My Speech to NATO Ambassadors Yesterday

Yesterday, I had the singular honour of addressing NATO ambassadors, senior officials and high-ranking officers at the famous Manfred Woerner Circle lunch. This is my speech. All best, Julian

 The Impact of the Ukraine Crisis on NATO 2030.

 

Ambassador, thank you! Excellencies, distinguished officers and colleagues, great honour to address this famous circle named after a great man and servant of our great Alliance. As I get old there are few things in which I trust. Our Alliance is one of them but we cannot take it for granted.  To quote the American economist J.K. Galbraith “power is as power does”. Even dumb power. To quote Lindley-French, “until someone bloody stops them”. Normally, I would begin such remarks with a joke, and normally a bad one at that. The situation is too serious, too dangerous for that. 2000 km from here a fellow European country is being mutilated by a great power and a nuclear one at that. Given that, and what is to come, I want to focus on four core themes: strategic concept, deterrence, burden-sharing and future war.

 

New Cold War

 

This is the start of a long war leading, I fear, to a new Cold War.  It will reach across our societies through deception, disinformation, disruption, destabilisation and coercion through implied or actual destruction.

 

The war will continue as long as President Putin is in power. Possibly longer. What does he want? Well, just look at a map. Make no mistake, this is also one of those geopolitical moments for which our alliance was created. This is also what NATO was created for back in 1949.

 

A Europe Whole and Free?

 

Let me paraphrase another great man: from the Black Sea in the south to Kirkenes in the north a rust-encased iron curtain is again falling across parts of Europe. Unless stopped by our Alliance in its full majesty behind that curtain of oppression could one day again lie the capitals of ancient states, famous cities and peoples, and all subject in one form or another, not only to Russian influence, but to a very high and, ever increasing measure of control, from Moscow. The 2022 Ukraine War, for that is what it is, has reset the strategic and geopolitical context of NATO, Europe and the wider world. We are moving from the fantasy globalised world of just–in-time back to the hard reality of just-in-case. For too long European leaders abandoned sound defence seduced by economists who failed to understand power and coercion can exist independently of supply and demand. We, our Alliance, must thus again confront two potentially existential questions. How can we preserve the peace? How can we ensure NATO deterrence and defence deters and defends into the future? European history is again entering a darkened room. We must go forward together with a mind-set robust enough, collective enough and ambitious enough to stop the corrupt, cynical and corrosive regime in Moscow from prevailing. In other words, facing down Russia (and China if it so chooses to be an enemy) will take a unity of effort and purpose not seen since our alliance faced 360 Soviet divisions across the once inner-German border… and do it whilst we also engage with our partners to the south in their struggle with maniacal anti-state.

 

NATO 2030 Agenda

 

Remember when the NATO 2030 agenda was adopted by leaders last June. It highlighted the need for deeper political consultation, strengthened defence and deterrence, improved resilience, preserving NATO’s technical edge, upholding the rules-based order, boosting training and capacity-building, combating and adapting to climate change, and investing in NATO. But, above all, it called for drafting a strategic concept that is truly strategic.

 

The thing is, that was June. Now is now. Then we were in the last days of tentative peace, now we are on the threshold of future war. Tear it up?  No. But understand this (and some among us are finding it hard to understand this) whilst the words might sound the same they mean very different things today than they did last June – timing and context are everything in geopolitics. Our collective (and it must be collective) level of ambition must now be far higher than it was last year because if nothing else deterring great power is no longer a theoretical exercise. It has suddenly become the new normal.

 

Strategic Concept

 

Therefore, the real challenge for the forthcoming Strategic Concept will be to capture that change and the change to come by 2030 and beyond and get in front of it. Will it? You see Strategic Concepts are not some PR brochure. They are a public contract between our elected leaders and you, the people who make NATO work. A contract that demonstrates our leaders understand the strategic goals and missions they are setting you and the relationship between the ends, ways and means you will need to succeed. Change or renewal? The US? Europe? Future war.

 

The Americans are as committed to NATO as ever. Partly because they need allies, albeit capable allies, and more not less every day, but also because NATO remains central to American statecraft. However, as China stretches US forces and resources the world over we, the European allies, will have to share more of the burdens of Alliance, even at the high-end of conflict.

 

Some might call it greater European strategic autonomy, some might call it greater European strategic responsibility, either way for all the many pressures we Europeans face, financial and societal, it is simply time Europe grew up strategically. Frankly, the alliance is the only vehicle of weight that can carry such ambition.

 

Do not get me wrong: the EU-NATO privileged relationship, or whatever it is called these days, will be vital for enhancing resilience. If we cannot protect our home base I find it hard to believe we will have the political hardness and resolve to project the power contemporary and future deterrence and defence will demand.   We could simply end up deterring ourselves.

 

I have the honour to chair the Alphen Group. Some of you will have read our Shadow NATO Strategic Concept which we had the honour to present in this house in February. We are clear: we call for the maintenance of the three core tasks – collective defence, crisis management and co-operative security. However, they must be turbo-charged with ambition, capabilities and capacities. We also call for a new priority of enhanced resilience in the face of the hybrid, cyber and hyperwar that our Alliance will need to grip by 2030, both directly and in partnership.

 

Future war

 

Here’s the crunch. Our Alliance not only needs to grip emerging security challenges, but also emerging defence challenges. They are a continuum. And, do not be lulled into complacency by the incompetence of Russian planning and performance in Ukraine. The direction of travel of warfare is clear, and thus deterrence and defence.  The next ten years could well see the equivalent of the past 70 years of technology crammed into the future battlespace. By 2030, certainly 2040, war could even be faster than human responsiveness driven by machine-learning, quantum computing, and a whole host of artificially intelligent hypersonic weapons and swarms of drones that will begin to see, decide, act and destroy autonomously, if not independently. Let me quote directly from my latest book Future War and the Defence of Europe written with my great friends Generals John Allen and Ben Hodges: “…the danger persists that Europeans are moving inexorably towards a lowest common denominator European force, an analogue ‘European Army’ in a digital age which simply bolts together a lot of European legacy forces”.  Yes, we Europeans have modestly increased our defence budgets since 2014 – both real and imagined. But defence and deterrence is relative and is it enough in the face of the pressures building on the US, the advances of enemies and surging inflation?

