Hard Yards, Hard Men and Hard Choices

July 27^th, 2022

                               Captain Darling: Look, this is the amount of land we've recaptured since yesterday.

               General Melchett: Oh, excellent. Um, what is the actual scale of this map, Darling? –

               Captain Darling: Um, one-to-one, sir.

                 General Melchett: Come again?

Captain Darling: Er, the map is actually life-size, sir. It's superbly detailed. Look, there's a little worm.

General Melchett: Oh, yes. So the actual amount of land retaken is?

Captain Darling: Excuse me, sir. Seventeen square feet, sir.

General Melchett: Excellent.

Blackadder Goes Forth

Situation on the ground

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Ben Hodges is correct. The Russian Army has reached culminating point.  It is no longer capable of mounting large scale offensives which is why President Putin has ordered an ‘operational pause’. At the same time, Ukrainian forces is incapable of inflicting a decisive defeat on Russian forces.  Therefore, unless the West collectively is prepared to go beyond simply delivering some advanced weapons systems to the Ukrainians it is unlikely Kyiv will be able to recover the 25% of its territory it has already lost to the Russians.  The direct involvement of Western forces is extremely unlikely, and even the indirect involvement through the imposition of a no fly zone is also very unlikely.

Richard Moore, Head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, confirmed the sorry state of Russia’s armed forces at a speech to the Aspen Security Conference during which he said the Russian Army is exhausted, although London remains bullish about the possibility of further Ukrainian gains if properly supported.  London also estimates that some 15,000 Russian troops have been killed in action since February 24^th, roughly the same number lost during Moscow’s disastrous campaign in Afghanistan between 1979 and 1988. However, whilst most democracies struggle to balance time, space and casualties in a war, the Russian way of war is to partly offset incompetence by out-lasting an enemy by trading time and space for casualties. Hence the high death toll each hard yard (seventeen square feet) is exacting on both sides. The US intelligence community believes that Putin remains committed to a long war and his ambitions remain the seizure of much of eastern and southern Ukraine, control over all of Ukraine’s grain producing regions to the west of the River Dnipro. From north to south these are the Cherniv, Sumy, Poltova, Kharkiv, fifty percent or so of Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odessa in addition to Donetsk and Luhansk.  

The Ukrainians are fighting as clever as they can, by maintaining a significant counter-attack on Kherson in the south west of the strategically-critical River Dnipro and Russian forces in the area are at increasing risk of destruction, partly due to new long-range weapons systems, such as HIMARS and Harpoon.  However, Ukrainian forces have also paid a grievous price blocking repeated Russian attacks and for President Putin the Ukraine War is the culmination of his life work and must be seen as an extended campaign, not a battle. President Putin has to given up on his ambitions of re-creating Novorossiya. Henceforth, Russia will resort to grinding its way forward over space and time.

President Putin also faces several dilemmas. In Ukraine, Russian commanders face a difficult choice between attempting to maintain the stuttering offensive in the Donbas or defending the territory they have seized in the south and west which is also subject to increased partisan activity.  This explains the relatively small-scale of the Russian offensive along the Lyschansk-Bakhmut-Donetsk axis. Putin also has to decide what level of mobilisation he is prepared to resort to given the weaknesses from which the Russian Army are suffering, particularly manpower. It may be that Moscow is no longer able to sustain the Russian way of war without over time facing a mounting threat to the survival of the regime. Russia would need at least 500,000 reasonably-capable troops to secure Moscow’s stated war aims which is unlikely whilst the advanced age and poor quality of many of those being recruited lends further credence to Moore’s thesis. A leaked closed poll last week conducted by the Kremlin suggested some 33% of Russians want an immediate halt to the war. The likely level of discontent is probably higher, although this is unlikely to lead to any major policy change in Moscow in the short term and Putin’s approval ratings are still robust.   

