NATO Vilnius: Conniving France, Foolish Britain, Cold Turkey

  “To succeed in the world, it is much more necessary to possess the penetration to discern who is a fool, than to discover who is a clever man”.

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

June 22^nd. The focus of NATO’s forthcoming Vilnius Summit will, rightly, be on Forward Defence and whether the Alliance can agree dynamic support for Kyiv and, short of immediate membership of the Alliance, Ukraine’s dynamic alignment with it. However, there will be at least two other implicit struggles at Vilnius that go to the heart of NATO: the future of the European pillar and Turkey’s place within the Alliance.

 Conniving France

With the collapse of the Macro-Gaullist wet dream of an EU that is strategically autonomous of the US, Macron has now turned his sights on NATO.  His aim now is to turn the EU into the European pillar of the Alliance so that France can instrumentalise US, UK and other military assets to exaggerate French influence. The first victim of this latest demarche is Ben Wallace, the current UK Secretary of State for Defence.  He had hoped to be the next NATO Secretary-General, but Macron has effectively torpedoed his bid by insisting the appointee should come from an EU member-state.

If Macron succeeds in establishing the EU as the European pillar of NATO, he will also ensure no Briton can ever again be Secretary-General.  Macron’s vision of an Atlanticist pillar made up of America, Britain, Canada and Norway and a European pillar that incubates ‘l’autonomie strategique’ before one day it breaks of the NATO with France at its head like something out of Predator. 

The problem for France is that dynamism within the Alliance is far more likely to come from the Atlanticist end of NATO, rather than the EU end, which is why Paris is also seeking to lock both the US and UK into the vision.  The US via implicit French support for the US in the Indo-Pacific – AUKUS or no. The British by the vague promise of vague inclusion in Macron’s vaguely intergovernmental European Political Community.   

Foolish Britain

The British have only themselves to blame as once again they have proved incompetent at the game of strategy that is the Alliance.  And, as ever, the British will complain a bit then roll over in the vain hope that appeasing the French will endear them to Paris. It never does. The hard reality is that ever more money London claims to be spending on defence the ever smaller the British armed forces seem to become.  If the British Government increases the British defence budget by any more, the British Army may well cease to exist!

 This is because behind the mask of ‘defence’ expenditure there are a whole host of rent seekers sucking money out of British fighting power. Most notably, the National Cyber Security Centre. Like most things British these days the Potemkin image is far less than the sum of its parts.  

 Cold Turkey

At Vilnius it will become evident whether Turkey’s blocking of Swedish membership of the Alliance is simply Turkish bargaining or something far deeper and far more invidious: an attempt by Ankara to stymie the Alliance in the middle of the most dangerous European war since 1945.

Ankara’s latest demand is that in return for Turkey’s acquiescence to Sweden’s membership of the Alliance Stockholm must prevent anti-Turkish demonstrations by its Kurdish minority. Quashing free speech is simply not what real democracies do. For many years I have been something of a ‘Turkije Versteher’.  One only must only look at a map to see the importance of Ankara to NATO and European security and defence.  Moreover, that same map reveals the imposed complexity of Turkey’s foreign, security and defence policy given the tough geopolitical neighbourhood in which it is situated.  Unfortunately, since the post-September 2015 alignment/accommodation with Putin’s Russia, and the failed 2016 coup, Turkey has become a progressively more difficult Ally with which to deal.

There are several issues in contention between the US and Turkey. The July 2019 delivery to Turkey of the advanced Russian S-400 air defence missile system led swiftly to Turkey’s ouster from the F35 advanced fighter programme by Washington under the Countering American Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA).  Worse, Turkey’s decision to acquire the S-400, which was designed specifically to shoot down US F-16 fighters, also came with a commitment to jointly develop the new S-500 system.

Turkey’s frustration with its European partners is of a different hue. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees estimates that in June 2023 there are some 3.7 million refugees in Turkey. Ankara is Europe’s gatekeeper but feels it gets little by way of return, in spite of the 2015 deal struck between Erdogan and Merkel. The sense of alienation from ‘Europe’ Turks feel has been further compounded by the final realisation by Ankara that Turkey would never be offered full membership of the EU. For thirty years France and Germany pretended Turkey would be offered EU membership and the Turks pretended to believe them. No more.

 Fractious Vilnius

It is against this changing grand strategic/geopolitical backdrop that NATO’s Vilnius Summit will take place. Given the location the focus should be on Ukraine. After all, both Lithuania and Ukraine border Russia and Belarus. One would hope that such a crisis would reinforce vital unity of strategic purpose and effort. To avoid a major argument with the French over Jens Stoltenberg’s successor, Biden is seeking a one-year extension, even though Stoltenberg himself has had enough. There was hope of a female successor. However, the most likely candidate, Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, has ruled herself out.  The Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte may be emerging as a compromise candidate. He would do a good job.  However, France will at some point be faced with the contradiction at the core of its cleverness: to succeed Paris needs the support of the Americans and the British even as it alienates them. 