 

Strategic Concept 2022 must also offer an affordable vision of credible NATO deterrence and defence in 2030 and beyond. In both the book and the Shadow Strategic Concept we call for a hard core NATO centred on a high-end European future force, the Allied Mobile Heavy Force (AMHF), that would merge all of NATO’s high readiness forces, that is sufficiently capable to act as a credible first responder in the event of a major European emergency should US forces also be engaged in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere. A force that has sufficient mass that it can act as a high-end first responder for any contingency and reinforce support front-line states to Europe’s south as they grapple with the potentially catastrophic collapse of order across the Middle East and North Africa. A force that is sufficiently manoeuvrable to act effectively across the multiple domains of air, sea, land, cyber, space, information and knowledge.  A force able to operate from sea-bed to space.

 

Hard Core NATO

 

Ambassador, Excellencies, distinguished officers and colleagues, if NATO 2030 is to be realised beyond the comfortingly rhetorical it will need far more ways and means to realise the ends of preserving peace. The bottom-line is this: without a hard military warfighting European-led core NATO could fail. If President Putin is still around he will not stop. It all comes back to deterrence. You see the thing about deterrence is ‘the other’ needs to believe we believe in our own policy and position. Only capability, capacity reinforced by demonstrable can assure that. Equally, we also need to re-think how, who and what it is we are deterring across the interactive and interoperable hybrid, cyber and super-fast hyper war that is coming capable yet?

 

NATO’s bottom-line is SACEUR’s Area of Responsibility (AOR) Wide Strategic Plan (SASP). It is the concept for the Deterrence and Defence of the Euro-Atlantic Area (DDA) which upholds the defensive nature of the alliance and sets out how NATO armed forces plan to deal with the Alliance’s two main threats, Russia and terrorism.  It is the NATO Warfighting Cornerstone Concept and the Deterrence Concept. Give them the tools and they will do the job! That means an Allied Command Transformation that can really reach out and transform, it means Allied Command Operations reinforced by a much more ambitious NATO Readiness Initiative. It needs fielding times of advanced equipment in Europe sufficiently fast and in sufficient quantity that me, the taxpayer, is not paying premium euro for museum pieces. We simply can no longer simply recognise as much threat as we can afford.

 

WHAT DO I MEAN BY THAT? LET US COLLECTIVELY THINK CREATIVELY AND MERGE EFFECTIVENESS WITH EFFICIENCY. LET US TURN THE NATO DEFENCE PLANNING PROCESS ON ITS HEAD. LET THE EXPERTS IN THIS ROOM IDENTIFY THE DEFENCE ARCHITECTURE WE WILL NEED BY 2030, THE CAPABILITIES, CAPACITIES, STRUCTURES AND ORGANISATION THAT SUPPORT IT. THEN, LET’S WORK OUT HOW WE AFFORD IT FROM EXISTING INVESTMENTS, NEW PARTNERSHIPS AND, YES, SOME NEW MONEY. LET US FOR ONCE BE RADICAL. THAT IS THE DEMAND OF THIS AGE.

 

The Impact of the Ukraine Crisis on NATO 2030.

 

NATO is not a glorified summit organising agency. It is a defensive warfighting alliance that seeks to prevent wars by demonstrating to anyone or anything threatening our citizens that it can. That means all of our citizens from Stavanger to San Francisco, from Tallinn to Lampedusa, from Riga to Svalbard. By 2030 we will need a truly transformed NATO if we are to preserve a rules-based global order. If not a global NATO, a NATO that is certainly in the world. That means a real NATO China policy. Any power that weakens US forces also weakens NATO and the American security guarantee to Europe. Indeed, anyone who suggests China has nothing to do with NATO is, to coin a phrase, brain dead. We will also need at some point to rehabilitate arms control in Europe. 

 

A transformed NATO by 2030? The NATO Innovation Fund and the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic are good starts, but we will need to go far further, far faster.  Are we up to the challenge?

 

In other words, what is decided by you and your bosses in these coming months is not just about the here and now. It is about 2030 and thereafter. It is about the tipping point in geopolitics we are at. Ambassador, Excellencies, distinguished officers and colleagues, as another famous leader once famously said at another infamously dangerous moment: the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Our comparative advantage? Our people. Let’s give them the tools so they can do the job.

 

Let us stand together to defend freedom and democracy because it needs it. Give me a Strategic Concept I can believe in and which President Putin can believe in. Give me a Strategic Concept that delivers deterrence and defence 2030. Let us be NATO!

 

Ambassador, thank you.

 

Julian Lindley-French, NATO HQ, April 25^th, 2022

 

 

What if Russia Attacked NATO?

 “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”

Article 5, North Atlantic Treaty, April 1949

The tipping point

April 22^nd, 2022. Last weekend I was watching a clip of “60 Minutes’, Russia’s flagship ‘news/propaganda’ programme on Rossiya 1. It was quite shocking even by the low standards of Putin’s main propaganda programme. The anchor, Olga Skabeyeva, had several guests, but the show was dominated by a bombastic, nationalist motor-mouth. His child-like self-pitying thesis was that the sinking of the Moskva was a tipping point in the Russo-Ukraine War because the Ukrainians had had the temerity to attack the ‘Motherland’.  He conveniently forgot that it was the ‘Motherland’ that had just invaded a neighbouring democratic country that borders both the EU and NATO.  He also suggested that Russia was already fighting World War Three because “NATO’s infrastructure” was being used to arm Ukraine’s defence. Russia, he suggested, would be perfectly within its rights to attack targets such as railway junctions in Poland through which Western arms and supplies were travelling en route to Ukraine. Russia he said, should decisively escalate to de-escalate.

What if Russia did attack NATO Poland? First, NATO would respond. The North Atlantic Council would meet in emergency session to decide what specific action would be needed to restore deterrence. No response would pretty much mark the end of NATO. Second, the NATO response would need to be decisive, tailored and proportionate. Third, NATO would need to embark on an extensive ‘strategic communications’ campaign to explain its actions to citizens and the Kremlin alike.

