Defence and Disarmament (CCADD) of which I am a Vice-president. It was delivered on Wednesday 6 July 2022 at Westminster Abbey. The lecture was intended to feed into a discussion which, in the event, turned out to be very rich and challenging; it raised further and wider questions which are too long to go into here and now. I understand it was recorded, so a link might follow for the CCADD website.

I have only been to Sweden once. Following a big celebration of the thousandth anniversary of the Diocese of Skara, we returned to the hotel for a dinner with royalty and the great and the good. After dinner I was told (for the first time) that I was to give a speech and would follow the Bishop of Bavaria. Fair enough. The Bishop of Bavaria then disappointed me by concluding his speech in Swedish. All I could think to say at the beginning of mine – having allowed a significant silence – was that the only Swedish I know (excluding IKEA, of course) is: “Mamma mia”, “Gimme gimme gimme”, “Money money money” and “Dancing Queen”. They laughed – helpfully.

You will remember that ‘Mamma Mia’ is followed by the words: “Here we go again”. And this is the line – and the song – that spins around my head when I look at elements of the world we currently inhabit. If I turned it into a question, it would be: “Do we ever learn?”

You will remember George Santayana’s famous aphorism: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. This builds from Karl Marx’s assertion that “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.” I will leave it to the historians to debate whether either is demonstrably true, but I am suspicious of both. History – by definition – cannot repeat itself, but we can learn from it, if we choose to do so. Learning can clearly go in different ways – for example, it isn’t a given that we learn only positively from the mistakes or experiences of the past; we might learn how to do terrible things more efficiently in future – but learning should at the very least imply a serious and considered attempt not to recreate the negative conditions of the past which open the door to ‘bad stuff’ (as Donald Trump might put it).

This is why some observers are now pointing (with hindsight, it should be said) to the complacency of the West since the Second World War and, later, the collapse of the Soviet Union: that “never again” will we tolerate war on Europe’s soil and “never again” can there be genocide on our continent. Well, the Balkans disposed of the latter and Ukraine casts doubts on the former. Only three months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, dismissed the informed observations of his fellow MP Tobias Ellwood at the Liaison Committee meeting in Parliament on 17 November 2021: “We have to recognise that the old concepts of fighting big tank battles on European land mass are over, and there are other, better things we should be investing in, in FCAS, in the future combat air system, in cyber, this is how warfare in the future is going to be.” Well, that didn’t age well.

A similar problem can be found in the Integrated Review of 2021. Remember its subtitle: “Global Britain in a Competitive Age, the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, describes the government’s vision for the UK’s role in the world over the next decade and the action we will take to 2025.” The assumptions on which this review was built became exposed to reality only months after it was published. Barely a reference to our European neighbours in the European Union, but all eyes on China and the Pacific. And now, in 2022, we find ourselves in a changed world once again, probably with a need for a revised integrated review which checks some of the assumptions in the original. And we are nowhere near 2025.

(While writing this an argument is raging about cuts from 80,000 to 72,000 in army numbers at the same time as NATO is boosting the numbers of troops being mobilised on the eastern borders and we are being reminded of the threat from an aggressive Russia. The Cold War bipolar world gave way to a supposedly unipolar order … which is now giving way to a tripolar or even multipolar world, if we consider Russia, China, India, the European Union, USA to be increasingly singular agents. This must have an impact on any decisions made in and by the UK, dependent on a realistic appreciation of capacity.)

Is it possible, then, to learn from history when it comes to geopolitics and military defence? I do wonder when we see the Russian military using in Ukraine the same tactics (with the same rationale) as they did in World War Two and, in my personal experience, in their aborted Afghan campaign in the 1980s. This was a campaign running while I was a Russian linguist at GCHQ. What is even more curious for me personally is that the rhetoric the West aimed at the Soviet Union in the 1980s (“you can’t win a war in Afghanistan, and you’ll all go home in coffins”) was exactly the same rhetoric used by the Russians against the West when we moved into Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11. The differing rationales behind the two invasions/occupations do not dispel the pragmatic problems of conducting such operations in such a place – something history tells us are fairly insurmountable.

But, the abrupt departure of the Western Allies from Afghanistan last year, the questionable ways in which this operation was conducted, and the way in which some of our moral obligations towards those left behind were neglected … all raise questions about the politics of forward planning in the light of past experience and the context of current exigencies. Could this withdrawal have been conducted differently? It is not for me, an observer, to say; but, many commentators who understand politics, diplomacy, military and humanitarian factors better than I do clearly think so.

