Colin Vaudin: ‘All wars must end’

This weekend will mark the 106th anniversary of the stand of the Royal Guernsey Light Infantry at Cambrai in the First World War.

The bravery and sacrifice of the RGLI has been termed, by this paper, as Guernsey’s Finest Hour and we owe it to those men to remember them this weekend. Millions of men, women and children died in the first global conflict and this was felt in every town, village and island across the empire. A generation died in the mud of Flanders, the sand of Gallipoli, and in many other battles too numerous to name.

The war went on for more than four years and many people must have thought that the war to end all wars would never end. But no matter how bitter the hatred and no matter how great the sacrifice, all wars must end. So despite the current difficulties, hatred and animosity, how will these latest conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza end?

The war in Ukraine has been ongoing for more than 20 months. I do not intend to reprise the conflict to date – my other articles cover that. But I will reflect a previous comment that while Putin hasn’t won, he hasn’t lost, and while President Zelensky hasn’t lost, he hasn’t won either. I have used this term on many occasions over the last two years but the current stalemate of trench warfare in the snow and ice of southern Ukraine leads me to make an important reassessment.

The military reality is that while neither side has lost, neither side can win. Both sides are reinforcing their lines, developing reserves and armoured operational manoeuvre groups to either exploit a breakthrough or more realistically plug any breach in their own lines. Both sides are resorting to deep strikes that kill each other’s soldiers but have limited military benefit beyond making life even more intolerable for the young men and women sent to do the actual fighting.

While Putin and Zelensky both remain committed to the fight, we must turn to their allies to seek a way of resolution. Putin as a despot with complete control over the media and his people is relatively secure unless his inner circle turns against him. His allies of Iran and North Korea are perhaps even less inclined to push for peace given their own dystopian view and therefore the role, and economic needs, of China is key.

For Zelensky, his allies are growing tired of the war and the domestic immigration and cost of living impacts. From Poland to Germany, the UK and, critically, the US, domestic politics are becoming more important than defeating Russia. Russia has been cowed, its military might has been degraded probably for a generation and its economy is in all likelihood in tatters. What benefit is there in destroying Russia and Putin with the risks that that would involve?

US political minds are also focused on the 2024 presidential election and the likely run off between President Biden and Trump. Trump has made ending the war both a campaign objective, by saying he can end it in a single call to Putin, and to attack his opponent by suggesting the inability to end the war demonstrates the ineffectiveness of the Biden administration. So, for Biden and Xi, ending the war is politically beneficial, and I suspect this was a subject of their meeting in California on 13 November. For this unwinnable war, the only way for it to end is for the US and China to agree to develop a plan that is acceptable to both sides and then to impose that plan on Zelensky and Putin. Crucially, it will need to reflect both the reality of where forces are, to allow both sides to save face and to reflect at least in part that aggression has a cost.

I judge that this will be a return to most of the pre-2022 borders, albeit with large parts of the ethnic Russian Donbass region seeded to Russia. Crimea taken in 2014 would also remain in Russian hands. Russia would pay retributions to Ukraine for the cost of rebuilding but in reality the money would come from the World Bank or the UN. Such a plan would please neither side, it perhaps is more balanced towards Russia but the reality of geo-politics is seldom fair.

If this assessment is correct, it will take place before the US election in the autumn of 2024, although it is debatable whether both sides will try one last military offensive in spring next year before peace is imposed on them.

Turning to the more recent conflict between Israel and Hamas that has dominated headlines at the expense of Ukraine, the Israeli retaliation has been along the lines I predicted in my last two articles. Israel has isolated the northern half of Gaza, forced a large part of the civilian population south and has moved in to try and destroy Hamas in Gaza City.

From a military perspective, the Israel Defence Force (the IDF) has been incredibly successful and taken far fewer casualties than perhaps I expected. This is principally because Hamas hasn’t put up a meaningful fight for the city and, like many terrorist or guerilla groups, they will slip away and hide behind the wider civilian population. The risk of a wider conflict has also been largely mitigated, as I assessed it would be, as most regional players hate the extremist Hamas more than Israel.

This war will not end due to pressure from allies as Israel’s are still aligned with them and the horrors of the initial attack on 7 October are still too fresh in the Israeli people’s mind. Hamas has few allies and none that can effectively apply pressure to their leadership, given that many of the key decision makers are sheltered in Qatar living off millions of pounds they have diverted from international aid to Gaza over the last decade.

I am sure everyone is supportive of the recent pause in fighting and exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners but I assess this is a tactical mistake by Hamas. The only lever they had was the hostages and while this pause will allow them a respite, it doesn’t change the dynamics of the conflict. Handing over the hostages will not appease Israel to end the conflict – it will, in reality, free Israel to be more aggressive in Gaza. As I have suggested, Israel believes it is in a war for national safety and will not stop until Hamas has been largely destroyed. After the pause, Israel will further unleash its military to degrade Hamas and destroy a large proportion of Gaza City.

The more likely scenario for ending this war isn’t for an imposed peace – rather it will be a unilateral withdrawal of Israeli forces once there is nothing left in the north of the Gaza Strip to fight or to destroy. Israel would look to withdraw and leave a vacuum that the more moderate Palestinian Authority would then fill, uniting the Palestinian peoples in both Gaza and the West Bank.

I fully expect that the Israeli security and intelligence service, the Mossad, is already in discussion with the Palestinian Authority and its supporters, especially Egypt, to make this happen. The timeline to achieve these military objectives is measured in a few months, not years, and so, as in Ukraine, I expect a resolution in 2024.

The folly of mankind is our willingness to resolve conflict through force. As regrettable as that is, the reality is that all wars, no matter how bitterly fought or unfair, must also end.

When the war ends, all that remains is to rebuild and to mourn those lost. So, this Sunday there will be a short service at 11am at the RGLI Memorial in the Sunken Garden to commemorate the sons of Guernsey who made the ultimate sacrifice 106 years ago.

I would extend an invitation to everyone to attend so that we can remember together while also praying for peace today.