Array ( [0] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8461 [post_author] => 106 [post_date] => 2025-10-24 04:00:03 [post_date_gmt] => 2025-10-24 03:00:03 [post_content] => How should the UK respond to the ongoing war in Ukraine, more than three years into Russia’s full-scale invasion? Dan Sperrin explores what lessons can be learnt from Britain’s historical involvement in the region.   Since February 2022, it has been unclear as to whether there will be a continental or global war if parts of Ukraine are ceded to Russia or if Russia expands its war into NATO territory. The risks have increased with the emergence of war in the Middle East and elsewhere around the globe.   In order to bring a degree of broader understanding to such a complex and dangerous geopolitical scenario, some analysts have turned to the past. In particular, the appeasement period of 1935-1939, when Western European powers allowed Nazi Germany to annex Austria and the Sudetenland without serious consequence, paving the way to world war. In a similar vein, some believe that the second US Trump administration and Russian-sympathising members of the European Union (EU) might force a shift in the strategic direction of NATO by allowing Putin to slice up Ukraine in a series of agreed partitions, leading eventually to the outbreak of a much more comprehensive NATO-Russia war.   A new appeasement phase? There is a very strong possibility that we are in an appeasement phase of some kind. Russia’s recent testing of NATO airspace in Poland and Estonia suggests that the costs of any inactivity, disorganisation, or concession on the part of the alliance will be high. The Trump administration has just hit Moscow with major sanctions of a kind that Zelensky and the EU have long been hoping for, but the fundamental issues of sovereignty and security in Ukraine are not addressed by these actions, which means that the underlying current of appeasement remains.^[1]   The most obvious risk of a new appeasement phase largely driven by Washington is that Ukraine will look like Poland in the 18th century, which was partitioned three times and then signed out of existence altogether in 1795. There is a real danger that Ukraine is consumed gradually over an extended period of time, even if there is some kind of peace agreement with Putin in the near future, meaning that it is eventually reduced to a rump state of Odessa or fully incorporated into the Russian Federation. The fact that this would encourage Putin to go further in Europe has been discussed at length.   Would postwar Ukraine be able to reconstitute itself and claim back a post-federal future? The reconstitution of a whole country requires, at a minimum, major changes in the political complexion of the wider region, but it is possible in some cases. The old Kingdom of Prussia, which was incorporated into Bismarckian Germany in 1871, was signed out of its existence in perpetuity by Allied decree in 1947. The once-partitioned Poland, by contrast, was reconstituted as a viable state in 1918, and has since emerged as one of the central players in European defence and security after the fall of the Berlin Wall. There is no way of predicting which path a fully absorbed Ukraine would be able to follow in the future.   Secondary risks of a 1930s appeasement period might include a permanent splitting of the oil and gas markets into Western and anti-Western blocs, or the entrenchment of competitive geostrategic currency spheres. Both are likely to lead to further conflict, whether that be a kinetic military conflict, conflict in the cyber sphere, or more of what we have seen in terms of a geostrategic trade war.   While comparisons between the period of the Ukraine war and the 1930s are undoubtedly justified in certain respects, they have not yet allowed us to clarify how the UK should respond to the ongoing war in Ukraine more than three years into Russia’s full-scale invasion. Perhaps the more instructive precedent lies not in the 1930s but in the 1730s. The UK’s real formative experience of war in Eastern Europe came two centuries earlier. Understanding what happened then may help the UK shape a clearer NATO role in the region today.   Revisiting Britain's historical precedent Modern Britain’s engagement with Eastern Europe as a hinge-point of European security can be dated back to the Peace of Utrecht (1713-1715), a very complicated series of treaties which ended the War of the Spanish Succession. Britain was a controversial player in the peace negotiations, because the then Tory government broke from the Grand Alliance and negotiated directly with Louis XIV. This accelerated peace but also allowed Britain to shape its imperial gains independently and secure its future prosperity. After 1715, the primary European defence pact was that between Britain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire. This was always an uneasy pact, given that Britain had been fighting Louis XIV’s France for most of its recent history.   