Every generation, or thereabouts, has its moment of unlearning or forgetting two salutary lessons that should be indelibly imprinted on the memory and the consciousness with the advent of war: first, idiosyncrasies or hubris, or both, can overpower political leaders; second allies are not necessarily friends no matter how much they may seem like us, nor are we like them. The appearances are an illusion. Worse, assuming the identity of the ally is an appropriation unworthy of a sovereign, ethical people; indeed, it is an indictment.

Currently, people of an informed and critical disposition are provoked to find meaning in the extension of the Russia-Ukraine War into the indefinite future as it takes on a form whereby the relevant political leaders supporting Ukraine are acting as its executioners, not as its champions.

Surely, the statistics (cited here from an article by the eminent American commentator and former diplomat, Chas Freeman) from 2014 to the end of 2023, in terms of the dead, the maimed, and the destruction, were proof that it was all too much even then:

Specifically, then, the need is to understand the futility of what the leadership ordains as their behaviours exceed the bounds of legal and discretionary strategies and descend into the realm where arrogance and excessive pride reign. There, by talking “heroic war,” they disown those they claim to hold most dear – their kin, fellow citizens, and allies.

Of extraordinary importance in all of this is the imperative for Australia to refresh its strategic memory. At the heart of this is the disinterring of an odious habit of those that Menzies chose to call “our great and powerful friends:” history records them being, when it suits, remarkably generous with the blood of others.

Their collective decision to support Ukraine beyond any hope of success is but the most recent chapter.

Think Churchill, who, more than anything else, was judged by his wartime reputation as a leader, rather than the other way around a fact that almost disappears the blood sacrifice to be found in his defeats. Yet they are tawdry – as witness his hysterical February 1942 cable to General Wavell “about the unthinkable prospect of the loss of Singapore:”

There must at this stage be no thought of saving the troops or sparing the population. The battle must be fought to the bitter end at all costs . . . . Commanders and senior officers should die with their troops. The honour of the British Empire and of the British Army is at........

© Pearls and Irritations