Monthly Archives: May 2022

The war in Ukraine has caused an unholy convergence of the left and right in Italy. While there is nothing formal so far about this alliance of enemies, it nevertheless threatens to destroy the unity of Nato.

The most high-profile participant is -Matteo Salvini, leader of the Lega the party with the second-highest number of MPs in Italys parliament which is invariably defined as far right. Salvini, who has been one of Vladimir Putins strongest supporters outside Russia, condemned the invasion of Ukraine and has now come out as a pacifist. He opposes Finland and Sweden joining Nato, or sending more arms to Ukraine, on the grounds that both would make peace less likely. Giuseppe Conte, leader of the alt-left Five Star Movement, which has the most MPs, is also on board as is a chunk of the old left, especially if former communists.

This coalition is hugely popular, not just with Italian extremists, but with Italians in general. Its most ardent supporters, who include most Italian journalists it sometimes seems, demand above all that Joe Biden and Boris Johnson those warmongering Anglo--Saxons agree that Nato countries should stop sending arms to Ukraine. This would force Volodymyr Zelensky, they insist, to start peace talks with Russia even if it means he loses a large chunk of his country.

Indeed, this was precisely the message Italys unelected Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, sensing the power of the sentiment in his country, took to Washington when he met President Biden on 10 May. As a right-wing Italian daily headline put it: Draghi warns Biden: Europe wants peace.

The Russian media bombardment of Italy has been intense this past month but it would be wrong to blame this for Italys left-right anti-war alliance. The talk shows have been full of fanatical Russian journalists spewing out the standard script via Zoom about Nazi Ukraine and Nasty Nato while smirking and rolling their eyes at anyone in the studio who disagrees with them.

Putins foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, even appeared on an Italian TV talk show for his only interview outside Russia. He delivered a 45-minute monologue which came to life briefly when the journalist finally asked him a question: how come Zelensky is a Nazi if he is a Jew? Lavrov retorted that Hitler had Jewish roots and the Jews are the worst anti-Semites of the lot. This was a lie too far even for Putin, who then gave a rare apology to the Israeli government.

Italys parliament has unveiled an inquiry into the extent of Russian (and Chinese) disinformation in Italys mainstream and social media. This has caused a similar uproar to the one that greeted Bidens Disinformation Board. In both cases, the aim is to monitor disinformation it is claimed but the danger is this will turn into censorship as well.

Obviously the Russians are trying to influence public opinion in Europe and in particular in Italy. It was neutral to start with in both world wars and it was a key ideological battleground in the Cold War, as it had the largest Communist party outside the Soviet bloc, bankrolled by the KGB. Italy wobbled then. It is wobbling again.

But these Russian journalists on Italian TV are in many ways preaching to the converted. Much of what they say is a more extreme version of what many Italians already believe. That does not mean Italians generally refuse to accept the basic truths: that Russian troops have invaded a sovereign state, massacred its civilians and destroyed its cities. But Italians do believe Nato and thus America and its sidekick Britain is at least partly to blame for the war. In the weasel words of Pope Francis, the West provoked Russia by barking at its door. Never mind that Nato is a defensive, not an offensive, alliance, which former communist countries have been desperate to join because they are terrified of invasion by Russia.

Italian disdain for bully-boy Anglo-Saxon behaviour runs deep, even though it was the Anglo-Saxons who liberated them from fascism in 1945. Many Italians believe that America and Britain are hellbent not on defending Ukraine but on using it to defeat Russia and so cause a third world war. Proof of this according to the prevailing TV talk show view is the belief that America and Britain have shared intelligence which helped Ukraine kill Russian generals and sink the Moskva, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea fleet, and are thus already at war with Russia. America and Britain have, after all, confirmed that they are providing Ukraine with intelligence.

Italian opinion polls make grim reading for anyone who believes as do Biden, Johnson and perhaps Zelensky that the only way to get Putin to the peace table is by force i.e. more sanctions and more weapons. A majority of Italians (56 per cent) think Bidens America is taking too much of a bullish and blinkered approach on Ukraine, and that Italy and the EU should develop a separate policy. Only 26 per cent think America is defending democracy and Europe, and that arming Ukraine is the right way to confront Putin. Nearly two-thirds of Italians (62 per cent) think the West must at all costs find a way to open peace talks, while only a quarter (26 per cent) think we must first defeat Russia militarily.

Half think sending more arms to Ukraine is wrong and only a quarter (24 per cent) think it is right. Less than half (44 per cent) think Finland and Sweden should join Nato as soon as possible. While the majority are in favour of sanctions (though not on gas, nearly half of which comes from Russia) only 14 per cent think sanctions are useful.

But Russian journalists are not to blame. The reason why so many Italians think this way is their catastrophic experiment with fascism, which has made them paranoid about war. The Italian medias default position is instinctive anti-Americanism and hostility to Nato, which, despite Italy being a member, is understood to be run by trigger-happy America and Britain.

On 6 May, Zelensky gave a speech over Zoom to the foreign affairs thinktank Chatham House, in which he revealed his latest preconditions for peace talks. These included the restoration by Russia of Ukraines borders to how they were prior to the invasion on 24 February. He did not mention Crimea. The next day, Die Welt published an interview with Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg in which he said that Nato has not recognised and never will recognise Crimea as Russian. This was manna from heaven to the Italian media who translated recognise as accept. Italian journalists claimed that the Nato chief had deliberately slapped down Zelenskys tentative attempt to get peace talks started to prolong and escalate the war.