Geopolitical appreciation

The geopolitical backdrop to the Ukraine War has not been given sufficient attention. Last week at a meeting in Tehran Putin met with President Erdogan of Turkey (henceforth, apparently, to be known as Turkiye) and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini.  Putin’s immediate purpose was to seduce Turkey into an anti-Western grouping and thus ease Ankara’s support for Kyiv. Over the medium-term Putin would like to join with Iran and Turkey to divide up both the Black Sea Region and the Caspian Sea Region into three spheres of respective influence.

If Putin could engineer such a grouping that had more political substance than a photo op it would not only mean trouble for NATO and the West.  During the Tehran meeting Erdogan threatened to ‘freeze’ the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO. It seems ‘Turkiye’ is open to the highest bidder.  It would also give further impetus to Putin’s real war aims in Ukraine which are threefold: the re-establishment of Novorossiya; control of the Ukrainian bread-basket west of the River Dnipro; and the political subjugation of Kyiv. Novorossiya looms large in Putin’s Peter the Great fantasies of a greater Russia. In fact it was Catherine the Great who in 1764 conquered the lands of what is now southern Ukraine from the Donbas to the Moldovan border following the defeat of the Crimean Khanate and the fading Ottoman Empire.

On Friday, Russia and Ukraine signed a UN-brokered deal in Istanbul to enable Kyiv to resume grain exports from blockaded Ukrainian ports. The deal should not be seen as a sign that Russia is moderating its position, rather than Moscow demonstrating that it is Russia which decides when Ukraine can export food vital to the people of the developing world, and when not.  Russia is the largest exporter of grain in the world controlling some 18% of the market.  If Russia can control Ukrainian grain exports it would command some 25.4% of the world market.  Given the importance of this grain to many poorer countries control of Ukrainian grain has for Russia a geopolitical value that far outweighs any market value.

The rest of Europe? Last month Russia closed the Nordstream 1 gas pipeline again for further ‘maintenance’ and it is still only operating at 40% capacity. The message to Berlin, the only European capital that matters to Moscow that Russia can close down much of the German economy and much of the rest of Europe. The real price of the folly of Merkel’s Ostpolitik is only now becoming truly apparent. The real struggle will begin in November as temperatures fall and Berlin has to decide which is more important – powering industry or heating homes.  For example, the main BASF plant at Ludwigshafen burns half as much gas as Denmark each day. Given such pressures Putin does not believe that Germany, or indeed, France are deeply committed to Ukraine’s struggle or that much of Western Europe’s population would be willing to endure gas rationing for the sake of Ukraine. Evidence suggests he may be right.  Germany’s support for Ukraine has been at best very lukewarm whilst France’s call for Russia not be ‘humiliated’ in Ukraine is in fact a metaphor for appeasement.  Consequently, for all the wishful thinking in parts of Western media Putin believes time is on his side and that he will not need to begin negotiations until mid-2023 at the earliest, when the regional-strategic situation will tilt in his favour.

Conclusion and assessment

The West faces a difficult dilemma if the fragile coalition that has supported Ukraine since February 24th is to survive the winter.  Indeed, if there is a West it needs to collectively decide what would hurt Russia without blowing the coalition apart. The US decision to supply US supply F-16s to Poland so that Warsaw can transfer Mig-29s to Ukraine is an important step forward and is to be welcomed if confirmed. To re-state, supplying advanced weapons systems is vital for enabling Kyiv to stay in the fight. However, there are limits to how much can be supplied and what effect they will have, not least due to the degrading of weapon stocks vital to Allied forces.

What would further hurt Russia? At the very least, the West must reinforce its unity of purpose and effort and significantly increase the costs to Russia for its actions. If the West is not going to engage directly in the war then in addition to arms shipments and force training far tougher sanctions will be needed, together with far more assertive diplomatic action.  Sanctions on electronic components are already preventing Russia from increasing the production of advanced weapons systems. Critically, the Chinese have not funded any new infrastructure projects in Russia for several months.  Not only is Beijing dealing with a pandemic-induced economic crisis but many Chinese businesses (and thus the Chinese state) seem concerned they will suffer from secondary sanctions introduced against Moscow.  For all the rhetoric about the Chinese-Russian strategic partnership it is the democratic world that makes China rich and powerful, not Russia. Current diplomatic efforts to convince African and Middle Eastern countries to condemn the invasion also need to be stepped up in conjunction with a strategy to ease the reliance of many of them on Russian and Ukrainian grain.  