What ,then, might be the preconditions for wise learning from history? I am no expert and am not a historian, but my possibly shallow thinking leads me to these for starters:

First, politicians need around them historians who can identify and articulate past phenomena that might educate us when making short-term decisions that will, inevitably, have long-term consequences. This is partly the classic ‘how do we get out of what we are about to get into?’ question. A good and fairly recent example of this is how German Chancellor Angela Merkel made her cabinet read Christopher Clark’s remarkable and readable 2013 book Sleepwalkers – on the origins of the First World War – and then set aside a day to engage on it with the author-historian. Not everybody likes Clark’s book, but the Germans are serious and intelligent enough to deal with argument and ideas and the importance of learning. Of course, historians will offer differing perspectives: that’s the point.

Secondly, we have to remember the nature of contingency. For every decision made, there is a context … which includes a complex set of human beings with limited vision and a propensity to seek immediate solutions to today’s threat or problem without preparing for the possible various consequences that might arise from them. At this point I will introduce a question that bothers me more generally and which we might want to discuss later: centralised authoritarian regimes like Russia and China are far better equipped to think strategically in the longer term than are western democracies where the political eye is always on the ball of the electoral cycle – therefore, the inability to guarantee that any longer-term strategy can be seen through to a conclusion … and hence the short-term tactical (rather than strategic) thinking that might win votes.

(I might add here, though we will come back to it later, that Russia is a single entity with a single government dominated by a single man, but he is dealing with an opposing coalition of interests, the cracks between whom can easily be opened and exploited, especially over the longer term when popular patience or tolerance wear thin. We have seen this with Putin’s twenty or thirty-year strategy to ‘reclaim and reunite’ Russia, centralising power, changing laws in order to reinforce his power, re-building and modernising his armed forces and their military hardware, interfering in Western democracies and their elections (using cyber and human agencies), assassinating on Western soil and getting minimal response, testing the West (Donbas, Lukhansk, Crimea) and getting little effective opposition. He is probably surprised by the unity and re-engagement of the west following the Ukraine invasion in February 2022, but he also knows that Western memories and passions are eminently exploitable.)

Thirdly, all decisions are made uniquely, despite past experience. The world keeps changing and so do the factors that shape how we see and think about it. This is why history cannot repeat itself any more than the water in a river can re-visit where it has just swept on from. Therefore, it is the principles that can be derived from history that have to be appropriated and considered when decisions of strategy are being made. Sorry if that sounds like a statement of the blindingly obvious.

We might, then, look at the current war in Ukraine to help us think this through. I want to preface this with two comments: first, that the Daily Telegraph’s report on 23/24 June (and lifted by the Times and Daily Mail), allegedly based on a background paper for a General Synod debate on 8 July, was erroneous and misleading (deliberately, I think … and described to me by a conservative acquaintance as “at best disingenuous, at worst deliberately mendacious” – I prefer “illiterate”); secondly, the debate at the General Synod is intended to do what it says on the tin: open thoughtful debate about how we think about Ukraine and how we as a church should respond to the various elements of the conflict – defending Ukraine, holding Putin’s government to account for its evils, and responding to humanitarian need. Issuing platitudinous slogans of support and condemnation respectively might make us feel better, but it won’t necessarily achieve very much effectively in either defending Ukraine or holding Russia to account for its intentions and crimes.

Let me absolutely clear: I want Ukraine to win its war, recover its territory and restore its independence and democratic institutions. I would like to see Putin in a War Crimes Tribunal and held accountable for the death and destruction he has ordered in a sovereign and independent neighbouring country. I would like to see this conflict end as soon as possible and with the least possible further bloodshed of military and civilian people. I will wave a flag, if that helps. But, none of what I have just said absolves any of us from doing the hard work of thinking through potential outcomes that might not accord with my desire, all of which will bring with them wider consequences for both short- and longer term political and economic settlements. So, just to avoid any misunderstanding – deliberate or otherwise – let me repeat: debating options is not the same thing as siding with one or betraying another. I hope that is clear as well as obvious.

What also needs to be clear is that questioning previous actions by the West does not equate to a justification of Putin’s aggression. Even where assumptions of American exceptionalism clash with notions of Russian exceptionalism, playing games of moral equivalence is dangerous territory. We must resist this increasingly polarised and binary thinking that sees every statement as a taking of sides rather than an attempt to face reality and navigate complexity in which moral or political intent is often compromised.

