The latest headlines trumpet a Ukrainian missile strike on a Russian plant, with British-supplied weapons hailed as the decisive factor. This is, of course, the sort of triumphalist nonsense that passes for analysis in an age that has forgotten the meaning of war. Do not misunderstand me: I do not deny the tactical significance of the strike. It is a clever move, a gambit that would impress any staff college. But to frame it as a turning point is to ignore the brutal arithmetic of conflict.
Consider the historical parallels. In the Victorian era, the British Empire fought a series of colonial skirmishes where technological superiority guaranteed victory. The Maxim gun, the breech-loading rifle, the ironclad warship: these were force multipliers that allowed a handful of redcoats to subdue entire continents. Today, we see the same mentality in the enthusiasm for Western weaponry. But the Fall of Rome should give us pause. The Empire did not collapse because it lacked advanced weapons. It collapsed because it overextended, because its economy buckled under the weight of endless war, because its identity eroded.
Ukraine is not a Restoration-era comedy where the clever hero triumphs in the final act. It is a tragedy in the making, with all the grim inevitability of a Norse saga. The Russian plant that was hit will be rebuilt, or its function dispersed. The missiles will run out. The West's attention will wander. And then what? The 'decisive' weapons of today become the obsolete relics of tomorrow.
The real lesson of history is that war is not a game. It is a descent into a darkness that consumes both victor and vanquished. The Roman poet Horace wrote, 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' – it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country. He was a propagandist for the Augustan regime. The reality, as Wilfred Owen later noted, is that the old Lie is not sweet at all. It is a bitter cup from which generations have drunk.
So yes, celebrate the missile strike if you must. But understand that you are cheering a funeral pyre. The intellectual decadence of our age lies in this inability to see the whole picture. We focus on the pawn being taken while the board burns.
The British-supplied weapons may be decisive today. Tomorrow, they will be part of the rubble. And the question that no one wants to ask is this: what happens when the chessboard itself is swept away?