Above all, if Western Europeans really are serious about their support for the Ukrainian people then their respective leaders will need to properly prepare Europe’s peoples for the coming hardships whilst their respective leaders ween their respective economies off Russian oil and gas supplies. If not, then the ‘most’ that can be expected is a kind of ‘frozen warflict’ in Ukraine which in time will lead to something not unlike the 38^th Parallel and the division of the two Koreas.  Such a division would suit Moscow as it is almost certain that Berlin and Paris would also over time first afford Russia de facto recognition of its conquests, and in time possibly de jure recognition.        

For those Europeans who talk endlessly about values and a values-based foreign policy it is thus a seminal moment.  In the face of Russia’s monumental breach of international law many who espouse such a creed seem dangerously close at times to tacitly accepting the Realpolitik of Russia’s actions even if they publicly condemn them. In which case, to quote The Who, meet the new boss, just like the old boss!

The quote from Blackadder Goes Forth was not meant as truculence, but rather to capture the essence of warfare when a military culminating point has been reached, but there is no political solution in sight. Ukraine could still win this war but the real question is not what President Zelensky might settle for, but just how much does the ‘West’ want Ukraine to win, and how far collectively ‘we’ are willing to go and suffer in support.

Julian Lindley-French

NATO’s Clint Eastwood Doctrine

 “I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being as this is a .44 magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?”

Clint Eastwood explains deterrence by denial

Abstract:

The new NATO Strategic Concept is clear, concise, and considered and does exactly what it sets out to do: communicate Allied seriousness about deterrence and defence. It has been published against the backdrop of a major war in Europe and like all such documents is a trade-off between what needs to be done and what can be afforded with transatlantic burden-sharing and European strategic responsibility central to its ethos. The Strategic Concept is one half of a two part strategic realignment of NATO and should ideally be read in conjunction with the NATO Military Strategy. Unfortunately, the Military Strategy is classified.  It adds much of the detail implicit in the Strategic Concept and the NATO 2030 Agenda. There are two critical future NATO deterrence and defence components; lessons for the near term from the Ukraine War and future force interoperability going forward and the balance between technology and manpower. What matters now is that the strategic momentum generated is maintained and the goals and missions both implicit and explicit in the Strategic Concept and the Military Strategy are realised by the European allies, for whom the Madrid Summit was a call to legitimate arms. If so, the NATO Madrid Summit will pass the Riga Test and the good citizens therein can sleep easy in their beds. Time will tell.

The Riga Test

July 5^th. That was the week that was! For many years I have had the distinct honour of attending the wonderful Riga Conference. Each year I set the Riga Test: can the good citizens of Riga sleep easier in their beds than last year.  In 2021, I had my concerns having predicted the war in Ukraine but worried by the continued ‘we only recognise as much threat’ as we can afford defence policies of many NATO European allies and the wilful ignoring of the Russian threat.  In the wake of last week’s NATO Madrid Summit I am somewhat more reassured, but there can be no complacency.

The NATO Deterrence Summit in Madrid was a much needed dose of Allied strategic realism because it committed the Alliance to re-generate a credible and relevant threat to use force against a strategic peer competitor if necessary, implied the will and future capability to do so, together with an understanding of the need for the demonstrable speed to act allied to a clear capacity to inflict punishment. Consequently, NATO’s traditional posture of deterrence by punishment is once again to be reinforced by ‘Go ahead. Make my day’ deterrence. The tragic and criminal slaughter of Ukrainian citizens by Russian forces means it is no longer acceptable to aspire merely to ‘rescue’ the citizens of Allied countries after some possibly 180 days of occupation. Now, the fight will be taken forward against any aggressor from the moment they set a foot on NATO soil. This is important because one of the many lessons of the Ukraine War is that if Russia ever did attack NATO territory it would be on a narrow front and designed to exploit a lack of strategic depth.

