“…they
should know when we have sustained a defeat without a war, the consequences of
which will travel far with us along our road; they should know we have passed
an awful milestone in our history, when the whole equilibrium of Europe has
been deranged, and that the terrible words have for the time being been
pronounced against the Western democracies, ‘Thou art weighed in the balance
and found wanting’”.
Winston
Spencer Churchill (No, I am not raising the ghost of Winston to make a point
about Brexit!)
Can NATO REALLY adapt?
Izmir, Turkey. 14 March. How
can we better engage Alliance leaders with the security and defence of their
own citizens in a dangerous world? A shifting balance of military power is
often glacial and takes place over many years but at times it can also act like
an earthquake as a fault-line gives a bit. This week the fault-line definitely
gave a bit. On Tuesday, I had the honour to speak to NATO commanders at the LC3
conference hosted by Lt. General Thompson and his excellent team at NATO
LANDCOM here in Izmir. My speech, on NATO
and Future War, came a week after Russia’s now long-serving Chief of the
General Staff, General Valerij Gerasimov, had laid out his thinking on Russia’s
future military strategy. It was also a week in which the US launched a $718bn defence
budget, whilst also announcing the aircraft carrier USS Harry S Truman will be paid off early to enable the US to
afford an entirely new generation of weapons to match those being developed and
deployed by China and Russia. In this week’s Defense News RAND’s David Ochmanek frankly admitted that, “In our [war]
games, when we fight Russia and China blue [Allied forces] gets its ass handed
to it”.
My message to NATO
commanders was thus necessarily uncompromising – unless NATO REALLY adapts to
the security environment, shapes it and fast the old West could be heading for
catastrophe. The message I got back from a few of my senior military colleagues
was equally and justly compromising – ‘We hear you, Julian, but do our leaders?’
It is this disconnect between NATO collective defence and much of the Alliance’s
political leadership which is potentially the greatest vulnerability.
Which Trojan, which
horse?
Let me deal with the
nature and scope of the threat. A piece in Foreign
Affairs this week by Chris Miller asked if economic stagnation is the new
Russian normal. It would certainly seem so. Contrast that with a 4 March speech
by the Russian Chief of the General Staff entitled The Development of Future Military Strategy at Moscow’s Academy of
Military Sciences. Gerasimov echoed
(immodestly on my part) a lot of what I had written in my latest article for
the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, Complex
Strategic Coercion and Russian Military Modernisation https://www.cgai.ca/complex_strategic_coercion_and_russian_military_modernization He talked of the transformation of military threat and the need for a “…system
of knowledge and action for the prevention, preparation and conduct of war”. He
placed particular emphasis on strategies of what he calls global war, nuclear
deterrence and, critically, indirect action.
Gerasimov, predictably,
painted the US as the aggressor state and accused the Americans of ‘Trojan horse’
policies designed to eliminate the statehood of “unwanted countries”, undermine
state sovereignty, and impose enforced change on elected bodies. Russia see
thyself? He also cited what he called Washington’s expansion of its military
presence on Russia’s borders and the US abrogation of arms control treaties
such as INF as proof positive of Russia’s need to deploy new, advanced missile
systems…some of which breach INF. You get the picture.
5D warfare and the new
method of struggle
Gerasimov also talked of new
‘methods of struggle’ and the shift towards the integrated use of political,
economic, international, and other “non-military measures, albeit implemented
with reliance on military force”. Critically, he re-stated his long-held
conviction that the main effort for Russia’s military strategy must be the
preparation for war and its conduct, primarily, but not exclusively, by the
armed forces.
All of this chimes rather
neatly with my own concept of 5D warfare – the systematic application of
deception, disinformation, destabilisation, disruption, and implied destruction
as strategy. Gerasimov’s vision
for the Russian future force also echoes American thinking about the coming conduct
of warfare simultaneously across the seven domains of air, sea, land, cyber,
space, information and knowledge. Gerasimov placed particular emphasis on the
prosecution of what I call war at the seams of our complex societies and war at
the margins of our complex institutions, most notably NATO and the EU.
Shock and some limited aweski?
At the heart of
Gerasimov’s remarks was a very Russian idea of shock and awe, albeit in pursuit
of limited strategic objectives. To that
end, he highlighted the need for constant high combat readiness and rapid force
mobilisation to achieve decisive surprise. To reinforce that aim he called
specifically for the systematic identification and exploitation of the vulnerabilities
of adversaries and the threat of “unacceptable damage” as a means of imposing influence
and deterring a response.
