Do we need a Jack Reacher or Ethan Hunt to put a stop to Vladimir Putin?

Although there is some argument about the exact date on which the Second World War began, from September 1 1939 to July 20 1944 there were 1785 days of war from the invasion of Poland by Hitler’s forces. The estimate is that around 85 million people died during World War Two, and 83 years later the pain of this conflict is still painful to many. (Chamberlain declared war on September 3, but war had been going on between Japan and China for two years by then.)

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I think many would argue that without Adolf Hitler there would not have been World War Two. Of course there may have been another person who had a similar vision and charisma, but these things are rare in our world. Tom Cruise has a rare talent. You may well think you could do his job, but there is actually only one Tom Cruise. You can line up all the great actors of the age and each is different. It is the same with dictators. Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin are all very different people, but Putin is the first for 83 years to be reckless enough to engage in a conflict which, seriously, could begin a worldwide conflict which nobody but the arms dealers and manufacturers needs.

If the look on the face of Sergei Naryshkin, Putin’s Director of Foreign Intelligence is anything to go by – when Putin embarrassed him on live television on February 22 by telling him to “speak plainly” – Putin has surrounded himself with people who are afraid to do anything but his bidding. Putin is not the Greek, mythological Lernean Hydra, there are not another two Putins waiting in the wings to step up and fill his shoes. Putin would be too scared to allow such a situation. He has imprisoned Alexei Navalny, his political opposition. His “Brown Shirts”, in their grey uniforms, hustled the brave protesters against the invasion of Ukraine into vans and whisked them away to heaven knows where. Who knows if they will ever be seen again?

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Nicola Sturgeon got it absolutely right in her speech in our Holyrood parliament on February 24: “Putin is an autocrat. His control of the apparatus of state, of the economy, the military and the media can make his power seem impregnable, but as with most strong-men leaders, underneath the veneer of power lies insecurity and fear. Fear of democracy, freedom, the kind of popular uprising witnessed over recent years in Ukraine ever happening in Russia. Let us not assume he is acting in the name of the Russian people.”

Putin has not the charisma of Hitler, and his vision is smaller – he wants to go back to a time which has gone. Terrifyingly, however, both Hitler and Putin have a commonality in that their actions contain/ed the seeds which did/could bring war to the whole of Europe, once more, and worse still that could spread across the globe. In the light of the superior conventional forces of the Nato powers, that could lead an insecure Putin into a “Doctor Strangelove” and a pressing of the nuclear trigger.

We are in serious need of a Jack Reacher, or Ethan Hunt, a Mission Impossible, 1785 are too many days in which the lives of many young soldiers could be lost. Where are the Navy Seals and the SAS? “Your mission Jim, should you decide to accept it, will be to capture, alive, Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, and bring him to the court in Den Haag before he commits any more crimes against humanity.”

If Putin were removed there would be a place for cooler heads, and diplomacy, and a chance of democracy returning to Russia. Democracy is a fragile thing – it so easily and so often slips into dictatorship. Peace is a fragile thing and we take it for granted at our peril.

Cher Bonfis
via email