Options and contingencies

NATO would also need to confront several internal issues which go to the very heart of Allied deterrence now and into the future. Would there be sufficient political cohesion within the Alliance to overcome the escalation aversion that not unreasonably exists, particularly in parts of Western Europe? Take Germany as THE example of this profound question. Faced by a hard left faction within the SPD, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s ‘defence revolution’ is already stalling and his commitment to Ukraine’s defence is wobbly at best. What would be the exact nature and scope of a NATO response? There would be several options all of which would be both proportionate and risky. If Russia attacked critical railway junctions in Poland, American and British nuclear submarines could launch cruise missile strikes on Russian railway infrastructure vital to the supply and re-supply of Russian forces or the ‘reconstitution centres’ at which they are massing for the offensive in Eastern Ukraine. The Suwalki Corridor between Belarus and Kaliningrad could be closed and an attack of similar scale mounted on the enclave’s air defence systems.  NATO could also blockade the Black Sea and conduct a missile strike against a Russian warship. The degree of warning, if any, of the above courses of action would depend on what level of warning the Russians gave prior to their initial attack on NATO soil and the strength of message NATO leaders felt compelled to send to Putin.  However, given the fevered atmosphere inside the Kremlin and President Putin’s head any NATO military strike on Russian soil or a Russian ship would almost certainly lead to escalation of the war, possibly beyond Ukraine.

Are there any alternatives? The answer to that question goes to the very heart of NATO’s core purpose and the very meaning of deterrence. Mention the words NATO deterrence to most thinking people and immediately nuclear deterrence comes to mind.  Here, Russia has NATO over a barrel. By repeatedly breaching the now defunct 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty Moscow has been able to illegally develop a whole family of tactical and intermediate-range nuclear missile systems.  These weapons sit somewhere between conventional military power and the world-destroying strategic nuclear systems typified by this week’s propaganda test of the new Sarmat (Satan 2) intercontinental ballistic-plus nuclear missile. On the face of it they afford Moscow more rungs on the escalation ladder than are available NATO. NATO deterrence is built on a slowly recapitalising conventional defence and the strategic nuclear systems of the US, UK and France. 

Restoring deterrence

In other words, there would appear to a hole in NATO deterrence that even the Russians could exploit. Or is there?  The concept of deterrence has become too focused on weapons and not enough on effects. Whatever happens in Ukraine there will be a revolution in warfare over the coming decade or so driven by American and Chinese technology. Whilst the headline-grabbers will be artificially-intelligent weapons and the swarms in which they will operate, the daily perma-war NATO is now fighting will be dominated by information and cyber warfare, both offensive and defensive, and their interaction with military future force.

Future NATO deterrence will thus be built on an effects-based ‘triad’ of deep, machine-led intelligence, offensive defence and defensive resilience, and advanced, hyper speed strike. Critical people and infrastructure protection/destruction will thus be as important as force-on-force engagement in what is already a form of total war.  THAT, is why the Kremlin and its cronies say they are already fighting World War Three. They are. Paradoxically, much of Russia’s self-evident operational incompetence in Ukraine has been caused by diverting limited resources to fund the spectacular at the expense of the militarily capable. It will not always be thus.

Therefore, rather than attack Russia using direct military action NATO could respond to any such attack on, say, Poland by causing the mass disruption of Russian infrastructures and Russian military communications which would clearly be vulnerable to such an attack. In other words, the Allies should respond by demonstrating to the Russian NATO is developing a new concept of deterrence and escalation as part of an effects continuum that stretches across the mosaic of hybrid, cyber and hyperwar.

People power

There is a caveat that is all too often ignored. NATO deterrence will only work if all of us are prepared to accept that no NATO act in our name can come without risk. As the Kremlin becomes more desperate in the face of its own appalling strategic folly the more likely it is to escalate the war to de-escalate the crisis in line with current Russian political and military doctrine. It is nonsense, but then again the entire past seven weeks has seen nothing if not an exercise in Russian nonsense. Even the use of a ‘demonstration’ nuclear strike by Moscow in Ukraine can no longer be completely ruled out.  The more desperate Moscow becomes for some kind of victory the greater the likelihood of an attack on NATO territory, particularly if the current offensive in the Donbas grounds to a bloody halt.

Historically severe crises of this sort tend to move inexorably to a tipping point between escalation and de-escalation. That is precisely what happened during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and the war in Ukraine seems to be on a similar trajectory. At such points the aggressor needs to be convinced to de-escalate.  Therefore, President Putin must fully understand that any and all attacks on NATO territory will be met with a graduated and proportionate response.  

NATO deterrence also needs two other realities to be gripped. First, NATO leaders need to be clear that there is indeed a clear link between arming Ukraine and defending the Alliance and establish policy and strategy to that end. Second, and perhaps most important of all, for NATO deterrence to be credible we, the NATO citizens, also need to be strong and suppress the understandable temptation to seek ‘peace in our time’.  We must all now take a stand.  Yes, it is a scary prospect and I am sorry I feel compelled to write this, but that is precisely the situation that Putin has created for Russians, Ukrainians, the Allies, and the whole world. NATO must not and cannot back down.

Peace through strength!

Julian Lindley-French

 

Putin’s Dumb War of Choice 3.0

 “Ukraine was becoming an anti-Russian bridgehead where sprouts of nationalism and neo-Nazism were being cultivated. This new generation of Ukrainian nationalists are especially clashing with Russia. You see how Nazi ideology became a fact of life in Ukraine…we had no other choice…there is no doubt that we will achieve our goals”.

President Vladimir Putin, April 12^th, 2022

Long war, cold war

April 14^th, 2022. The war in Ukraine is going to be a long war followed by a new Cold War. Moscow is now adapting its short-term war aims to suit its available forces which is why the next campaign should be seen as a distinct war in what will become an iterative series of wars. The Western Allies must now decide what their war aims and establish policy and strategy to that end. NATO, a defensive alliance, must thus define a concept of winning. That is the lesson from the Second Russo-Ukraine War and the coming Third Russo-Ukraine War.