However, the devil is in the detail and the detail is quite devilish. NATO’s New Force Model is an act of deterrence in its own right but needs to be delivered and quickly.  The plan is that some 300,000 mainly European troops across the continent soon be placed on high alert (not high readiness) but it needs to be delivered. Finland and Sweden’s accession to the Alliance will extend NATO presence on both the northern and eastern flanks requiring a new concept of victory across a much expanded area of responsibility (AOR). Existing NATO forward deployed defences on the alliance’s eastern flank will be increased to the size of a brigade, which is about 3,000 to 5,000 troops in addition to local forces.

The 2022 NATO Strategic Concept

The centre-piece of the summit was the publication of the first NATO Strategic Concept since 2010. The 2022 Strategic Concept is deterrence and defence heavy and thus has the feel of strategic guidance which is what it is for. It also instructs the Alliance to realign core tasks with capabilities post-Afghanistan in a new age of geopolitical competition to which Europeans are finally awakening. To that end, Strategic Concept 2022 re-confirms NATO’s commitment to collective defence and a 360 degree approach built on three core tasks of deterrence and defence, crisis prevention and management, and co-operative security.  It also affirms the importance of resilience of the ‘home’ base.

The basis for future development is the NATO 2030 Agenda agreed at last year’s Brussels summit. The Agenda can be thus summarised; enough forces to deter, engage crises and build partnerships and enough European forces able to respond quickly to any crisis in and around the Euro-Atlantic Area. That is the sum of an agenda that includes deeper and faster political consultation, strengthened defence and deterrence, improved resilience, preservation of NATO’s technical edge, the upholding of the rules-based order, increased training and capacity-building, and the need to combat and adapt to climate change.  

The Strategic Concept also strikes all the right political chords.  NATO’s purpose and common values are all stressed, particularly on women and security. Reference is also made to further command and control reform and the need for digital transformation, with strong passages on cyber, and emerging and disruptive technologies.  The friction over increasing common funding and defence capacity building also seem to have been resolved, whilst it reaffirms the NATO remains a nuclear alliance that also remains committed to a nuclear-free world.

It is also not the first NATO Strategic Concept to be published against the backdrop of a war. In April 1999, the NATO Washington Summit also published a Strategic Concept against the backdrop of the Kosovo War. However, Strategic Concept 2022 bears some resemblance to MC3/5 “The Strategic Concept for the Defence of the North Atlantic Area” of December 1952, which took place against the backdrop of the Korean War. The 1952 Strategic Concept tried to square the same circle as Strategic Concept 2022 – the need to ease US military overstretch with increased European capabilities and capacities in the face of an economic crisis, a Russian aggressor in Europe, and a Chinese regional-strategic competitor. Both in 1952 and 2022 the elephant in the room concerned Germany and the role it would play in Allied defence.

Russia and its invasion of Ukraine pervades all sixteen pages of the Strategic Concept with a marked change of tone compared to the 2010 Strategic Concept which described Russia as a ‘strategic partner’, even though Russia had invaded Georgia two years prior in 2008.  The 2022 Strategic Concept is far less equivocal. “The Russian Federation’s war of aggression against Ukraine has shattered peace and gravely altered our security environment. Its brutal and unlawful invasion, repeated violations of international humanitarian law and heinous attacks and atrocities have caused unspeakable suffering and destruction.” China is now a “systemic challenge” and terrorism the “most direct asymmetric threat”. 

Will the rubber hit the road?

Can ambition and reality be aligned? The Military Strategy is centred on SACEUR’s Area of Responsibility (AOR) wide Strategic Plan (SASP) and the Concept for the Deterrence and Defence of the Euro-Atlantic Area (DDA).  There are two main pillars, the NATO warfighting cornerstone concept (NWCC) and the Deterrence Concept.  The New Force Model at the heart of the Strategic Concept is the consequence of the Military Strategy and it is there one finds the necessary detail. Specifically the call for the enhanced NATO Response Force of some 40,000 troops to be transformed into a future force of some 300,000 troops maintained at high alert, with 44,000 kept at high readiness. For the first time all rapid reaction forces under NATO command will be committed to a deterrence and defence role and all such forces will be consolidated within one command framework.  Whilst the new force will be held at 24 hours ‘Notice to Act’ the bulk of the NATO Force Structure will held at 15 days ‘Notice to Move’, which will be a marked improvement over the current structure in which some forces are 180 days’ notice to move. 

