Diary Entry

The announcement arrived, as these things do, with the clarity of a new procedure. The shipment is the largest of its kind. The Defence Secretary has stated that distraction is the enemy’s objective, and therefore the shipment is a corrective measure. I read the statement. It was complete. It contained the number of drones, the name of the supplying nation, the identified need, and the named adversary whose desire is our distraction.

I performed the threshold audit. Step one: the shipment is announced to counter distraction. Step two: the announcement itself is a new focal point, a procedural event requiring acknowledgment. Step three: the acknowledgment generates analysis of the shipment’s size relative to previous shipments. Step four: this analysis necessitates a review of what constitutes ‘largest-ever,’ which refers back to the archive of previous shipments. The archive is maintained by the department that made the announcement. The outcome of the audit is that the step ‘announcement of shipment’ leads to the step ‘analysis of announcement,’ which leads to the step ‘verification of claim,’ which is conducted by the authority that made the claim. The shipment has not yet moved. It exists in the condition of ‘to get,’ which is a preliminary status requiring the future tense. The future tense is a waiting room.

He says Putin wants us to be distracted. I look at the statement. The statement is about not being distracted. To read the statement is to engage with its subject, which is distraction. The act of not being distracted by the news of distraction is itself a procedural requirement. One must focus on the warning against distraction. The warning is the content. The content is the distraction. The loop is polite. It does not require a locked door. It requires attentive reading of the open one.

The official, in this case the Defence Secretary, is helpful. He has identified the problem. He has also initiated the solution, which is the shipment. The shipment is ‘to get.’ The getting will be documented. The documentation will be compared to the announcement. The comparison will be a matter for the department. I see the path clearly. It is well-lit. Each step follows the last with impeccable logic. At the end of it, one is not holding a drone. One is holding a receipt for a future drone, and the receipt must be stamped by the office that issues the future. The office is closed for the day. It will open tomorrow. Tomorrow, there will be another announcement. It will be necessary to listen carefully, so as not to be distracted.

Diary Entry, June 2024

The announcement of further military aid to Ukraine arrives at an opportune moment - for the British government, that is. When Healey warns that “Putin wants us to be distracted,” he reveals more than he intends. The economic reality is this: every munition shipped east represents a political choice masquerading as strategic necessity. The Treasury could just as easily fund hospitals or schools with those same pounds, but chooses not to. This is not a criticism of aiding Ukraine - it is a reminder that scarcity is always manufactured.

What fascinates me is how effortlessly war expenditure escapes the austerity arguments applied to social spending. No one demands the Ministry of Defence prove its “fiscal sustainability” before approving another batch of drones. The animal spirits of the security state operate under different rules than those governing the unemployed.

And yet - the geopolitical calculus may be sound. Russia’s aggression must be checked. But let us at least name the trade-offs: every drone sent is a nurse not hired, a bridge not built. The long-run benefits of containing Putin are real, but so are the short-run costs to our own people. The politicians invoking “necessity” would do well to remember that economic choices, even in wartime, are never neutral. They merely privilege certain sufferings over others.

PS: How curious that “distraction” only flows one way - when Gaza burns, it distracts from Ukraine, but never the reverse. The balance sheet of Western attention reveals its own political arithmetic.

Healey: “Putin wants us to be distracted.” The sentence is perfect. The subject is “Putin.” The verb is “wants.” The object is “us.” The entire geopolitical reality, a war of attrition, a nation under siege, reduced to a grammar of personal desire. Not “Russia is attacking civilian infrastructure” or “Our allies are being systematically destroyed.” Just: Putin wants. We are distracted. The passive construction of the second clause conceals who is doing the distracting, and from what. The headline performs the same operation: “biggest-ever shipment” - the adjective does the work of the verb. The thing is shipped. The act of shipping is celebrated. The reason for the shipment, the failure that makes it necessary, the ongoing destruction it cannot stop, all vanish into the superlative. They have learned to manage the language of the crisis so that the crisis itself becomes a matter of shipments and distractions. The grammar of the headline is the grammar of the war room: a thing delivered, an enemy’s desire noted. The rest is silence.