Gerasimov’s Ultima Ratio Regum is that Russian force
of arms be underpinned by strengthened Russian nuclear and non-nuclear
‘deterrence’ via the continued deployment of advanced weapons systems with his
military art ‘enlightened’ by the strategic and operational lessons Russia has
learnt in Syria for the conduct of what he calls “restricted actions”.
Gerasimov also talked at some length about the large-scale use of military
robotic and other unmanned systems allied to the enhanced exploitation of
electronic warfare but again only as part of “strategy of limited action”. In
other words, Russia still only envisages fighting a brutal but short war, if it
fights one at all.
What particularly struck
me was the level of understanding Gerasimov displayed of Allied vulnerabilities
and weaknesses. There was also a particular emphasis on innovative thinking via
so-called ‘Forecast Scenarios’ that would enable a better understanding of
armed conflict might be started and exploited by Russia for maximum political
effect. In other words, Gerasimov is
seriously thinking about war with NATO and how to fight it.
The problem for the
Alliance is just how ‘limited’ is Gerasimov’s ‘limited’? A Norwegian friend and
colleague at the meeting said that the real danger posed by Russia was that it
was “risk willing”. In fact, threat is the consequence of President Putin’s ‘risk
willingness’, the scope of his strategic ambition, and the risk aversion of
many European leaders in combination. It is a threat that is further compounded
by a very Russian idea of a strategic-economic ‘model’ – the weaker the economy
becomes the more Moscow invests in ‘security’. History suggests this ‘model’
more often than not eventually falls apart and leads to catastrophe.
Simulating Smart NATO
How could a smart NATO
counter Russia’s unsmartness? This week
also marked the twentieth anniversary of the moment when former Warsaw Pact
states the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland exercised their right to
self-determination and joined the Alliance. Thereafter, a wave of former Cold
War adversaries became allies. Reading General Gerasimov it is clear how much
this profound shift in the political and security geography of Europe still
rankles with Moscow and the Kremlin’s determination to re-impose influence over
many of those states around Russia’s western border with force a key component
in Moscow’s complex coercive influence strategy.
Gerasimov has one clear
advantage over his NATO counterparts – his boss President Putin has given him
unequivocal instructions to do just that - coerce. President Putin routinely
chairs exercises and simulations in which he plays himself. When one talks to
NATO commanders the work they are doing to counter Gerasimov and his now
several ‘doctrines’ is impressive. However, unlike Gerasimov, NATO commanders
struggle with real political buy-in at the highest levels.
Part of the problem is
political culture, particularly across much of Western Europe. There was a time
when politicians would routinely take part in exercises and simulations to
properly understand their own role during an emergency. Now such participation
rarely, if ever, happens. And, one of the many seams Gerasimov is seeking to exploit
is the yawning seam that too often exists between NATO’s political leaders and
their military commanders.
It is not easy to get
latter day Western European politicians (and this problem is to a large extent
a Western European problem) to engage with such challenges beyond the routine
but only occasional NATO Summit. One idea would be to tack a simulation onto
such events – be they at Heads of State and Government level or foreign/defence
ministerial level. NATO’s leaders need to see and understand why NATO needs to
plan for the worst-case and how their own role would unfold during a fast-burning
and inevitably multifaceted crisis of the sort General Gerasimov is planning.
The Scheer Bloody Gaulle of it!
Simulating NATO would thus
be a good step towards a smart NATO because a smart NATO is a vital part of a
wider strategy that offers Moscow both a way out of the economic and strategic
contradiction into which it is driving itself, and protects the free citizens of
the Alliance from the very worst case consequences of Russia’s potentially
catastrophic contradiction.
Such an approach might
also help Western European leaders stop their latest retreat into defence
pretence. This was also the week when senior German CDU politician Kramp-Karrenbauer
suggested France and Germany together build a new aircraft carrier. Given the
state of Europe’s land forces there are many other things the French and
Germans might consider building if they were serious about playing a serious
role together in deterring Russia and projecting power. Still, if they ever do build this thing (which
of course they will not) I have come up with the perfect name for – the Scheer-Gaulle. Get it?
Julian Lindley-French
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