Meanwhile, the Northern European states were still preoccupied with the Great Northern War, which was primarily being fought between the Swedish Empire of Charles XII and a Russian alliance led by Peter the Great. Partly because of its gains at Utrecht and its enlarged sense of imperial prosperity, Britain lost touch with the security dimension of Eastern Europe, though it opposed Sweden on behalf of Hanover and Britain respectively in 1714 and 1717. It made pacts with Denmark, Norway, Prussia, and Russia, but showed no interest in eastern Europe. The Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth and its neighbouring territories on the borders of Russia were left out while the British government went back to establishing good relations with Peter the Great. The main focus was to protect imperial trade routes in the Baltic, which involved keeping Russia on side.   Throughout the 1720s, Eastern Europe was deprioritised in British foreign policy. At the same time, France re-emerged as a primary hostile power, so British attention inevitably turned back to France, Iberia, and the Mediterranean. There was no single Foreign Office in Whitehall at that time. Foreign affairs were managed by Northern and Southern departments, and the Southern Department often took precedence under geopolitical pressure. In 1731, Britain joined a new pact with the Habsburg Empire and the Dutch Republic, with Spain later joining. The goal was to contain France. Gallic tyranny would not be allowed to re-emerge as it had done under Louis XIV. Alliance powers would join together once again and there would be a collective commitment to European security, but only as it was understood at the Southern Department. Borders would be held and sovereignty protected. Not much was said about Eastern Europe.   What happened in the 1730s? In the 1730s, Eastern Europe became the great test of British defence commitments: a test Britain failed, which led to chronic problems down the line.   When the War of the Polish Succession broke out in 1733, Britain, Austria, and Russia supported Augustus III as the legitimate heir to the Polish throne, while France supported Stanisław Leszczynski (Louis XV’s father-in-law), who had briefly held the throne when Augustus II was removed under Swedish pressure. Stanislaw was elected, so Russia invaded Poland. A wider continental war broke out. What emerged in Poland was a traditional succession war which also functioned as a proxy war for the dominant powers of the post-Utrecht world.   Britain was committed to the Austrian alliance, partly because it had a German king who was ultimately beholden to the Holy Roman Emperor, so in theory it was enjoined to defend Eastern Europe. Instead, Prime Minister Robert Walpole, wary of the cost, abandoned earlier defence pledges and prioritised his domestic and imperial trade interests. This withdrawal angered allies, weakened regional stability, and signalled Britain’s retreat from continental security. The Austrians, remembering the promises of 1731, were furious, and began negotiating directly with the French diplomats under Cardinal Fleury. Britain had allowed domestic concerns to eclipse vital questions of collective security in a region it had long been formally committed to. It behaved as if Poland and Eastern Europe were not of immediate relevance to the broader European security architecture, and it paid a serious price.   Ukraine’s fate in this period was similarly shaped by external power struggles. The outbreak of war in Poland in 1733 allowed Russia to pursue its ambitions to absorb the Hetmanate. The Hetmanate was variously collapsed and reconstituted as a semi-independent state throughout the eighteenth century, but it was finally abolished in 1760 under Catherine the Great. By 1775, remaining independent peoples within greater Ukraine were ultimately absorbed into the Russian Empire.   Abandonment of the defence pact of 1731 meant that trust in the British war state was undermined across eastern Europe for at least a decade. Its withdrawal of maritime support during the Polish succession war meant that it was also behind the curve in the wars that followed. The succession war in Poland led to another in Austria between 1740-1748. This set the conditions for a much larger imperial war in the Americas between 1756 and 1763.   By the end of the Austrian conflict, diplomatic relations between Britain and Eastern Europe were a mess. It has been noted that Britain’s ambassador to Poland in the 1740s was ‘doing his very best now and afterwards’ but had absolutely ‘no success at all.’^[2] The British ambassador to the Holy Roman Empire was similarly unsuccessful. The ambassador to Russia who wanted to push for success at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 claimed victory afterwards but in reality found little traction with the Kremlin. There was a lot of formality and not a lot of action.   