Putin won the First Russo-Ukraine War in 2014 when he successfully seized Crimea and much of the Donbas region. Putin was defeated in the Second Russo-Ukraine War and his attempt to seize Kyiv. He is now about to launch the Third Russo-Ukraine War in the Donbas Region. However, the ends, ways and means of both his Ukraine strategy, and his wider aim to roll back NATO enlargement, do not as yet add up. Therefore, the NATO Allies are faced with a choice. They can either seek to defeat the Russian Army now by actively supporting Ukraine to destroy the ‘reconstitution sites’ the Russians have set up, but that will take direct NATO military action.  Or, NATO can help Ukraine resist the coming Russian offensive by helping them to fight the Russian Army to a stalemate. The latter option will leave a lot of south and east Ukraine in Russian hands, but also buy some time for both the European Allies and Ukraine to reconstitute credible deterrence and thus forestall a Fourth Russo-Ukraine War in the future. There is another alternative; the Allies can allow the Ukrainians to be defeated, which would lay the ground for Putin at some point to launch the First Russo-NATO.

Russia’s fluid war aims

If Moscow was acting logically it would wait for the land to dry out and the reservists, foreign fighters and mercenaries they have mobilised in the wake of their defeat to be properly trained and equipped. Then Russian forces would be well-placed to do what they have historically done best, grind down smaller more agile enemies through the meat-grinding application of mass and attrition. If Moscow was acting logically it would not have started these wars in the first place. It would appear Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who is a fanatical supporter of the war, has more influence over Putin these days than his generals. And, if President Putin really does want to declare victory by May 9^th then he simply cannot wait that long. 

The stated aim now is to ‘protect’ the people of Donetsk and Luhansk against Ukrainian ‘Nazis’. The military-strategic aims would thus appear to be threefold. First, the encirclement and destruction of the Ukrainian forces in the Joint Force Operating Area (in a box on the map at the head of this article between Kharkiv, Poltava, Dnipro and Kramatorsk.  Second, to secure the axis Kharkiv, Izium, Donetsk. Third, secure the land bridge between Russia’s Zone of Occupation in the East and Crimea. Russia’s decision not to adopt general mobilisation would suggest that capturing Odesa and securing a land bridge to Transnistria and Moldova is no longer a Russian objective for this campaign season. Moscow’s objective of denying Ukraine all and any access to the Black Sea has been further dented by the destruction of the guided missile cruiser Moskva. 

Putin’s dumb war 2.0

In President Putin’s mind he is already fighting World War Three. That might seem a strange assertion given that despite fourteen years of modernisation the Russian Army seems only able to undertake limited manoeuvre operations en masse close to Russia’s borders using dumb air power and even dumber land power. Operational planning, tactics and logistics during Russia’s failed war 2.0 was appalling, the combat power of Russian spearhead formations unimpressive, and the casualties reflective of a poorly-trained, poorly-equipped and ill-disciplined force.  By using targeted, intelligent small unit actions on their own terrain, reinforced by portable anti-tank and anti-air weapons, the Ukrainians conducted a superb mobile defence with which the pinned, clunking Russian formations simply could not cope. Critically, the Russians failed to destroy Ukrainian command centres, let alone decapitate the political state, and could not even gain air supremacy over Ukraine. Russian forces were also constantly surprised by Ukraine’s clever use of drones and its exploitation of tactical intelligence.

This profound failure begs several important questions. Why did Putin launch a military campaign in Ukraine when the land was so wet it was unpassable for all but the lightest of forces? Why did advanced airborne forces (VVD) have such poor force protection and why were they used in such a low-level dispersed infantry role? Where was the Russian Air Force? Above all, why did Russian commanders launch a multi-direction campaign ordered to seize ten Ukrainian districts when they must have known lacked the force, the command chain, intelligence and secure communications, or even doctrine to conduct such a complex deep joint operation? If the Russian force deployed during the first war had come up against NATO forces it would almost have certainly been totally destroyed by H plus 48.  

The Third Russo-Ukrainian War

The Third Russo-Ukrainian War is likely to be run by a Stavka that Marshals Zhukov and Konev would recognise, albeit with new operational staff, a more competent and less complicated plan operational plan, and with only a fraction of the available manpower of a World War Two Russian Army Front. Proval blitskriga revisited, albeit without the blitskriga?  Crucially, the Russians have now shortened their lines of supply and re-supply to prevent the chronic logistics failure that took place in the recent war.

The Americans believe the Russians still have about 80% of the combat power that was available to them on February 23^rd, just prior to the start of 2.0 when they had 190,000 personnel massed on Ukraine’s borders with Belarus and Russia. There are some 40% of Ukraine’s Regular Army in the Joint Force Operating Area facing Donetsk and Luhansk. Many of them are in fixed defensive positions that have been constructed since 2014 to contain Russian-backed separatists.  The Third Russo-Ukrainian War will seek to destroy the Ukrainian forces facing the Russia Army and will be very different to the assault on Kyiv, and in some respects could be even dumber. The Russians appear to have used up a lot of their precision guided munitions, whilst advanced systems, such as the Iskander short-range tactical missile and the Kinzhal hypersonic missile seem fewer in number than expected.  It seems the new Russian Army is still only capable of fighting in the old Russian manner.

The Russians will learn what they can from their many mistakes, but for the next three weeks at least their forces will be vulnerable to a pre-emptive strike as they concentrate for 3.0. The new Russian commander, General Alexandr Dvornikov, conducted a brutal campaign on civilians in Syria. Dvornikov is vulnerable in part because he still has six Combined Arms Army headquarters to integrate even as he builds up his forces for the coming offensive.   That is why he is trying to centralise all Russian forces under his command. There was evident friction between the commanders of the Western, Central and Southern Military Districts during 2.0. Dvornikov is also likely to offset the loss of land combat power and manoeuvre by massively increasing the use of Russian air, missile and artillery attacks on fixed Ukrainian positions. Whilst Russian airpower possibly lost some 10% of its capability during 2.0 it still has some 1000 combat-capable aircraft, including some 97 of the modernised 4^th/5^th generation hybrid Su-35S Flanker M, whilst event at the outset of the war Ukraine only had some 124 combat aircraft organised around 36 ageing MiG-29 Fulcrum.