At American behest the new force will be mainly European with Allies on NATO’s Eastern and South-Eastern Flanks agreeing to expanded deployed battalions to brigades of between 3,000-5000 troops. For example, the British have two battlegroups deployed to Estonia and they have now committed to adding an additional battlegroup. Indeed, the UK will commit an extra 1000 troops and a carrier-strike group (???) to the defence of Estonia, the US will send an additional 3000 troops to the Baltic Sea Region, 2 more squadrons of F-35s will be stationed in the UK and two US Navy destroyers sent to Spain. The new Forward Defence strategy will also see heavy equipment pre-positioned near NATO borders. 

A force of that size and with the necessary level of fighting power would normally mean that with rotation there would always be a force of some 100,000 kept at high readiness, which will be extremely expensive for NATO European allies grappling with high inflation and post-COVID economies. A NATO standard brigade is normally between 3200 and 5500 strong. Given that both air and naval forces will also need to be included a land force of, say, 200,000 would need at least 50 to 60 European rapid reaction brigades together with all their supporting elements. At best, there are only 20 to 30 today. There are already concerns being expressed by some Allies.

That is precisely why Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the NATO Defence Investment Pledge of 2% GDP to be spent by each Ally on defence is now “more of a floor than a ceiling”. Several NATO European allies have now committed to increasing their respective defence budgets accordingly. Germany is leading the way (at last) with its commitment to markedly increase its defence budget which is vital given that the Bundeswehr will in future become the central pillar of NATO land deterrence on the eastern flank. The UK has also committed to spend at least 2.5% GDP on defence “this decade”, whilst the Netherlands has committed to a 5.4% real terms increase in defence expenditure over last year’s defence budget allied to spending 2% GDP on defence by 2024.

The sharing of NATO burdens

Whilst the Strategic Concept is mainly a consequence of Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine, the forthcoming US National Defense Strategy (NDS) is no less important.  For the first time the NDS places a premium on the support of allies and partners, particularly NATO. NDS 2022 also implies a greater role for allies going forward in assisting the US meet its strategic goals and challenges, particularly in and around the European theatre.  This is because China and the Indo-Pacific are afforded a higher priority than Russia and Europe in NDS 2022, even though Russia is described as an “acute threat”. There are also profound implications for the new NATO future force, in particular the challenge of maintaining interoperability in high-end conflicts with the US future force. The US future force will be built on three principles: “integrated deterrence” and credible combat power (including nuclear forces); effective campaigning in the grey zone; and “building enduring advantage” by exploiting new, emerging and disruptive technologies. NATO European forces?

For NATO the message from the Americans is clear: if the US security guarantee for Europe is to be credibly maintained going forward Europeans are going to have to share the defence burdens far more equitably, with 50% of NATO’s minimum capability requirements by 2030 probably the least the Americans will expect of their allies.   That will mean Europeans taking on far more strategic responsibility than hitherto within the framework of the Alliance and all Allies will need to develop an expeditionary mind-set, even the Finns.  In time, greater European strategic responsibility will inevitably lead to capacity for European tactical and eventually strategic autonomy.      

NATO’s Big 2030 Plan

The Strategic Concept and the Military Strategy together are NATO’s Big 2030 Plan. The plan involves two phases much of which will need to run concurrently. Phase one involves identifying and learning the lessons of the Ukraine War to bolster deterrence, defence and resilience in the short-term. War is a giant black hole into which people and materiel vanish at an alarming rate far beyond that envisaged by peacetime establishments. NATO European forces will need for more robust logistics forward deployed, with enhanced and far more secure military supply chains particularly important. Far more materiel is also needed, most notably ammunition. If NATO deterrence and defence are to be credible Allies will also need to rebuild and build infrastructure to assist military mobility and remove all legal impediments to rapid cross border movements in a pre-war emergency. Deployed NATO forces will also need much improved force protection with the need to reduce the detectability and thus digital footprint of force concentrations (‘bright butterflies’). 