The challenges are many. For example, what happens if, in the end, Russia occupies half of Ukraine and fights to a stalemate? What then will be the grounds for negotiating a peace? Because unless one side utterly defeats the other, there will have to be some diplomatically negotiated settlement. That isn’t an opinion – it is a statement of the obvious. Future relationships still have to be developed, whatever the outcome of the bloody conflict. But, let’s think further: if Ukraine defeats Russia, what happens next … and in the following thirty years? The end of the war, however it happens, will not resolve for ever the problem of history, identity and territory. So, how will Ukraine and the West deal with a defeated Russia? This is where the options become complex (and distasteful), but if a future is to be imagined, it has to involve the building of a defeated country along lines which don’t embed deep nationalistic grievances which then nurture the claims and violences of the following century. Remember Versailles and Yalta?

Let’s remind ourselves of the key background issues in the current conflict. We might begin this with a question that bugs many such debates and conflicts: when did history begin? Vladimir Putin has been angling for years not for the restoration of the USSR, but for the renewal of the Holy Rus and the concept of Russkiy Mir. Every time he leaves the Kremlin he passes a statue of Vladimir the Great, the man who united Kiev, Moscow and Minsk – Ukraine, Russia and Belorussia – over a thousand years ago.

Now, historical ‘memory’ can be romanticised and shaped teleologically to justify current ideological preferences, but there is always a starting point from which any people charts the ‘living’ story of their people or nation or empire. In the case of Ukraine, is it the Holy Rus which the Orthodox Church and Russian nationalists date as the founding date? That is Putin’s (rather contorted) understanding of what he is trying to restore (in terms of ‘Russkiy Mir’), and he has corralled the Moscow Patriarchate into sacrificing both people and theology on this particular altar.

But, now read the most accessible history of Ukraine, Anna Reid’s excellent Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine. She illustrates clearly the challenge any modern Ukraine faces, viz. that it was not seen by its neighbours as a separate country until after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1990-91. It was not a sovereign country until then and its democratic institutions and culture have been developed remarkably in only the thirty or so years since then. Reid puts the question bluntly: are Ukrainians  Central Europeans or a species of Russian? To Russians Ukraine was always part of Russia; but, to Poles it was part of Poland. Look at the shift of borders following two world wars in the twentieth century (which was not the beginning) and you will see the problem of working out which narrative (and from which people’s perspective) is to be the defining one.

Ukraine, of course, is not unique in this. Look at Israel-Palestine. Look at the former Soviet Union and the territories – if not nations and ethno-linguistic groups – it held together which, when the glue was dissolved, immediately drew apart and sought their unique identity. Look at the former Yugoslavia and its artificial uniting of ethnic nations which fell into violence once the authoritarian grip was loosened.

My point is simply (and painfully obviously, I fear) that solving one crisis or problem does not resolve any conflict for ever. I grew up in the post-war world reading maps that looked settled for the future. Yet, they have kept changing ever since the previous settlements were established ‘for ever’. So, I return to the challenging and unwelcome question: however and whenever this current conflict ends, there will have to be a way of securing peace and co-existence that takes seriously the costs and consequences of whatever settlement is arrived at. And, at this point in time, no one has any idea what that situation will look like or how any future settlement might be shaped. En route, the parties involved have to navigate the potential for tactical (if not strategic) miscalculation and escalation.

What we can say, however, is that passionate demands for Ukrainian total victory and total defeat for Putin and Russia will by definition create new problems and challenges. The end of one phase will bear the seeds of future conflicts, claims and demands. And these have to be prepared for now in order that the real costs of potential settlements, short-term solutions and longer-term determinations can be properly, transparently and intelligently assessed and engaged.

It worries me that the rhetoric of Western leaders seems to see a single desirable outcome (which I would also like to see) and eschew any discussion of actual and potential scenarios. For example, Boris Johnson said last week that he would resign if the UK could no longer supply Ukraine with what it needs in terms of financial or military support. If that scenario emerges – and remember that the MOD mentioned that the UK does not have sufficient ammunition to support a long-term war – what will the UK then do? Pool all resources with NATO? Or with the EU (which would be anathema for this government, regardless of wider realities)? Simply back off and leave Ukraine to its own fight? These questions have to be addressed now and not reacted to when events turn to a conclusion for which no one is prepared.

In other words, where is the scenario planning that takes post-conflict options and realities seriously? We can only hope that, despite the rhetoric of politicians, the diplomats and military are doing some serious thinking and planning. This is precisely where we need to learn from history: from Versailles and Yalta, from the Sudetenland and the Balkans, from Ireland and Africa, from the trenches of Flanders’ Fields to the trenches of Donbas and Odessa. What are the non-negotiables from any peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia (if such a thing is either desirable or possible): a Ukraine without Donbas? A Ukraine without Lukhansk? What about Crimea? (Crimea was gifted to Ukraine by Khruschev in 1954, before which it was an integral part of Russia in the Soviet Union.) And if, from a UK or Western perspective, all these territories are non-negotiable and are integral elements of Ukrainian territory for the future, why did we do nothing effective to deter Putin when he moved into these territories before and after 2014 and strategically mobilised ethnic Russians to gradually take control over a number of years before the military invasion in February 2022? We can’t say we didn’t know it was happening – even as we lauded oligarchs and sucked up their dirty money.