Dvornikov will also pose the Ukrainians a profound dilemma. Do they seek to form a striking force and try to inflict a further humiliating defeat on the Russian Army, or do they try to recover territory. Given the correlation of forces the Ukrainians are unlikely to achieve both objectives. To secure either option the Ukrainians urgently need far more long-range missile and artillery capability. Thereafter, the Ukrainian Armed Forces will need training and equipping with far more advanced Western systems such as Leopard 2s (Germany?)

NATO v Russia

NATO must now answer a profound and pressing question: what must the Alliance do going forward if it is to successfully deter Putin? Putin has chosen a confrontational course of action with the Alliance. He is unlikely to stop because in his mind if he successfully establishes a new iron curtain along the line Kaliningrad, Belarus, Ukraine, Black Sea he will go down in Russian history as Vladimir the Great.

As for President Putin the First, Second and Third Russo-Ukraine Wars are all wars of his choosing. He did not have to start them. There is no reason to believe that this man will not continue to make bad choices for his country, for Europe, and for the wider world. Therefore, it is vital that the Alliance not only help Ukraine resist the coming onslaught, and in time regain its sovereignty, but also deter Putin from launching the most dangerous war of all – the First Russo-NATO War. The only way for NATO to deter him will be to convince Putin he cannot win and to do that the Alliance needs to plan and act…and now!

Julian Lindley-French

 

Ukraine: What next?

“So long as Russian forces are illegally occupying Ukrainian territory any weapons the West provides to assist in our legitimate defence are by definition defensive”

Dmitro Kuleba, Foreign Minister of Ukraine

April 3^rd, 2022

Sitrep April 5th

Russia will soon launch a renewed spring land offensive in Ukraine. Russia’s military aims would now appear to be threefold.  First, to destroy or wear down the main body of Ukrainian regular forces in the Joint Force Operating Area and expand their control over the whole of the Donbas, including the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Second, to secure the land bridge between Russian controlled Ukraine in the east and Crimea, Moldova and Transnistria. Third, to deny Ukraine all and any access to the Black Sea by taking the port of Odesa. If Russia succeeds the implications for both Ukraine and the Black Sea Region will be profound.  

Russian forces are re-positioning, re-organising and re-suppling in their Western, Central and Southern Military Districts during an enforced operational pause following the failure of phase one and the conquest of Kyiv.  Russian forces have been forced to make such a choice because given the force ratios they generated initially they were highly unlikely to have seized Kyiv and much of the rest of Ukraine east of the Dnepr River, and successfully occupy it thereafter, unless Ukrainian forces had collapsed. They did not, putting up stout, clever and carefully-tailored resistance reinforced by advanced light Western weapons systems.

What specific ends does Russia now seek? In my LINDLEY-FRENCH ANALYSIS of December 20^th, 2021, I stated that given the forces deployed and the balance Russia will still need to strike between risks, costs and benefits seizure of Ukraine’s entire coastline from Donetsk to Moldova would seem the likely objective. If successful, the campaign would leave a rump Ukraine dependent on the rest of Europe and thus Europe's problem, minimize risk of direct operational contact during with NATO forces, and be close enough to Russia to ensure its much degraded echelons can prevail.  If achieved, Russia would establish another buffer zone between Russia and NATO forces, increase the implied threat to the Baltic States, and further extend Russia's sphere of influence into the wider Black Sea Region. With the continuing attacks on Mariupol and the opening of an offensive against Odesa that plan is now beginning to unfold.

Cease-fire or more fire?

It would also appear Russia has abandoned any pretense to seek an early political settlement. The discovery of tortured and murdered civilians in Bucha, Irpin and Hostomel makes it hard to imagine that any ceasefire, let alone an interim political settlement, can now be agreed between Russia and Ukraine. Thus, if the Russian political aim is to establish a negotiating position on the ground then such war crimes are not only disgusting, they are self-defeating.  Naturally, Moscow denies any involvement in the murder of civilians, but satellite imagery provided by Maxar, together with video footage obtained by the New York Times, clearly shows that 11 of the bodies in Bucha were of people killed in situ between March 9^th and 11^th when the town was under Russian control.

The gap between Russian campaign objectives and campaign performance continues to remain wide meaning the war could increasingly become a bloody stalemate unless there is a decisive external intervention. Russian targeting has been appalling, as has the organisation, replenishment and thus the utility and agility of much of the Russian force.  What reinforcements Moscow has brought, such a 1500 strong force from Georgia, is unlikely to make much difference to their fighting power. They have also merged and re-organised Battalion Tactical Groups to offset losses, albeit at the expense of both the experience and combat power of their once feared ‘BTGs’. Russia’s elite airborne and armoured formations have suffered particularly heavy losses, whilst Russian infantry has shown that it is not at all well-trained, particularly for operations in urban environments, which is why they have resorted to indiscriminate missile and artillery attacks. Russian forces had clearly not planned for such significant losses of armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs) and air assets, which has thrown them on the defensive.

The Russians also failed to plan for carefully targeted and well-executed Ukrainian attacks on their rear echelons, or the ability of Ukrainians to use drones to gain some semblance of local air superiority. The Ukrainians have also critically and cleverly exploited the weaknesses of Russian infantry, their poor training and low morale. However, the Ukrainians have also suffered losses and urgently need to reinforce their own forces and replenish their arsenals with advanced Western equipment, both light and heavy.  If not, they could be slowly worn down, however well they fight.  What are the options open to Ukraine’s Western partners?

Options, pros and cons

Options depend on aims and aims depend on ambition, capability and capacity. Prior to the discovery of war crimes the West seemed content to simply keep the Ukrainians in the fight so that they could negotiate a ceasefire from at least some position of strength. Now, it will be extremely hard for the Ukrainians to negotiate with the Russians. What other options are there?