The war in Ukraine has also revealed the vulnerability of armour unsupported by infantry and helicopters in the battlespace, as well as the need for NATO forces to be able to dominate both fires and counter-fires.  Much of the vulnerability of Russian forces is due to the effectiveness of expendable drones, strike drones and loitering systems allied to precision-guided munitions. NATO forces need an awful lot more of all such systems across the tactical and the strategic. Enhanced land-based, protected battlefield mobility will also be needed together with increased force command resilience given how often the Ukrainians have been able to detect and ‘kill’ Russian forward (and less forward) deployed headquarters.

Thankfully, given that NATO is a defensive alliance, the war in Ukraine has also revealed the extent to which the defence has dominated the offence if forces are reasonably matched.  Whilst no-one envisages a return to some kind of twenty-first century equivalent of the Maginot Line secure pre-positioned capabilities and access to individual ready reserves will be vital.  There is one other lesson NATO leaders and commanders need to learn given the attritional nature of the war: do not sacrifice significant mass to afford a little manoeuvre. Britain, are you listening?

Beyond NATO’s horizon

NATO must also look beyond 2030 and develop a hard core future war concept if deterrence by denial now enshrined in NATO doctrine is to remain credible. In addition to the Military Strategy the new SACEUR, General Chris Cavioli and his team must also set the future force agenda with something akin to the 1952 Long-Term Defence Plan with the aim of forging a markedly transformed military instrument of power by 2030.  Such a plan will need to include strengthened forces postures, news structures & forces, a much expanded NATO Readiness Initiative with supporting plans & concepts, transformed training & exercises not dissimilar to the famous Battle Schools set up by General Harold Alexander during World War Two, and a proper understanding where capability, capacity, manpower and interoperability meet, especially when it involves new emerging and destructive technologies.

In other words, the true test of Madrid’s legacy will be the standing up of a high-end, collective, US-interoperable, strategically autonomous (if needs be) European-led Allied Mobile Heavy Force able to operate as a powerful first responder in a pre-war emergency in and around Europe and across the domains of air, sea, land, cyber, space, information and knowledge from sea-bed to space at the highest levels of conflict complete with its own combat support and enablers.  Nothing less will suffice to meet the ambition implicit in the NATO Strategic Concept.  Are Europeans up to the challenge? Some leaders are already looking to slide out of their respective commitments partly because they never really understand what they have signed up to until their finance ministers present the bill/check. So, here’s a novel idea. Turn the NATO defence planning process on its head. Let the experts identify the defence architecture NATO will need by 2030 and beyond, together with the capabilities, capacities, structures and organisation to support it. Then sit down again and agree how it can be afforded and fielded.

Critics suggest that the Strategic Concept’s conciseness is a weakness, that it is light on facts. What did they expect? NATO’s strategic and political goals are now far more closely aligned with NATO’s Military Strategy, the first such demarche since 1962, implying a new relationship between effectiveness, efficiency and affordability.  Critics also fail to understand the purpose of a Strategic Concept or its relationship with the NATO Military Strategy. A NATO Strategic Concept is essentially a contract between leader and practitioner in which the former instructs the latter what the Alliance must minimally ensure and assure over the coming decade or so and publicly commit to those goals. It is not a public relations document per se, even if it does play such a role. 

In time, the 2022 NATO Strategic Concept could well come to be seen as a landmark document that set the direction of travel for the Alliance in a new “age of strategic competition”, in much the same way as the December 1967 MC14/3. However, that will only happen if the Alliance adopts the “Clint Doctrine”. For that reason Secretary-General Stoltenberg and his team are to be congratulated for being bold. 'I know what you're thinking. Did they fire all they have? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being as this is NATO, the most powerful military alliance in the world and could blow you clean away, you've got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?'

Sleep well, Riga.

Julian Lindley-French