![]() “In discussions with allies, senior Biden officials have made clear that the CIA (covertly) and the Pentagon (overtly) would both seek to help any Ukrainian insurgency,” the New York Times reported last month. Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, reportedly briefed Congress last week on plans to deliver additional lethal aid to Ukrainians. ![]() Yet since Joe Biden, the US president, and Boris Johnson, his little trumpet boy, seem convinced the worst will happen – the “biggest war in Europe since 1945”, in the British prime minister’s melodramatic words – it’s only logical to assume the secret talks about post-invasion strategies acquired a new urgency. Putin may continue indefinitely to mess with western heads. Tentative plans under discussion in Washington and London to supply weapons and other military equipment to Ukrainians who object to Kremlin-enforced regime change presuppose that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, will launch the long-anticipated invasion and succeed in overthrowing Kyiv’s elected government. The recent film Munich: the Edge of War, in which “good” Germans conspire against “bad” ones, is a reminder that things are usually more complicated. Mere mention of the word “resistance” conjures up, in some British minds at least, images of gallant bicyclists in berets, night-time airstrips lit by torches, and furtive wireless operators valiantly plotting to thwart the “Boche”. The effectiveness and wisdom of intervening in other people’s conflicts by proxy, however vital the principle and however seemingly justified the cause, are open to serious question, as much of cold war-era history suggests. Indications that Britain and the US are secretly preparing to arm resistance fighters in Ukraine in the event of an invasion should raise red flags, and not just of the Russian variety.
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