Sanctions: On Wednesday, EU ambassadors will meet to discuss imposing tougher sanctions on Russia.  These are likely to include tougher sanctions against targeted individuals, as well as more restrictions on exports to Russia, together with a ban on Russian ships using EU ports. Interestingly, the EU also now seems willing to discuss sanctions on importing Russian coal, oil and gas. Berlin has even indicated it could stop importing Russian oil and gas in the wake of the atrocities. Enrico Letta, the former Italian prime minister and a key player in supporting Prime Minister Mario Draghi and the national unity government, even called for a complete oil and gas embargo. However, there are also signs of divisions within the EU and remains to be seen if the tough rhetoric is more than that. Russia is also successfully circumventing many of the existing sanctions, with the help of China and others. Sanctions also take time and given that the living standards of the Russian people has already declined some 30% since 2013, with no signs of the regime crumbling, sanctions alone are unlikely to force Russia to change direction. 

Lethal Aid: The provision of Western lethal aid to Ukraine, is being co-ordinated to a significant degree by the British who on March 31^st hosted the Second International Donor Conference in London. Britain’s own efforts are a case in point of what is needed if the strategic aim is to move from keeping Ukraine in the fight to some form of Ukrainian ‘victory’. Since 2014, Britain has trained over 20,000 Ukrainian personnel and has provided extensive lethal aid to Ukraine, including over 4,000 NLAWs and Javelin anti-tank systems, and is in the process of sending its latest Starstreak air defence systems, as well as 6,000 more anti-tank high explosive missiles, as well as body armour, helmets, boots, ration packs, rangefinders and communications equipment. Vital though such aid has been it is not enough to help Ukraine prevail given the nature of the current and coming fight. That is why Britain, along with its 35 partners, are actively considering sending tanks, artillery and anti-ship missile systems to counter the threat posed by Russian forces in the east and south, including the Russian Black Seas Fleet and additional amphibious units which are now threatening Odesa. More lethal aid in conjunction with tougher sanctions would increase the pressure on the Kremlin without putting Western forces in direct conflict with Russian forces. Could sanctions and the level of lethal aid envisaged tip the balance in the coming fight? Unlikely. 

No Fly Zone: Some are proposing a Western or NATO No Fly Zone which would afford Ukrainian forces a much higher level of force protection against Russian air and missile power. However, to be effective an ‘NFZ’ must be imposed both over the fight and the lines of supply and re-supply. Much of the next phase of the Russian campaign will take place close to the Russian border and air defence hubs. Therefore, if NATO, for example, were to try and enforce such a Zone, it would be less a No Fly Zone and more a major air campaign that would inevitably lead to direct contact and conflict between NATO air forces and the Russian Air Force, with all the dangerous capacity for rapid escalation such a conflict would entail. Most European air forces also simply lack the capability to undertake such a deployed forward air campaign over hostile air space, and the one or two that do, such as Britain’s Royal Air Force, lack the capacity to sustain it. Therefore, any such campaign would need to be overwhelmingly American.  It would also offer Putin the opportunity to claim that he was right all along: NATO is not a defensive alliance and poses an existential threat to Russia. Therefore, whilst a No Fly Zone would undoubtedly improve the tactical position of Ukrainian forces it would come with a host of strategic risks.

Direct Allied action: The most unlikely scenario is that NATO would move to act directly in support of Ukrainian forces across the full bandwidth of the conflict. It is very hard to see any such proposal making it to the North Atlantic Council, let alone being approved. If such a decision were ever to be approved what options would be open to SACEUR. One such option could be to use American and British nuclear submarines to launch distant cruise missile strikes from the Eastern Mediterranean against Russian naval and amphibious forces threatening Odesa.  Possible, but highly unlikely given current circumstances and Alliance politics. 

What other options exists? As I proposed in a previous Analysis NATO, or more precisely the Americans and the British, could increase further their intelligence support for the Ukrainians. Another option could be to impose a blockade of the Black Sea by enforcing the Montreux Convention, either by closing the Bosporus and the Dardanelles, or via a distant Alliance blockade in the Mediterranean. Bottling up Russian naval forces in the Black Sea would have significant consequences for Russian naval operations elsewhere, not least in the Baltic Sea, North Atlantic, Arctic and the Pacific.  Other options include increasing cyber and more electronic warfare support for the Ukrainians, both offensive and counter-measures.

What it likely to be agreed to by Western nations are a mix of increased stand-off short-of-direct engagement measures to support the Ukrainians, including marginally tougher sanctions, some more lethal aid, and greater covert combat support, but no direct confrontation with Russian forces in or near Ukraine unless they step over onto Alliance territory.  Paradoxically, such a confrontation might only be triggered if Russia were to use chemical, biological or even tactical nuclear weapons if, for example, its efforts to seize Odesa failed and thus to cut Ukraine off completely from the sea. Denying Odesa to Ukraine rather than taking the port could be just as attractive to Russia.

Or, it might have the opposite effect. Any such action would certainly split the Alliance. Why not more? There is the obvious fear in Europe of another major European war and with it the threat of potential nuclear annihilation. There is also another reason. In the event of some form of political settlement Ukraine wants security guarantees from its Western partners that most are simply not willing to give.  The Ukrainians are also only likely to want to work with the Americans, British, Poles and a few others. The French and the Germans are seen by Kyiv as appeasers of Putin at best, collaborators at worst.

The Russian Order of Battle, April 4th

 The current Order of Battle of Russian Forces in Ukraine reveals not only the state of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but also its sheer scale of the campaign, and the strain it is imposing on Russian forces and their commanders are under, with so many killed, sacked or arrested (with thanks to Dr R.D. Hooker Jr. and the Institute for the Study of War). It also shows how far and wide the Russian General Staff have had to trawl to maintain any scale of force and its increasingly disparate and, therefore, potentially ill-disciplined nature. What it also reveals is that the coming Russian ‘offensive’ will be as much defensive as offensive, designed to consolidate existing limited gains in the east and south of Ukraine. This is because not only has the Russian Army lost much of its manoeuvre capability, it has lost almost all of its capacity to conduct intelligent manoeuvre en masse. Just look carefully from where the forces are drawn. Perhaps the most telling sign of force stress is the presence in Ukraine of 11 Corps, the Kaliningrad garrison. The next two months will also see Ukraine at its muddiest.