I want to open up a further relevant question at this point before concluding, and it derives from this notion of deterrence. We could say much more about the errors of the past and red lines that proved as definitive as the stripes on a covid test, but this might emerge during our discussion.

If you believe in the credibility and importance of nuclear deterrence, the Ukraine situation raises some uncomfortable questions. NATO made it clear – rightly – that nuclear weapons would not be used by their forces in this conflict. Russia kept the option open and continues to threaten their use – not only tactical battlefield engagement, but the obliteration of cities and countries (see his remarks about destroying the islands of the United Kingdom and London in particular – like swatting a fly). Now, regardless of the rhetoric and the possibly overblown and hubristic game-playing here, it might appear to some that the West has been deterred by Russia’s weapons and weaponisers, but Russia has not been at all deterred by the West’s. OK, we don’t know the end of the story and we don’t know what is going on behind the scenes; but, this at least raises interesting questions about the effectiveness of deterrence itself, if it doesn’t de facto deter. I throw that in as a discussion starter rather than as a conclusion.

I have said nothing so far about theology. There will be different theological insights into how we should see and conduct ourselves during conflicts such as this one. Any reading of the Scriptures would make it clear that an essential element of discussing any international dispute – however serious and complex or trivial and incidental – must be a commitment to both telling and hearing the truth. We need say nothing about Putin’s control of media and selective propaganda. But, it is vital that his opponents – especially in the ‘free press’ and media of the West – take care to report and comment carefully and truthfully. If Ukraine and Ukrainians matter, then we all have an obligation to the ninth Commandment: that we do not bear false witness against our neighbour, however passionate we feel about mustering our evidence and arguments for a particular end.

Secondly, peace making is harder than peace keeping. But, Christians cannot avoid the obligation to do the hard thinking and hard working of making peace amid the pragmatic complexities of unresolved conflict. Peace making is costly. It is not for Western Christians to decide what cost Ukrainian people should pay for this current war, but, like it or not, we are bound inextricably to Christians on other sides of the conflict and cannot avoid the strictures and demands imposed by this relationship. The challenge is not primarily about a peaceful conclusion to the war, but about how a peaceful post-conflict settlement, rooted in concepts of justice, accountability and sacrifice, can be achieved.

In his book on Dostoyevsky: Language, Faith and Fiction, Rowan Williams makes the point very clearly that the last word has never been spoken in this world. Once we say there is nothing further to say or hear, that conversation is now closed, that every argument has been either settled or concluded, then we have died and the world has ended. There is always more to be said and heard. This theme runs through Dostoyevsky’s fiction and we need to hold to it, too. Christian theology tells us clearly that death, violence and destruction do not have the last word: God does, and it is ‘resurrection’. However, the hard and costly task for Christians (and, I would suggest, for all people) is to work out what that might look like in terms of people and land and ‘stuff’.

At the outset of the conflict there was a quietly expressed fear that the limited conflict might spread, that there was a risk of strategic miscalculation inherent in its developing course of (Russian) action and (Western) reaction. Well, look at the energy crisis and the growing global food crisis that will add to the migration crisis that is rooted in the climate crisis. Any thinking about the future of Ukraine and Russia cannot avoid setting this in the context of global demands and relationships. Once again, as I argued earlier, it is not simply about kicking Russia out; whatever follows next will lead to a fresh set of questions, crises and conflicts.

I think we need to acknowledge that ultimately everyone will lose in this conflict, whoever eventually is deemed to have won. It seems that neither side is ready now for negotiations (although these will be going on through back-channels). But, the time will come, and all parties will need to be ready for the costs as well as the gains. We need to think about what a good peace will actually look like in reality.

I pray for the end of suffering and the establishment of a just peace. But, I have no illusions about what this might entail or what are the risks of getting it wrong. It will be evident from what I have said that the questions are easier to articulate than the answers. We might begin now, with humility and courage, to discuss this together.

Thank you for your attention.

 

Iconography

This is the script of this morning’s Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

They say that radio wins over television because the pictures are better. Indeed, words can open up the imagination in ways that a photo or video cannot. But, some images leave me speechless.

I remember going into the cathedral in Almaty, Kazakhstan, a few years after it had been restored for its original purpose after decades of Soviet iconoclasm. It was the icons that moved me. Icons are meant to be looked through and not looked at. A glimpse is not enough; you have to stay with it, look deeply and go beyond superficial significance.