Lessons to be Learnt One thing we learn from the behaviour of the Walpole government in the 1730s is that missed opportunities, abandoned pacts, and a general weakening of British support in Eastern Europe can cast very long shadows — shadows so long that future conflicts are almost a predictable outcome, because the military and geostrategic ties tend to be determinative for the broader map of Europe. In general terms, Eastern Europe has always been a complicated network of states with extremely deep histories of contested sovereignty, which is why it has to be handled with such geostrategic care. One problem for the Western alliance and NATO at the moment is that Russia has a kind of muscle memory when it comes to absorbing states in that region and redefining their various power structures under Russian influence, but the West does not have the same muscle memory when it comes to alliance formation and war financing there.   Britain’s eighteenth century experience tells us that decisive action in Eastern Europe can help maintain broader continental security because these two are much more deeply related than many imagine. It also tells us, however, that indecision or disengagement in the region almost always leads to a domino effect in terms of future war. The Baltics, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine, both in the eighteenth-century and modern forms, are a hinge of Eurasian great power conflict.   The UK does not quite know itself anymore when it comes to war in Eastern Europe. It was involved in Serbia and Kosovo with NATO, but it had no major experience in the region during the First or the Second world wars. The last time Britain was heavily engaged in a kinetic war in Eastern Europe was during the Crimean War of 1853-1856. Such a complex network of contested states, which many still remember as the near frontier of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, can seem far removed from the immediate concerns of the modern UK public. The UK is also faced with a series of obvious contradictions when it comes to the region. Brexit was, in part, a rejection of immigration from Eastern Europe, but Starmer still needs popular uptake of the war to secure parliamentary backing when it comes to helping the Zelensky government. More to the point, having left the EU itself the UK is now in a war which is partly being fought to allow Ukraine to join it.   The UK is not signalling that it will turn its attention away from Eastern Europe. In fact, it was wise to sign a new defence pact with Poland in 2023, which was a remarkable document because it reaffirmed UK-Polish defence relations both within and outside of NATO. The UK understands NATO’s Operation Eastern Sentry. It has also just signalled that it is willing to send troops to Ukraine if a ceasefire is achieved and the current frontlines are frozen. However, the precedent set by the Trump administration has a very high chance of encouraging others to think along the same lines — particularly as exhaustion with the conflict deepens over time and if a Russia-sympathising right grows in domestic politics. This presents a serious challenge, especially if European publics cannot be encouraged to lend popular support for Eastern Europe. This is such a tricky issue in the UK because of the motivations behind Brexit, and it might be the case that popular support for Ukraine does not actually extend into the wider region.   As his essay on Ukraine tells us, Putin has made contact once again with his own eighteenth century. He is looking at the geostrategic ambitions of Peter and Catherine the Great: like his forebears, he wants control of the Dnieper river and the military geometries of the Ukrainian interior. Britain will know itself better if it remembers the long term costs of abandoning its defence pacts in Eastern Europe, and in doing so it will also be able to shape its position more effectively within the broader NATO alliance.     Dr. Dan Sperrin is a private sector political consultant and an academic at the University of Cambridge. He specialises in information wars, geostrategic risk, and political history. His first book, State of Ridicule: A History of Satire in English Literature (Princeton UP), is the first large-scale history of political satire from Roman antiquity to the present day. He is currently writing a biography of the allied propagandist and wartime cartoonist Sir David Low, which looks at counter-information and strategic influence campaigns during the Second World War.   Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the individual author and do not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre.   [1] BBC News, ‘Trump says Putin talks 'don't go anywhere' as he imposes new sanctions’, October 2025, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd6758pn6ylo [2] An observation made in several major reappraisals of this period’s diplomacy. For this quotation, see Thomas Carlyle, ‘History of Friedrich II of Prussia, called Frederick the Great’, new edition, 6 vols, London, 1858–65, vol. 6, p. 109. [post_title] => Long Read | The New 1730s: Lessons from Britain’s historic involvement in Eastern Europe [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => the-new-1730s-lessons-from-britains-historic-involvement-in-eastern-europe [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2025-10-24 22:15:26 [post_modified_gmt] => 2025-10-24 21:15:26 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://fpc.org.uk/?p=8461 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) [1] => WP_Post Object ( [ID] => 8430 [post_author] => 106 [post_date] => 2025-10-07 08:23:15 [post_date_gmt] => 2025-10-07 07:23:15 [post_content] => On Sunday, 5th October 2025, Syria held its first parliamentary elections since the fall of Bashar Al-Assad. However, these “elections” were a deeply flawed process, and failed to meet even the minimum standards of political participation. Rather than advancing democratic transition, they are part of a broader centralisation of executive power by President Al-Sharaa.   