Keir Starmer’s decision to assist Ukraine in shooting UK supplied weapons into Russia is puzzling for many reasons. 

Firstly, it is not going to affect the outcome of the war in Ukraine. 

Secondly, it is not going to change the conditions which Russia would require in any peace deal.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, it is a decision that clearly goes against the declared intent of the man who will become the next president of the US on January 20^th, Donald Trump, who has stated that he will end the war in Ukraine. 

It is clear that the vast majority of NATO countries did not want Trump to win the US presidential election.   The British Labour Party, which Starmer leads, was actively advising Trump’s opponent, Kamala Harris.  But Trump won.  Britain needed to build bridges with Trump.  Instead it chose to insult him by escalating the war in Ukraine.  One suspects Trump will take this as a personal affront.

Trump and his vice-president, J. D. Vance, seem to have largely accepted that Russia had a right to feel that its national security was threatened by the eastward expansion of NATO.  The British establishment refuse to acknowledge that Russia had any genuine reason to fear this event while knowing full well that Russian concerns had a very real basis.  Ukraine in NATO would give a first strike by NATO against Russia a much greater chance of success.

For centuries, Britain refused to grant independence to Ireland because it feared that Ireland could form an alliance with enemies of Britain like Spain, France and Germany.  Only in 1922, when it had defeated Germany, the country it feared most, did Britain grant a limited form of independence.  The Irish understood well that their independence depended on never entering into an alliance with an enemy of the great power on their eastern border.

Unlike Ireland, Ukraine thought that it could safely join an organisation, NATO, whose main purpose was to maintain the power of the West against China and a renascent Russia.  Ukraine had good reason for believing they could do this.  NATO was, after all, just a front organization for the most powerful nation on earth, the US.  Who could therefore dare to challenge their right to join NATO?

There was, however, an error in Ukraine and NATO’s calculation.  Although Russia was a lesser power than the US, it still had sufficient power to destroy western civilization.  Russia made it clear that it was prepared to destroy western civilization rather than allow Ukraine to become a member of NATO and so give NATO a winning hand in any possible nuclear confrontation.

Ukraine joining NATO was perceived as an existential threat by Russia.  Ukraine not joining NATO is not in any way an existential threat for the West.  Starmer, in launching his pointless missiles at Russia, gives very clear evidence that he has not grasped this fact. 

Starmer and most of the western leaders consider themselves vastly superior to Trump.  But, unlike them, Trump understands that Russia sees the eastward expansion of NATO as an existential threat and will therefore stop at nothing to prevent it. 

Putin, in perhaps his clearest warning to date, has left no doubt than any future British missiles fired into Russia could lead to an attack on a British military site.  He has grasped that the only thing the British establishment understand is actual power.  He is prepared to escalate the war all the way up to a nuclear confrontation.  The sooner Starmer realises that, the better.  In any nuclear confrontation with Russia, Britain would cease to exist, and much of the western world with it.