So, it is appropriately shocking that one icon doing the rounds at the moment has Mary Magdalene holding a Javelin missile launcher – an image not of comfort or piety, but a juxtaposition of redemption and violence. Mary Magdalene is the friend of Jesus who – as legend has it, at least – lived a morally questionable life who found new life, new hope, new identity and a new belonging in the company of the wandering Galilaean. Having found peace, here she holds a weapon of war.

It is right that this should shock. Anodyne statements about peace evaporate when an image confronts me with the moral dilemma facing so many people today: what place violence finds in shaping peace – and how redemption can involve such terror.

Two things come to mind. One is a line by the novelist Francis Spufford who wrote: “Some people ask what kind of religion it is that chooses an instrument of torture for its symbol, as if the cross on churches must represent some kind of endorsement.The answer is: one that takes the existence of suffering seriously.” In other words, even if we have become inured by familiarity to the offence of the cross as an image, it stands amid the smoke of destroyed lives and landscapes as a recognition of violent reality; but, this cross holds a man whose arms are open to the world as it is, offering a redemption that sees beyond the violence to a future in which love wins through. No romance; just brutal reality.

The second thing it evokes for me are the words of President Zelensky when he said at his inauguration: “I don’t want my pictures in your offices, for the President is not an icon, an idol or a portrait.Hang your kids’ photos instead, and look at them each time you are making a decision.”

So, I am left haunted by two images, two icons: redemptive suffering … and the eyes of my children and grandchildren as I help shape the world they will inherit.

 

Invasion of Ukraine

This is the text of an article, commissioned and written early this morning, and published in the Yorkshire Post just now.

The Ukrainian national anthem begins: “Ukraine is not yet dead, nor its glory and freedom”.

This might sound a bit hollow as we digest the news that war has returned to Europe and Ukraine is being invaded by the Russian bear from next door. Ukrainians have vowed to defend their country, to shed their blood if they have to, and to defend their identity as well as their territory. Vladimir Putin will learn that simply declaring a state to be invalid or ‘fake’ does not render it so.

Ukrainians are no strangers to conflict or sacrifice. This is a land which saw millions killed under the jackboot of a dictator who, to echo Putin’s line, had no greater obligation than to “defend the security interests of our own people”. Of course, the false pretexts of Hitler were no more convincing then than are the pretexts of the Russian dictator today.

Yet, his false prospectus, built on lies, fabrication and propaganda/disinformation, has been trailed for more than two decades. In contrast with many leaders in the West, Putin took a long term view decades ago and has strategically worked up to today. Conceived in shame (at the meek collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991) and born in ruthlessness, his imperial drive has been observed by Russia-watchers with increasing concern, but little action. The West has watched, sometimes colluded, often ignored what was before our eyes.

A small cameo: I recently met the Russian ambassador in a couple of meetings in the House of Lords. It was obvious that he was subject to a different reality from the rest of us. Watching the humiliation of Putin’s security council as they had, one at a time, to stand and unequivocally agree with him, it became clear that the behaviours displayed in the film The Death of Stalin are not merely satirical. They certainly aren’t funny.

There are many tragedies at play here. One is that, contrary to the words used by our own Prime Minister just a few days ago, Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine was never to come as a “shock” to anyone. You don’t move half your military to the border of a neighbouring country without intent. Threats to apply sanctions against Putin’s people and his economy do not stand up as powerful when the memory of twenty million dead in the Second World War is kept alive every day. Sacrifice flows through Russian veins like an oligarch’s money through London. This invasion is not a shock and politicians should not pretend it is.

A second tragedy is that Ukraine stands alone. The country is not in NATO, so cannot invoke the obligation of NATO partners to defend each other militarily. So, as President Zelensky has made absolutely clear in his recent dignified and powerful speeches, defending his people and country with words and sanctions will not save the lives of the people who will soon be too dead to defend. We are watching with our own eyes what we thought had been consigned to bloody history in the 1930s when Hitler used similar language and pretexts to occupy other countries; think Poland and the Sudetenland for starters.

History never repeats itself, but echoes can be felt for generations. Think of the children of Ukraine and the conflicts of the future that are being born in them today.

So, what to do while western governments think about stopping individuals from shopping in London or New York or Paris – or banking processes are curtailed, causing an as yet unknown impact on the world and its markets (which ultimately means ‘ordinary people’s lives’)? What to do while Putin sheds blood in a country that is not his and knows that Ukraine will not be defended militarily by its wordy neighbours?