The elections took place following Decree No. 143 of 2025, issued by the office of the Transitional President of Syria, Ahmed Al-Sharaa.^[1] This Decree, instead of establishing a transitional parliamentary body, creates a legislature largely under the power of the executive. Under its provisions, the President directly appoints one-third of parliamentarians and selects the members of the High Electoral Committee—a body that both elects the remaining two-thirds of Parliament and oversees elections. Thus, in practice, this “electoral process” is placed entirely within the President’s direct and indirect control.   The Decree’s provisions on candidacy likewise do not meet standards for political participation. It allows for the disqualification of candidates under broad, undefined terms such as “a supporter of the former regime” or advocating for “separation, division, or reliance on foreign powers” (Article 21, Paragraph 9).^[2] In practice, this vague language is not applied against affiliates of the former regime who committed human rights violations and other grave crimes. Instead, it permits the executive to disqualify candidates based on political considerations—a tool that can be, and in other countries has been, wielded against opposition parties and government critics.   In fact, leading up to the elections, candidates reported that they had been disqualified based on the testimony of anonymous witnesses.^[3] The candidates were denied access to the information upon which the disqualifications were based and were not permitted to appeal the decision.   Moreover, the Decree falls short in ensuring adequate representation of women and other marginalised groups. Article 24 sets a minimum 20% quota for women—an insufficient measure to guarantee full equality. Representation of women and other groups, including persons with disabilities and former detainees, is only advisory and non-binding.  The lack of meaningful inclusion undermines efforts to build a truly representative political system under which Syrians can be genuinely represented and further deepens divisions among Syrians.   Centralisation by Elections: What Do These Elections Reveal?   These problematic “elections” are a transparent effort to further centralise power in the executive. The Constitutional Declaration signed in March 2025 similarly gives President Al-Sharaa wide-reaching authority for a transitional period of five years.^[4] He commands the armed forces and heads the National Security Bureau. He appoints a Cabinet, a Vice President, and ambassadors. He has the power to propose law, the power to appoint each judge on the Supreme Constitutional Court, the right to unilaterally declare a state of emergency, and potentially the ability to exercise emergency powers and suspend human rights in the absence of a formally declared emergency. There is limited capacity on the part of the legislature or judiciary to serve as effective checks on his concentration of power.   In this context, it is clear the “elections” held on Sunday were not a true representative process. They were in clear contravention of United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolution 2254, which states that “the only sustainable solution…is through an inclusive and Syrian-led political process.”^[5]   Less than a year after the fall of the former regime, Syria’s transitional period faces many challenges, making the prospect of holding direct general elections at this stage unrealistic. However, creating the appearance of representative governance through a tightly controlled legislative body is not the solution. Instead, Syria should have set up a transitional parliamentary body with limited jurisdiction to address urgent issues, while it works with the UN to hold “free and fair elections” (S/Res/2254 § 4) within the UN’s proposed timeframe of 18 months.   In the meantime, Syria should implement changes to its temporary electoral system. To respect the principle of separation of powers and ensure meaningful checks on executive power, Syria should remove the transitional president’s role in appointing one-third of Parliament, and establish an independent body to oversee elections, one that is not subject to executive influence. More broadly, Syria should place legislative and judicial limits on executive power and reduce the current executive’s influence across the legislative and judicial branches of government.   