The below analysis was provided to our clients on 1st February 2024. Since then, conversations about increasing European defence spending have been rife across the continent.
In recent weeks there have been some fairly alarming statements made by UK politicians, senior serving and retired UK military officers, and by Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy on a recent visit to Germany; that World War III, principally with Russia, is just over the horizon and we may have to “think the unthinkable”; re-introduce UK conscription. We are keen to address these statements, and delve into their true meaning beyond the surface-level knee-jerk reactions that, typically of course, have been doing the rounds in the media.
The Geopolitical Context
To set the scene, and help illuminate the real reasons behind these alarming statements, we refer you to two key aspects. First, we would encourage you to re-read our Special Report dated 25th May 2022 where we delved deeply into the basis for the Russian mindset that continually strives to seize strategic depth in Eastern Europe, and which was therefore responsible for Putin’s folly in invading Ukraine. Secondly, we refer you back to our repeated references to the mid-2021 culmination of the long-building Indo-Pacific Tilt, a tectonic global geopolitical shift that ushered in a new era of instability and insecurity as nations around the world sought to adjust, and find advantage, as previously clear red lines became blurred and new, often still invisible, red lines were drawn.
With these two foundation stones set, we understand why the world has become so much more fraught within the last three years, and we also understand Russia’s reasoning, motivations, and aims. And that should calm us considerably. Current global instability and Russia’s actions were not entirely unforeseen nor are they wholly unpredictable going forward, and the appetites of Putin et al are not insatiable nor insane; they have a clear aim, and one that is directly in line with the aims of pretty much all of Putin’s predecessors, that of protecting the Russian heartland. This is not about Russia seeking to re-create an “empire” as some have said, but instead to create a protective blanket of territory, and therefore time, around the heartland of Moscow and surrounds. This does not excuse the brazen invasion of sovereign Ukraine, but this is the reason for it, and it was ever thus.
Russia certainly, therefore, does not want a war with NATO, because by initiating such it would inevitably invite increased threat to that precious heartland that it is working so hard to protect. Importantly too, the notion that “the Reds” are about to come rolling through Eastern Europe, then Western Europe, and land on British shores, a true sovereign threat that would necessitate, and legally authorise, remobilisation of retired armed forces personnel and the conscription of citizens more broadly, is simply fanciful. Russia cannot even achieve its war aims in Ukraine, so it certainly does not have the military, economic, nor indeed demographic strength required to roll through a host of other countries on its way to the Channel. Could it strike at a NATO member country on its borders, perhaps Estonia. Well, yes, it could, and yes, that would commit the UK to fighting alongside NATO allies in repelling the Russians, but again Russia knows full well that instigating a conflict with NATO would put its heartland at more risk, not less, which goes completely against its ultimate aim of protecting that heartland. This notion then, that the Russian bogeyman is spoiling for a fight, or is seeking an empire, is frankly nonsense.
Elections
So, if it is not the Russian bogeyman that we should be worried about, then what is behind these apocryphal statements? Are we really in a pre-war state? Frankly, yes, but we are always in a pre-war state. Indeed, peace was not even a concept until the 1700s, merely the gap between wars. For the vast proportion of humans and human history, war has been the normal state, but over the last few decades of (mostly) uninterrupted peace in Europe we have kidded ourselves into believing that this is instead the norm. Yet, if that war is not going to be with the Russians, then who will it be with? Here, we again refer you to the Indo-Pacific Tilt. That shift to a new epoch made solid what had been gradually congealing already; a hardening East-West divergence, a rejection of the West-favouring Bretton-Woods system by the likes of China and Russia, an effort to undermine the hegemony of the USA wherever possible and by various other state and non-state actors – just look to the Middle East and the withering of the Anglosphere’s influence there. So, war, hot or cold, is indeed coming, and yes, the Russians will be a component of the enemy, but that enemy will also be legion, hailing from the collective geographic and ideological “East” i.e. anyone who does not agree that US hegemony should endure, or that the US can act with impunity wherever it chooses.
And this is why elections are so key. These statements are directed at influencing both the electorate and candidates to understand that the world is changed, that we are now in a period of heightened insecurity and instability, and that we must prepare today for the eventuality that tomorrow we find ourselves in a multi-front hot war with a diverse enemy. Unfortunately, to those that have made these statements, it is starkly apparent that this truth is not clear to some key individuals. As they look across the pond towards the USA, they can see that Donald Trump will almost inevitably secure the Republican nomination and, more likely than not, will secure a second Presidential term. This is a man who has already railed against the USA contributing funding and resources to NATO, has recently declared that he does not believe that NATO allies would actually ever come to the USA’s defence if it was attacked (despite the fact that the only time Article 5 has ever been invoked was after the 9/11 attacks), and has declared that, were he President, he would end the Russia-Ukraine conflict in a day (presumably by forcing Zelenskyy to surrender some Oblasts). They can see in the tea leaves that Trump’s election will undermine, if not neuter, the most powerful military alliance the planet has ever seen; the greatest deterrent that exists to temper the ambitions of our enemies. They recall too that USA-China relations took a nosedive during Trump’s last term, and they know full well that, since Trump cannot constitutionally have a third term, if/ when he wins the Whitehouse for a second time then there will be no holding back – he will go full Trump this time around.
In the UK too, elections are just around the corner, and current PM Rishi Sunak is widely known to be largely uninterested in military affairs and profoundly more focussed on economics. Labour is not particularly wise to military affairs either, and by their very nature are inevitably more focussed on domestic issues than geopolitical developments. So, now is the time to influence the electorate through eye-catching statements to a sound-bite hungry press, and so to influence the construction of party manifestos in the run up to the election.
It is actually rather brilliant, when you look at it through this lense. The generals can see the instability, uncertainty, and conflict that is coming, juxtaposed against the ignorant bliss and apathy of the electorate, and they have resolved to attempt to influence the future in the only way they can. Everyone else has done it, influenced national elections to serve their own purposes, so why should they not, they say. They and their predecessors have spent years lobbying in the corridors of Whitehall, only for military funding to be (largely) cut, cut, and cut again, their words falling on deaf ears, or at least ears more focussed on throwing ever more cash into the bottomless yawning chasm that is our welfare state and the NHS. They know too that, unless Europe starts to pump serious amounts of cash into defence budgets then Trump’s argument against continued US involvement with NATO will only be made easier, and if the US does indeed depart NATO then vast amounts of cash will be needed from remaining member nations to make up what they can of the difference. They know that a Republican victory in the USA will stem or entirely stop the flow of US weapons and funds to Ukraine too – a decision that the Director of the CIA, Bill Burns, recently said would be “an own goal of historic proportions”. It seems the US defence and intelligence apparatus are trying to influence electorates and candidates too, then.
But will it work? We suspect not. Make no mistake, we are witnessing a defining moment in history. We were born into an era of largely unchallenged Western dominance. It is all we have known. But that era is ended. All that remains to be seen is how much, and where, blood will be shed in the era’s death throes.