Two things come to mind. First, we must put pressure on our own government to defend Ukraine and shut off completely the wholly immoral flood of corrupt money that flows through London. And that includes money paid to political parties here “by people registered to vote”. It has been evident for more than two decades that economic sanctions alone will not move Vladimir Putin.

Secondly, we can join with those in Ukraine itself in praying with and for those standing alone in fear and suffering an indescribable fate. I am not stupid: some people will describe prayer as pointless wordiness that achieves nothing. Well, prayer is not just about bringing our fears and hopes and dreads and concerns to God, but it is also about learning to look through the eyes of God who loves justice, condemns lying and misrepresentation, and abhors the violence of the powerful. (If you don’t believe me, read the book.) Prayer changes us before it changes anything else. Common prayer shuts us up, opens us up, reframes our priorities and calls us to a practical solidarity with those who suffer.

Christians across Europe – including in the Anglican community in Kyiv itself – will be joining in prayer on Tuesday at 18.00 GMT and this will be streamed.

These are dangerous times. The invasion, though not remotely surprising, is evil. “Ukraine is not yet dead, nor its glory and freedom.” But, the suffering is real.

 

UK foreign policy

This is the text of a speech in the House of Lords today in the debate on the Queen’s Speech, focusing on foreign policy and defence.

My Lords, I am grateful to follow the Noble Lord Campbell and for the Noble Lady the Minister’s comprehensive and ambitious speech introducing this debate. I welcomed the Government’s Integrated Review as a necessary attempt to hold together the diverse interests, challenges and opportunities facing the UK in the future.

One of the things I learned in my early career as a linguist at GCHQ was that words and assumptions need to be interrogated as they can be used to obscure reality. For example, in our context, an increased “cap” on nuclear weapons tells us nothing about numbers that might actually be intended or the rationale for them.

So, I think it was remarkable that reference in the Review to the European Union was almost completely missing. Now, this had been widely predicted as it seems that, for the Government, any such reference might be heard as an ideological Remainer capitulation. Yet, the rationale for a tilt towards the Indo-Pacific only makes sense to a point: it is not just what we are “tilting towards” that matters, but also what we are “tilting away from” that has to be considered.

Put the fractious and loaded politics of Brexit to one side for a moment: we are still going to need a strong common alliance with our European neighbours if, for example, China and Russia are to be rightly understood and handled by the democratic West. Pretending we can simply ignore the EU like a bad smell is ridiculous, and this ideological tilting at windmills needs to be challenged. To argue that we will engage with the EU by way of its member states – the Review singles out three: Germany, France and Ireland – is to impose our own understanding of how we think our European allies should organise themselves politically rather than engaging with them on their own terms. In so doing, we overlook the point that the EU is more than the sum of its parts and has agency in and of itself. To ignore this agency is to shrink the diplomatic networks that the Government has access to in support of its stated diplomatic objectives.

However, my Lords, as cuts to the Overseas Aid budget – and Yemen in particular – demonstrate, there is a potentially serious discrepancy between our rhetoric and our observed behaviour. We assert that we want to be a world leader in upholding the rule of law … having a number of times threatened in the last couple of years to abrogate our responsibilities under international law – not least in the recent Internal Market Bill and the Overseas Operations Bill. We might think we can simply move on, but that doesn’t mean that our damaged reputation and the obvious (to everyone else, that is) gap between our rhetoric and behaviour go unnoticed both internally and externally. It also reduces our credibility when we seek to hold other countries to the rule of law – and that impacts inevitably on global security in the longer term.

Ethical assumptions lie at the heart of our political and economic choices. Ethics matter.

My Lords, I come back to Russia. Chatham House published an immensely helpful paper this month addressing a number of myths and misconceptions about Russia. I commend it to the House. Basically, it urges a deep questioning of the assumptions that lie behind how we see, understand and strategise in relation to Russia. As we noted to our cost during the last five years negotiating our exit from the EU, any party to a relationship – especially a changing one – needs to develop an expertise in looking through the eyes of the other party, listening through their ears, hearing their language, and interpreting it in order to know where to begin in offering a language of proposition or proposal. Failure to learn the language of the other is both stupid and costly.

The Church has to do this work every day, not least because we have partnerships in parts of the world where the world looks very different and our behaviour is read very differently from our intention or expectation.

My Lords, my work as a Soviet specialist developed during the Cold War – for my children and grandchildren as remote as the English Civil War. But, for most of us here it has shaped our world and the way we see it. I am not convinced that the Integrated Review will lead us to a deeper understanding of why Russians see the world the way they do. Building back better demands looking more seriously at the foundations of history.