Syria should also implement reforms to prevent political interference in election candidacy. This includes removing its imprecise and restrictive candidacy conditions with clear and objective criteria—such as age and legal capacity. A candidate should only be subject to disqualification under these criteria, rather than through a system without appeal that can be manipulated for political purposes. To protect freedom of expression, Syria should ensure freedom of public campaigning. Similarly, it should repeal its current provision imposing double criminal penalties for electoral offences, particularly where its vague wording could be used to criminalise activities related to legitimate political participation.   It is imperative that Syria align both its transitional electoral process and its future electoral arrangements with international standards on human rights. Syria has ratified—and restated its obligation in the Constitutional Declaration—a number of international treaties and agreements guaranteeing equal suffrage and the right to political participation. The elections held on October 5 clearly fail to meet these standards.   Moreover, the international community should not turn a blind eye to the political situation in Syria in favor of stability. After decades of dictatorship, Syrians deserve an inclusive political process that represents all Syrians and allows for free and fair political participation. While not immediate, efforts must nonetheless begin towards preparing for presidential, legislative, and local elections via direct vote. Indeed, a return to authoritarian governance would ultimately undermine the goal of a safe and stable Syria.   One need only look to failed transitions in the region—such as Iraq’s experience with de-Ba’athification—to understand the dangers of hollowing out political life and civil society under the guise of reform.^[6] To avoid repeating such mistakes, the international community should do its part to push back against President Al-Sharaa’s attempts to consolidate power and should encourage the fledgling government to respect international standards of governance, accountability, and inclusion     Mohammad Al Abdallah is Director of the Syrian Justice and Accountability Center (SJAC). Al Abdallah is a Syrian human rights lawyer and democracy researcher and activist. He received a Bachelor of Law from the Lebanese University in 2007; in 2014, he received a Master’s of Public Policy from George Mason University with a specialty in governance and international institutions. He previously worked as a researcher for Human Rights Watch in Beirut from where he covered Syria from 2007-2009. Al Abdallah is a former prisoner and survivor of torture who was imprisoned in Syria on two separate occasions for his work defending human rights and lobbying for political reform.   Jalal Alhamad is Executive Director of Justice for Life Organization and  researcher in human rights and transitional justice.   Riad Ali is a Syrian legal expert and former judge with extensive experience in judicial reform, transitional justice, and international law. He has served as a magistrate in Syria and as a legal consultant for organizations such as Syrians for Truth and Justice, Pell, and The Day After. His research focuses on constitutional law, property rights, and governance in post-conflict contexts.   Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the individual authors and do not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre.   [1] Syria Justice and Accountability Centre, ‘Joint Position Paper Regarding the Temporary Electoral System for the Syrian Parliament’, September 2025, https://syriaaccountability.org/joint-position-paper-regarding-the-temporary-electoral-system-for-the-syrian-parliament/ [2] Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), ‘Presidency, August 2025, https://sana.sy/presidency/2267661/?ref=syriaaccountability.org [3] Almodon, لماذا يجب إلغاء انتخابات سوريا التشريعية فورا؟, October 2025, https://www.almodon.com/opinion/2025/10/01 [4] Syria Justice and Accountability Centre, ‘A Problematic Constitutional Declaration’, March 2025, https://syriaaccountability.org/a-problematic-constitutional-declaration/ [5] United Nations Security Council, ‘Resolution 2254 (2015)’, December 2015, https://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/s_res_2254.pdf [6] Middle East Institute, ‘De‑Ba`thification in Iraq: How Not to Pursue Transitional Justice’, January 2014, https://www.mei.edu/publications/de-bathification-iraq-how-not-pursue-transitional-justice [post_title] => Op-ed | The First Election in The New Syria: A Missed Opportunity [post_excerpt] => [post_status] => publish [comment_status] => closed [ping_status] => open [post_password] => [post_name] => op-ed-the-first-election-in-the-new-syria-a-missed-opportunity [to_ping] => [pinged] => [post_modified] => 2025-10-31 11:18:47 [post_modified_gmt] => 2025-10-31 10:18:47 [post_content_filtered] => [post_parent] => 0 [guid] => https://fpc.org.uk/?p=8430 [menu_order] => 0 [post_type] => post [post_mime_type] => [comment_count] => 0 [filter] => raw ) )