It is precisely for these reasons Russia has switched from conquest to confrontation and even terrorism. They have the forces for it. In addition to the mercenaries of The Wagner Group and the Chechen fighters of the Kadyrovtsy force, there are also believed to be African, Arab, Azeri, South Ossetian and Libyan mercenaries fighting alongside Russian forces.

 Russia (Commander-in-Chief: President Vladimir Putin)

o       Ministry of Defence (General of the Army Sergey Shoygu)

§     Russian General Staff

§     Russian Armed Forces (General of the Army Valery Gerasimov)

§     Russian Ground Forces (General of the Army Oleg Salyukov)

§     1st Guards Tank Army (Lieutenant General Sergey Aleksandrovich Kisel [dismissed]; unnamed deputy commander [dismissed])

§     2nd Guards Motor Rifle Division (Colonel (Guards) Sergey Viktorovich Medvedev)

§     4th Guards Tank Division (Colonel Yevgeny Nikolayevich Zhuravlyov)

§     47th Guards Tank Division

§     27th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade (Colonel Sergey Igorevich Safonov)

§     96th Reconnaissance Brigade (Colonel Valery Vdovichenko)

§     2nd Guards Combined Arms Army (Major General Vyacheslav Nikolaevich Gurov)

§     15th Motor Rifle Brigade (Lieutenant Colonel Andrei Sergeevich Marushkin)

§     21st Guards Motor Rifle Brigade

§     30th Motor Rifle Brigade

§     5th Combined Arms Army (Major General Aleksey Podivilov)

§     57th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade

§     127th Motor Rifle Division

§     6th Combined Arms Army (Lieutenant General Vladislav Nikolayevich Yershov [dismissed & arrested])

§     25th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade (Colonel Andrei Nikolaevich Arkhipov)

§     138th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade (Colonel Sergei Maksimov)

§     8th Guards Combined Arms Army (Lieutenant General Andrey Nikolayevich Mordvichev)

§     20th Guards Motor Rifle Division (Colonel Aleksei Gorobets)

§     150th Motor Rifle Division (Major General Oleg Mityaev †)

§     20th Guards Combined Arms Army (Lieutenant General Andrey Sergeevich Ivanaev)

§     3rd Motor Rifle Division

§     144th Guards Motor Rifle Division

§     448th Rocket Brigade

§     29th Combined Arms Army (Major General Andrei Borisovich Kolesnikov †)

§     36th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade (Lieutenant Colonel (Guards) Andrei Vladimirovich Voronkov)

§     200th Artillery Brigade

§     35th Combined Arms Army (Lieutenant General Aleksandr Semyonovich Sanchik, Deputy Commander Major General Sergei Nyrkov [wounded, not returning to active duty])

§     38th Motor Rifle Brigade

§     64th Motor Rifle Brigade

§     69th Covering Brigade

§     107th Rocket Brigade

§     165th Artillery Brigade 

§     36th Combined Arms Army (Lieutenant General Valery Solodchuk, Deputy Commander Major General Andrei Anatolyevich Seritskiy, seriously wounded)

§     5th Guards Tank Brigade (Colonel (Guards) Andrei Viktorovich Kondrov)

§     37th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade (Colonel Yuri Medvedev †)

§     103rd Rocket Brigade

§     41st Combined Arms Army (Lieutenant General Sergey Ryzhkov, Deputy Commander Major General Andrey Sukhovetsky †)

§     35th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade (Major General Vitaly Gerasimov †)

§     55th Mountain Motorized Rifle Brigade

§     74th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade (Lieutenant Colonel Pavel Alekseyevich Yershov)

§     120th Artillery Brigade

§     119th Missile Brigade

§     90th Guards Tank Division (Colonel Ramil Rakhmatulovich Ibatullin)

§     49th Combined Arms Army (Lieutenant General Yakov Vladimirovich Rezantsev †)

§     34th Motor Rifle Brigade (Mountain)

§     205th Motor Rifle Brigade (Lt. Colonel Eduard Yuryevich Shandura)

§     227th Artillery Brigade (Colonel Aleksei Viktorovich Repin)

§     90th Anti-Aircraft Rocket Brigade

§     66th Headquarters Brigade

§     32nd Engineer-Sapper Regiment

§     58th Combined Arms Army (Lieutenant General Mikhail Stepanovich Zusko [dismissed and arrested])

§     19th Motor Rifle Division (Colonel Dmitri Ivanovich Uskov)

§     42nd Guards Motor Rifle Division

§     136th Guards Motor Rifle Brigade (Colonel Roman Geradotovich Demurchiev)

§     291th Artillery Brigade (Lieutenant Colonel Aleksandr Mikhailovich Tikhonov)

§     11th Army Corps (Major General Andrey Ruzinsky)

§     18th Guards Motor Rifle Division

§     14th Army Corps (Lieutenant General Dmitry Vladimirovich Krayev)

§     200th Motor Rifle Brigade (Colonel Denis Yuryevich Kurilo †)

§     22nd Army Corps (Major General Denis Lyamin)

§     126th Guards Coastal Defense Brigade (Colonel Sergey Storozhenko)

§     127th Reconnaissance Brigade

§     12th Guards Engineering Brigade (Central Military District, Colonel Sergei Porokhnya †)

§     45th Guards Engineering Brigade (Western Military District, Colonel Nikolai Ovcharenko †)

§     439th Guards Reactive Artillery Brigade (Southern Military District)

§     Special Operation Forces (SSO) (Major General Valery Flyustikov)

§     Russian Navy (Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov)

§     Black Sea Fleet (Admiral Igor Osipov, Deputy Commander First Rank Captain Andrei Paliy †)

§     Moskva

§     Vasily Bykov

§     Northern Fleet (Admiral Aleksandr Moiseyev)

§     Russian Coastal Troops

§     Russian Naval Infantry (Lieutenant General Alexander Kolpachenko)

§     40th Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet, Colonel Dmitri Ivanovich Petukh)

§     61st Naval Infantry Brigade (Northern Fleet, Colonel Kirill Nikolaevich Nikulin)

§     155th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade (Pacific Fleet)