My Lords, the UK needs to see how we are seen and why. Can the Noble Lady the Minister assure us that the work of translation, interpretation and realism will be at the heart of implementation?

 

Whose story?

Ths is the script of this morning’s Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme – delivered five minutes after the announcement that Tory MPs have triggered a vote of no confidence in Theresa May as leader of the Conservative Party.

Today Russians are celebrating the 25th anniversary of their post-Soviet constitution. Russians tell a powerful and emotional story of their past – of their identity, the “soul of Russia” – a story that gives meaning and direction to who they are in the world today. For them, the idea of the Motherland is everything.

But, Russians aren’t unique. Every country, every community lives within a narrative – a story that shapes their unconscious worldview and directs their affections … for good or ill.

Christians inhabit a narrative that emerges from particular stories in their scriptures. The liberation theologians who sided with the poor in South and Central America in the 1970s onwards were fired by the story of Israel – held captive in Egypt for four hundred years before being liberated to freedom in a new land.

As these people prepared to start a new life there, they developed narratives and rituals to remind them of their fundamental story and identity. For example, they would always bring the first 10% of their future crop harvests to the priests and recite a creed that began with a founding statement: “My ancestors were homeless nomads.” So, inhabiting this story today, backed by ritual, should suggest how poor homeless people should be seen in the society being shaped.

Later, in the New Testament account, when Jesus invited his friends to share bread and wine in memory of himself – what we call Communion or the Eucharist – he did so knowing that they would filter this through the story of the exodus.

So, Motherland, Exodus, Communion: our guiding narratives grow out of what’s gone before and now shape our behaviour and values. But, what happens when stories collide or pass each other by? For example, the current mismatch between understandings in the UK and Europe of their shared history of the last century – particularly over the purpose and value of shared EU institutions. In a UK that itself comprises a number of national identities, we must ask if it is possible now to create a shared story that can challenge the clashing assumptions feeding our current confusions.

The thing about the Christian narratives I mentioned earlier is that they are spacious. That is, they demand human agency and commitment, and they do not remove moral accountability from those who claim or inhabit their narrative.

So, can the British agree on a story that will guide us in the future, reminding us where we have come from, who we are and who we want to be? Faced with a crisis that demands an immediate fix, it is probably this deeper story that will fire our affections and drive our allegiances.

 

Skripal, Russia and poison

It is obvious why Russia is being blamed for arranging the apparent attack on former double agent (Russian military intelligence office and MI5 spy) – there is a phenomenological association with the case of Aleksandr Litvinenko in 2006. But, correlations do not make explanations, nor do they imply necessary cause.

As I and others observed in the House of Lords this afternoon, speculation prior to proof is a dangerous thing. Although we seem to be getting increasingly blasé about it, judgement by headline is not a wise way of ensuring that justice ultimately is done.

One or two Russia experts have been urging caution about rushing to judgement. My reason is simple, possibly naive: what does Russia have to gain from this?

• If revenge for Skripal’s treachery against Russia, why wait until now – he was released and deported to the UK in 2010?
• If deterrence, why not do it sooner – and why pardon him before his spy-swap?
• If to stop the “selling” of secrets, that boat sailed many years ago and there will be nothing useful left that hasn’t already been told.

I scanned Russian media and social media this afternoon (briefly) and they have reported the Foreign Secretary’s answers to the Urgent Question in the House of Commons earlier today. However, his typically careless remarks about England possibly withdrawing from the World Cup in Russia this coming summer (which – yet again – had to be clarified by officials later) provided just the distraction from the main matter: possible Russian complicity in the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury.

A couple of very eminent and experienced former diplomats said to me after the debate in the Lords that Putin can gain from this insofar as it boosts his strong-man image in Russia ahead of the elections. He is a shoe-in, but fears a low turnout and the questions of legitimacy that this would raise domestically.

The problem with this line is that it is not clear that Putin would actually gain anything from having a retired and harmless ex-spy bumped off in England. Crimea, Eastern Ukraine and Syria have established for his domestic audience that he is a strong leader willing and able to defy the aggressive and victimising West. His sanctions-weakened economy has not deterred him from increasing defence spending and strengthening the military with new-technology weapons and a motivated armed force.

Of course, I might be missing something here. It is entirely possible that the security services in the UK know stuff they can’t tell the rest of us. There might be a political rationale that currently eludes my limited mind. But, a simple identification of cause and effect is neither helpful nor wise.

At a meeting a couple of months ago with the Russian ambassador to the UK I was a little surprised by the smooth ease with which he alluded to what we would call “extra-judicial assassination” of Russians who had gone to fight with IS in Iraq and Syria. Killing is clearly not something the Russians are squeamish about … if it gets the job done quickly and effectively.