It was wall-to-wall headline news in Italy and nowhere else for days. How dare the Americans drag Italy and Europe to the edge of the abyss? Even when it was pointed out that Zelensky had simply not mentioned Crimea because he treats Crimea as an issue to be parked on one side for the moment it made no difference. Nor did the fact that not even China recognises Crimea as Russian, or that Stoltenberg had spelled out in his interview that it was up to Ukraine and no one else to decide what peace terms it was prepared to accept.

Nonetheless, many of Italys TV journalists and their guests are still talking about this fake news as proof of Natos desire for war with Russia at all costs. As one of the most ubiquitous left-wing anti-war pundits put it on a talk show hosted by the ex-communist daughter of Italys best known Cold War communist leader, Enrico Berlinguer, Nato is toying with the lives of hundreds of millions of Europeans. The question western politicians must consider is whether hundreds of millions of Europeans believe that to be true.

See original here:
Italy's hostility to Nato is building - The Spectator

A quarter of a year has now passed since Vladimir Putin sent his tanks into Ukraine. And the first drafts of history have already been written. Their rough conclusions seem to go along the following lines.

First, to add to Talleyrands famous phrase, Putin has committed both a crime and a blunder. The Russian military has shown itself to be corrupt and inefficient. The Ukrainians have shown themselves to be quite astonishingly stalwart defenders of their homeland. And the West has shown itself to be unpredictably united.

Of course, the problem with first drafts of history is that, while they may be finished with history, history is not finished with them. The conflict in Ukraine could still go in any number of directions. And while a Russian victory now looks unlikely, it is not obvious that Ukraine will emerge with its territory intact. Putin himself may yet act as dictators can when cornered. And while much of the world moves on, it is perfectly possible that the invasion of Ukraine becomes a conflict of attrition which goes on for a long time to come.

Yet it is on the question of the West that I am particularly uncertain about the first drafts currently circulating.

In some ways it is true that the Western alliances especially Nato have never looked stronger or more united. For 30 years, we had discussions of whither Nato. I took part in many of them myself. Well, the answer is the one that was staring us in the face all along. Any and all questions about the point of Nato fell apart the moment the Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine. The applications for membership from Sweden and other countries are a fine reminder of that fact. The swiftness with which the Western banking system and political sanction systems snapped into place was likewise a rather impressive moment of unity.

And yet, for all the talk of the West acting in concert, when it comes to responding to Putins aggression, the picture is far more fractious and becoming more so. As far as I can see, there are three or four factions within what we might still call the Western alliance, and their various positions appear to be diverging as the war drags on.

First are those countries, including the UK, which foresaw Russias aggression and acted swiftly to support and arm our Ukrainian allies. It is this part of the Western alliance which is presenting the world with a vision of a united front. It is also this part that is most clear in its view that Putin must be seen to fail because, as President Zelensky put it yesterday, brute force must not be allowed to rule the world.

But other camps remain. They have not fallen into line behind the likes of the UK, as some had expected. There are those who are indebted, not to say compromised, by their recent arrangements with Russia. Despite its promises of change, the most important country in Europe Germany is still severely compromised, from the top of its politics down, by decades-long cosying up to Putin. For energy reasons, and much more, there is still a strong strain of thought in Berlin which disdains what the British are doing in Ukraine.

They would like to go back to the status quo ante, to be able to import Russian energy cheaply and pass those gains on to German taxpayers, the better to grandstand about green energy and much more. Their promises of rearmament have so far come to little. The prolongation of the conflict has not encouraged them to shift faster away from their prior approach, but to drag their heels and hope that the old world can be restored. Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, has hesitated while others have acted.

Then there is the camp of the Elyse and the president there who believes that, if he keeps a line open with Putin, he might in some way solve the conflict. It is understandable that President Zelensky and others have lost patience with President Macron. For the French leader has done more than act as a middleman and he has done more than play both sides. He has dared to give advice to the Ukrainians such as (in a speech earlier this month) warning them not to give in to temptation of humiliation or of the spirit of revenge.

It is easy to sit in Paris and tell Ukrainians not to feel vengeful towards Russia. The Russians tanks did not roll into the French capital. Russian troops have not been committing war crimes in French towns and cities. Nevertheless, Macron seems to be limbering up to play the negotiating middleman the person willing to offer up a portion of another nations territory, in a deal which he would never accept were the territory his own.

What makes all this much more difficult now is that there is a definite sense most especially in Washington that an opportunity has arisen to tie down Russia. This is the final camp. These are people who seem to see Putins slip-up as the perfect moment to not just encourage a Russian defeat but to enable a Kremlin catastrophe, perhaps by miring its forces in a conflict that they can never win.

A weakened Putin would undeniably have certain advantages. It would be good if he is no threat for some decades to come. But this theory forgets. firstly. that a prolonged conflict is easy to wish on people from thousands of miles away, less agreeable for the citizens of the Donbas and other regions. It also ignores the other consequences of this war continuing, including the impact of Russias blockade of Ukrainian food exports.

And if the point of this strategy is to somehow push Putin from office, that is simply not in the Wests power, even if it was agreed to be a desirable objective. Russian history suggests that palace coups do not always end bloodlessly. The US has a plan for how to get the nukes out of Pakistan if the Islamists ever take over that country. Does anyone have a plan for how to secure Russias nuclear sites if there is a putsch and internecine war at the top of Russian politics? The people urging regime change in Moscow ought to hope there is such a plan.

So the Western alliance is not as cohesive as we might like to think. Yes, we have been shocked by Putin this year. Yes we have been appalled by his actions. But about the question of what to do? That remains deeply unclear. The West is united in horror. But we are divided over what to do in its face.

Douglas Murrays latest book is The War on the West: How to Prevail in the Age of Unreason

Original post:
Nato's united front is crumbling now that Putin has been humiliated in Ukraine - The Telegraph