§     336th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade (Baltic Fleet, Colonel (Guards) Igor N. Kalmykov)

§     810th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade (Black Sea Fleet, Colonel Aleksei Nikolaevich Sharov †, Deputy Commander Colonel Aleksei Berngard)

§     177th Naval Infantry Regiment (Caspian Flotilla)

§     Russian Aerospace Forces (General of the Army Sergey Surovikin)

§     Russian Air Force (Lieutenant General Sergey Dronov)

§     4th Air and Air Defence Forces Army (Lieutenant General Nikolai Vasilyevich Gostev)

§     1st Guards Composite Aviation Division

§     6th Air and Air Defence Forces Army (Major General Oleg Makovetskiy)

§     105th Guards Mixed Aviation Division (Colonel Sergei Prokofyev)

§     11th Air and Air Defence Forces Army (Lieutenant General Vladimir Kravchenko)

§     303rd Composite Aviation Division

§     14th Air and Air Defence Forces Army (Major General Vladimir Sergeyevich Melnikov)

§     41st Air Defence Division

§     Russian Airborne Forces (Colonel General Andrey Serdyukov)

§     7th Guards Mountain Air Assault Division

§     76th Guards Air Assault Division (Major General Alexey Naumets)

§     98th Guards Airborne Division (Guards Colonel Viktor Igoryevich Gunaza [dismissed] by end of March)

§     106th Guards Airborne Division (Guards Colonel Vladimir Vyacheslavovich Selivyorstov)

§     45th Guards Spetsnaz Brigade (Colonel Vadim Pankov)

§     11th Guards Air Assault Brigade (Deputy Commander Lt. Col. Denis Viktorovich Glebov †)

§     31st Guards Air Assault Brigade

§     83rd Guards Air Assault Brigade (Guards Colonel Aleksandr Kornev, Deputy Commander Lt. Col. Vitaliy Nikolaevich Slabtsov †)

§     GRU (Admiral Igor Kostyukov)

§     2nd Spetsnaz Brigade (Colonel Konstantin Bushuev)

§     3rd Guards Spetsnaz Brigade (Colonel Albert Ibragimovich Omarov)

§     10th Spetsnaz Brigade

§     22nd Guards Spetsnaz Brigade

§     24th Spetsnaz Brigade

o       Security Council

§     Russian National Guard (General of the Army Viktor Zolotov; Deputy Commander Lieutenant General Roman Gavrilov [dismissed and arrested])

§     604th Special Purpose Center (Colonel Alexey Stromakov)

§     Kadyrovtsy (Head: Ramzan Kadyrov)

§     OMON

§     SOBR

o       Ministry of Internal Affairs (Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev)

§     Police of Russia^[15]

o       Federal Security Service (General of the Army Alexander Bortnikov)

§     Border Service of the Federal Security Service

o       Foreign Intelligence Service (Director: Sergey Naryshkin)

o       Russian Irregular forces

§     Union of Donbas Volunteers

o       Mercenaries

§     Wagner Group (Leader: Lieutenant Colonel Dmitry Utkin)

§     Arab and African mercenaries

§     South Ossetian and Abkhazian mercenaries

§     Serb, Azeri and Libyan mercenaries

·                      Donetsk People's Republic (Supreme C-in-C: Denis Pushilin)

o       Donetsk People's Militia (Major General Denis Sinenkov)

§     Sparta Battalion (Colonel Vladimir Zhoga †)

§     100th Brigade

§     Mariupol-Khingan Naval Infantry

·                      Luhansk People's Republic (Supreme C-in-C: Leonid Pasechnik)

o       Luhansk People's Militia (Colonel Yan Leshchenko)

Assessment

There is another factor that should be considered looking at the Russian Order of Battle: just how long can Russia maintain this level of operations? Two weeks ago, Lieutenant-General (Ret.) Ben Hodges and I wrote a piece entitled Kulminatsionny Moment? We argued that the Russian Army was at the limit of its offensive potential. Whilst the Russian General Staff is trying to re-organise to maintain some level of offensive momentum, the conventional combat power available to it is clearly diminishing. In our book, Future War and the Defence of Europe, we also suggest that Russia could cause mayhem near its borders for thirty days and then begin to run out of steam. To be honest, we did not realise it would be so close to Russia’s borders, that much of the mayhem would be self-inflicted and that it would run out of steam and much else so quickly.

Which leads to me to yet another paradox of the Russian campaign in Ukraine. Moscow is clearly now preparing its people for a longer war with an army clearly unable and not particularly willing to fight it.   Some reports suggest that President Putin wants to declare victory by the May 9^th Victory Day commemorations. However, given the changing nature of the conflict if he is ever to declare ‘victory’ it will probably need to be closer to the 80^th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Stalingrad on August 2^nd  and only after many more conscripts have been killed and wounded. What happened in Stalingrad was not conquest by either side, but annihilation of a people and a city and on the Soviet side it was carried out in the name of de-Nazification.

Therefore, if the West wants to make a real difference it will at the very least need to demonstrate a determination to prevent Russia from claiming victory, and if possible help Ukraine win. The question then is what would victory look like for Ukraine and how could the West best help achieve it? Short of all-out NATO intervention it is very unlikely that Russian forces can be forced out of their pre-February 24^th positions, let alone back to the pre-2014 position. The closer Russian forces are to their own border the more difficult they will be to dislodge from a battlespace they have had eight years to prepare.

The most that can be reasonably expected given the correlation of forces is a return to pre-February 24^th positions, the blocking of a secure land bridge between Russia, Crimea and Moldova and Transnistria, the holding of Mariupol and the denial of Odesa, as well as the preservation of the bulk of Ukraine’s regular forces. To be blunt, it is hard to see this war ending in any peace agreement anytime soon. It is going to be a long haul. Much more likely is some form of frozen conflict akin to the 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement after which the preservation of Ukraine’s fighting power will be crucial. 

Putin is conducting an incompetent, cack-handed and brutal war in Ukraine, but then again history would suggest that is precisely the Russian way of war, now made worse by the forever stench of terrible war crimes.

Julian Lindley-French