Poking the Bear

 In George Bernard Shaw’s play, ‘Major Barbara’, the Salvation Army’s daughter’s father, Undershaft, is an arms manufacturer.

Undershaft: Here I am, a manufacturer of mutilation and murder. I find myself in a specially amiable humour just now because, this morning, down at the foundry, we blew twenty-seven dummy soldiers into fragments with a gun which formerly destroyed only thirteen.

Lomax: Well, the more destructive war becomes, the sooner it will be abolished, eh?

Undershaft: Not at all. The more destructive war becomes the more fascinating we find it. I am obliged to you for making the usual excuse for my trade; but I am not ashamed of it.. All the spare money my trade rivals spend on hospitals, cathedrals and other receptacles for conscience money, I devote to experiments and researches in improved methods of destroying life and property. I have always done so; and I always shall. Your Christianity, which enjoins you to resist not evil, and to turn the other cheek, would make me a bankrupt. My morality—my religion—must have a place for cannons and torpedoes in it.

The question surely has to be asked, who is benefiting from the prolongation of this particular conflict? As in all armed conflicts between States, it’s the working class who bears the brunt of the suffering that war engenders.

“Paris will transfer its domestically-made AMX-10 ‘light tanks’ to Ukraine, becoming the first NATO member to send Kiev non-Soviet armour, a government spokesperson said on Wednesday.

News of the transfer was broken by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, who wrote on Twitter that he had “a long and detailed conversation” with French President Emmanuel Macron. Zelensky added that he had thanked Macron for “his decision to transfer light tanks” to Ukraine, and for lobbying France’s allies to do the same.

Zelensky’s announcement was confirmed by an aide to Macron. The official did not state how many of the vehicles would be sent or when but declared that it was “the first time that Western-designed tanks are supplied to the Ukrainian armed forces,” according to a report by AFP.

France will also donate an unspecified number of Bastion armoured personnel carriers, which have been in service with its military since 2012.

Ukraine has already received stockpiled Soviet-era tanks from Eastern European armouries, most notably hundreds of T-72 main battle tanks from Poland and the Czech Republic. While the US has pledged to replace these tanks with American models, neither the Pentagon nor any other NATO defence ministry has given Ukraine Western-made tanks.

Fielded by France since 1981, the AMX-10 is a lightweight, six-wheeled armoured fighting vehicle developed by the country’s government-owned GIAT Industries and its successor company, Nexter Systems.

With the French military currently switching EBRC Jaguar armoured vehicles, the official described the AMX-10s as “very mobile ...perhaps old but high-performance.”

A recent poll found that the French public overwhelmingly favours a negotiated settlement to the Ukrainian conflict. Macron has paid lip service to this sentiment on several occasions, publicly stating that the Western powers should not seek to “annihilate” Russia, and should provide Moscow with security guarantees once the conflict eventually ends.

Nevertheless, France has continued to send increasingly heavier arms shipments to Ukraine. Kiev’s forces received French-made Caesar self-propelled artillery guns earlier this summer, which were allegedly used in an attack in December on a Donetsk hotel that injured Dmitry Rogozin, the former head of Russian space agency Roscosmos.

Russia has repeatedly warned the West against arming Kiev, saying that doing so will prolong the conflict and risks making Western nations de-facto participants.”

Throwing more petrol onto the conflagration, Germany and America are sending more armaments.

“Germany will provide its Marder Infantry Fighting Vehicle, it said in a joint statement with the U.S., which will be sending Ukraine the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.” (Politico)

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Dave C.