Arm ourselves with patience. A year after the invasion of Russia, a war of attrition is taking hold in Ukraine. To win, we must redouble our perseverance and efforts.
Canada is no longer at the time of distributing bulletproof vests. Nor when he hesitated to provide offensive equipment to the Ukrainians, for fear of an escalation that would lead straight to a nuclear conflict. Vladimir Putin’s threats, which fortunately were never carried out, have lost their resonance. Especially with the call to order from China.
Now is the time for Canada and its allies to do more. Much more.
What exactly?
Let’s start by ruling out what it would be risky to do: negotiate. Or more precisely, to negotiate in place of Ukraine, as if the country were only an ordinary pawn on the world chessboard controlled by the great powers.
Of course, we would like the conflict to end as soon as possible to stop the desolation and the deaths which already number in the hundreds of thousands. Last March, there were indeed attempts to negotiate peace under the aegis of Turkey and Israel which notably provided for the withdrawal of arms and the neutrality of Ukraine. But everything went off the rails.
Today, Ukrainian families have suffered too much to compromise. They want to fight until the end. And Vladimir Putin feels he has more to gain on the battlefield than at the negotiating table.
If no one wants to give in, further talks would be pointless for the time being.
Alas, the war continues and the incessant bombardments of Russia bear witness to this.
With nothing to lose on its territory, Russia has time on its side. She hopes that weariness will set in on the side of the NATO countries and that the costs of the war will antagonize Western public opinion.
But let’s never forget the importance of supporting Ukraine.
We cannot allow a sovereign country, in the very heart of Europe, to be invaded by its neighbour.
In defiance of the people who pay with their blood.
In total disregard of international rules.
In defiance of liberal democracies.
It is only the world order, built on the ruins of the Second World War, which is called into question by this war, neither more nor less.
It is therefore in our interest to oppose this invasion. Giving up would be tantamount to telling the dictators of the planet that they can redraw the map of the world as they wish, without suffering any consequences.
This is how the relative Western indifference that allowed Russia to take control of Crimea in 2014 paved the way for the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
So far, Canada has spoken loud and clear in defense of Ukraine. So much the better. It has provided $5 billion in aid to Ukraine, making it one of the largest donors…in absolute dollars.
But relative to the size of our economy, Canada’s effort (0.23% of GDP) ranks only 26e rank out of some forty countries listed by the Kiel Institute.
It is surpassed by many other states such as Estonia (1.3%) and Poland (0.75%), but also the Netherlands (0.38%), Spain (0.35% ), Germany (0.33%), France (0.28%) and Italy (0.27%).
Canada must do more.
So far, we have sent equipment that remained in our hangars depleted by decades of underinvestment in the military field.
But as the war promises to be long, you have to think long term, if you don’t want to be continually taken aback. Take a cue from Norway, which announced a five-year support plan in early February that gives Ukraine better predictability.
We also know that the war will be costly in ammunition, the reserves of which are beginning to melt on the front.
However, Canada has not yet opened the valves to ask its arms industry to increase its production to deliver, for example, 155 mm artillery shells.
We must start the machine as soon as possible, because reviving our military industrial complex is not done by snapping our fingers. As proof, our soldiers have been waiting for more than 10 years to replace their pistols, which date from the Second World War and which we would like to produce in the country.
Since the start of the invasion in Ukraine, the West has sat on the fence, always acting a little too late and never quite strong enough. It is the Achilles heel of our democracies, where we think in the short term and we give birth to compromise solutions.
But this ambiguity makes the war drag on.
The sad reality is that wars end, not because we wish it in good faith, but because the aggressor incurs too great a cost to continue.
This is how the United States left Vietnam in 1973 and the USSR left Afghanistan in 1989, leaving in its wake a rebellion that it had never managed to put down in ten years. of occupancy.
More needs to be done for Russia to ever retreat into Ukraine. The earliest would be best.