But, even that does not provide a causal link with the plight of Skripal and his daughter. I am not naive about Russian potential for politically sanctioned violence, but it cannot simply be assumed – even if, in the end, it is proven in this case.

 

What’s it all for?

This is the text of this morning’s Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, following yesterday’s debate in the House of the Lords on the EU (Withdrawal) Bill:

Current debates in Parliament and beyond about the nature of the UK’s relationship with Europe go beyond the technical detail of Bills and amendments. Clearly, many people are just fed up with what they see as the trading of insults and misrepresentations that have come to characterise this process, rendering it almost impossible to distinguish what is true and what is fact from what is mere assertion or wishful thinking.

But, underlying all this sound and fury is a much more important question – one that has always been around, but often gets forgotten in the storm of the moment: what is it all for? Or, to put it differently: what sort of a society do we wish to construct and what sort of character do we want our common life to exhibit?

These are not exactly new questions. Even the Ten Commandments form not a string of miserable demands to keep people in their place, but a contour for a mutually respectful, honourable and humble society – one in which people respect each other, care for the poor, honour integrity and work at building relationships of trust and accountability.

I wonder if these existential questions – about what and whom a society is for – too easily get lost when the headlines and the fog of social media just bang away at demonising anyone who dares to differ from one’s own position.

I have just read a paper by a Russian military and political analyst who dares to pose a different question. Aleksandr Khramchikhin, deputy director of the Institute for Political and Military Analysis in Moscow, suggests that whereas Russians will still fight and die for the Motherland, their western equivalents are too soft to die for anything. Harsh? Maybe.

But, I wonder if this is worth pursuing, if not as a model of idealism, then at least as a matter of practical reality. Russians are almost defined by suffering – think of 20 million dead in the Second World War … a million starved or killed in the siege of Stalingrad alone.

It was Martin Luther King who proposed that if we have nothing worth dying for, then we have nothing worth living for.

So, when we have done our trade deals and dealt with the technical and practical challenges of Brexit – however it might turn out in the end, what will we have gained or lost? What is the end to which we aspire? What is the vision of a society for which we will sacrifice anything or everything? What are the moral goods which shape our ambitions and discipline our passions?

These are not vapid questions. The Old Testament prophet was not joking when he wrote that “without a vision the people perish”. Nor was Jesus when he said there is a danger in gaining the world and losing our soul.

It is a challenge, but, somehow, I need to poke through the fog of debate and not lose sight of the ultimate questions: for what? And for whom?

 

Looking in

This is the text of this morning's Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4's Today programme:

In the middle of last week I got back from a ten-day visit to Tanzania. Not only are my feet still moving to the rhythms of the music and the energy of the dancing – in schools as well as churches – but I have come home looking differently at what had previously been familiar.

My experience reminded me of the late German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt who wrote a book several years ago in which he kindly offered his advice to anyone thinking of standing for election to the German Bundestag: don't even think about it unless you speak at least two foreign languages to a competent degree. Why? Well, because, he says, you can't understand your own culture unless you look through the lens of another culture – and to do that you have to know something of (or, better, 'inhabit') the language. After all, language goes deep and some things can't be translated; they have to be intuited.

Well, I don't speak Swahili, but this is partly what was going on for me in Tanzania: not everyone sees the world as I do. For example, how are we to understand the significance of the first meeting in a thousand years between the Pope and the Patriarch of Moscow last week? Seen through an English lens, it might look merely odd. Seen through the eyes of a people whose religious memory goes deeper into centuries of division, and it will resonate more profoundly.

Or, politically, where the resurgence of Putin's Russia appears threatening in the West, but has a different complexion when seen by Russians whose recent history of collapse has been crying out for re-empowerment. Tensions over Syria, for example, have to be seen through Russian eyes, not just our own, if we are to see more clearly what is going on there.

None of this is new. Listening to Tanzanians describing their experience of life and loss, I could not help but look through their eyes at my own. And this exposes the limitations of my own imagination and understanding of the world – even my world. My mind was being changed.

This is what is referred to in the Bible as 'repentance' – the freedom to change one's mind – or, to put it more visually, to re-grind the lens behind the eyes that shapes the way we see God, the world and us.

It is no surprise, then, that for Christians this period of Lent is intended partly to clear away the stuff that stops us repenting. It creates the space in which we can once again, in humility, submit our perceptions, our convictions and our prejudices to the searching eye of love and justice and mercy and generosity. Or, for Christians like me, to have the courage not just to give up chocolate for a few weeks, but to dare to look and see differently that with which we had become comfortable or familiar.

 

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