The Charge of the Blond Brigade
“Carrie my love", said Boris, "Now that the COVID scare is starting to fade, how are we going to divert the electorate’s attention away from this scandal-ridden Government of ours? It is a bit too early to play the UFO card and climate change will have to wait until COP26, so howabout a foreign war? Plucky Britain faces the might of - oh, who shall it be? - I know: Russia!"
“Go ahead, mighty Caesar” cried Carrie “just as long as one of my close friends is given a contract for any ammunition you might need.”
And so it came to pass that HMS Defender, en route to Georgia, came, in the eyes of the Russians, a tad too close to the Crimea. How fortunate it was that the BBC just happened to have a correspondent on board to report on the incident. It brought back memories of another Johnson who, in August 1964 was the beneficiary of an alleged incident in the Gulf of Tonkin. It occurred just after the Republicans had nominated a Super Hawk candidate (Barry Goldwater) for the forthcoming Presidential elections and just before the Democratic Convention when LBJ sought to legitimise his Presidency. How kind of the North Vietnamese to help in that regard.
Back to the Levant. Although much has been made of HMS Defender, little has been made of the Aircraft Carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth in the eastern Mediterranean launching its F 35-Bs in support of US actions against “Islamic State”. That carrier group is remarkably close to the Russian base at Tartus on the Syrian coast. Boris peered at an old Atlas. He remembered a cynical Eton Beak telling him that Britain had not had a good track record in the Crimea and that Arabia had always been a source of conflict, even though Foreign Office panjandrums had always dreamt of desert postings. Also, those Naval Johnnies had pointed out that to sail from one Sea to the other meant transiting the Dardanelles.
“Good Grief” cried Boris, “my hero, Winston, had a tough call at Gallipoli; I had better not make the same mistake!”
Carrie was aghast at her husband’s reticence. “Remember that Russia was our ally in 1915 and you are part Russian yourself.”
“Yes, yes”, sputtered Boris, “but you forget that I am part Turkish as well”. He decided to break the habit of a lifetime and embark on some detailed research before he made a decision. He found out that The Ukraine, so long regarded as the heart of Russia had, very briefly, been an independent State after the Russian Revolution. Also, that Stalin had nearly destroyed The Ukraine in the Holodomor famine of the early 1930’s; no wonder the German army were greeted as liberating heroes when they invaded in June 1941.Thus there was no love lost between the two conflicting nationalities. Furthermore, the lack of natural borders made the whole area an irridentist’s dream.
In a rare moment of self-reflection, Boris mused that if he were to make History then knowledge of the great leaders of the past would be a handy aide memoir. Peter the Great saw the importance of the Sea of Azov and the Straights of Kerch, but failed to hang onto them, whilst Catherine the Great did. Thus Putin, in asserting his authority over The Crimea, and the aforementioned Straits, is emulating his forbears.
“Don’t forget Victoria Nuland” whispered Carrie. “She allegedly organised the 2014 coup in Kiev which put a pro-western Government in power; well, she is back in the State Department”.
“I remember her” cried Boris, “didn’t she teach me IT?”
“No, that was Jennifer Arcuri” an angry Carrie replied. “Victoria Nuland is a career diplomat, who also just happens to be Ukrainian: (paternal grandfather)”.
“Well, whether it is Victoria or Jennifer I should get on with them as, after all, I am American myself. “Now if there is to be a conflict, I had better read War with Russia by Richard Shirreff. I know the General’s book is meant to be fiction, but whenever has fiction stopped me from making a decision”?
“Come off it, you are a Classicist - Thucydides on the Peloponnesian War would be far more apt” cried Carrie, projecting her inner Amazon.
“True,” replied Boris, “Something about a trap?”