As for Sweden, it must be made clear to Turkey that continued blocking of Stockholm’s membership might be possible under the terms of the Treaty of Washington (all 31 NATO members need to agree before a new country is offered full membership) but in practice Ankara will simply further isolate itself. Worse, if Turkey blocks Swedish membership, it is also likely to block any path to eventual Ukrainian membership. That would raise a further question. Just what value does Turkey really bring to the Alliance? Turkey needs to decide which side it is on in the emerging struggle between autocracies and democracies – it cannot be on both sides. 

 Julian Lindley-French

 

  

Dynamic Support, Dynamic Alignment

“The stakes go beyond Ukraine and its survival as an independent state.  Russian President Vladimir Putin has dealt a serious blow to the European security order that the transatlantic community has sought to build – working with Russia -- since the end of the Cold War.  Defeating Putin in Ukraine is essential if that security order is ever to recover.”

Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, June 6^th, 2023

This past Tuesday, in my capacity as Chairman of The Alphen Group (TAG), I had the honour to lead a delegation of members to the European Parliament in Brussels to present the completed Phase 2 of the TAG Ukraine Strategy to parliamentarians. A Comprehensive Strategy for a Secure Ukraine now includes five elaborated proposals and the link is below. 

https://thealphengroup.com/2023/06/07/updated-comprehensive-strategy-for-a-secure-ukraine/ 

The proposals all call for the dynamic support for and dynamic alignment of Ukraine with NATO and the EU. They include:

A Declaration for Ukraine;

Mutual Commitments of Defence, Security and Sovereignty;

A Conference of Democracies on the Future of European Peace and Security;

G7 plus Partners Ukraine Joint Plan of Action for the Russo-Ukraine War;

And an Accelerated NATO Ukraine Membership Action Plan.

Under Chair Ms Anna Fotyga of the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Dr Camille Grand (European Council on Foreign Relations), Professor Zaneta Ozolina (University of Riga), Professor Alexander Vershbow (Atlantic Council of the United States), and Professor Rob de Wijk (Hague Centre for Security Strategy) outlined the proposals.

I commend the Strategy to you.

Julian Lindley-French,

Chairman,

The Alphen Group

https://thealphengroup.com/

Ukraine: When to be Offensive?

 “Hard pounding this, gentlemen; let’s see who will pound longest”.

Wellington at Waterloo, June 18th, 1815

Spring is Sprung?

June 1^st. You can almost smell the wishful thinking about Ukraine’s ever-coming “Spring Offensive”.   For Ukraine’s counter-offensive to make the real gains many in the West want it must enjoy five conditions. First, unity of effort and purpose. Never forget the power of the will in warfare. Second, sufficient military capability in sufficient capacity, allied to deployed force protection. Third, the absolute certainty that the NATO Allies and other Partners have Ukraine’s back.  Fourth, that before Ukraine gets NATO membership (no specifics will be extended at Vilnius) Kyiv is at least offered a Defence and Deterrence Partnership (DDP) with NATO.  Fifth, the Allies understand collectively that they are Ukraine’s strategic depth and that depth depends on the Alliance also fully realising the New Force Model.

There are the usual think-tanks suspects going into speculative over-drive about the indeterminate.  The ill-informed in pursuit of the ill-defined. At least they are contributing to Ukraine’s effective use of fake news to keep the Russians guessing.  However, there is also something deeper going on. NATO members hoping that Ukraine will make a definitive breakthrough so that paradoxically the pressure on them to offer Kyiv fast-track membership of the Alliance is eased prior to NATO’s July Vilnius Summit. Let me state for the record: I am firm in my belief Ukraine should be offered NATO membership at the Vilnius Summit.  I am equally clear in my analysis that this will not happen, even if President Macron seems to be shifting his hitherto wobbly position on Russia. Let’s hope his speech to GLOBSEC yesterday translates into a shift in France’s attitude towards Ukraine inside the Alliance.  

Next week, I will have the honour to lead a delegation to the European Parliament to launch Phase Two of The Alphen Group’s (TAG) major study, “A Comprehensive Strategy for a Secure Ukraine”.  The TAG Strategy is unequivocal,  “ Ukraine [must]… be offered an immediate, accelerated and tailored Membership Action Plan with the aim of fast-track NATO membership and ad interim invited to participate in a deep bespoke Partnership enabling Ukraine to participate in Alliance activities in a 31+1 format (or 32+1 upon Sweden’s accession to the Alliance)”.

What options do the Ukrainians have?

The war has certainly reached A critical point and the Ukrainians face hard choices in the coming weeks: fail and the conflict turns into a long war; succeed and possibly force the Russians to negotiate seriously to bring a legitimate end to the war on terms favouring Ukraine; or succeed and still face a long war because Putin and his cronies are boxed in politically and has nowhere else to go but war.  Even if the Ukrainians somehow drove the Russians out of Ukraine in one move they would still not have decisively defeated Russia.  Therefore, the importance of the coming Ukrainian counter-offensive is to prove to the Russians once and for all they cannot win this war. As such, the attack will be one move in many and reinforces Ukraine’s need for strategic depth to sustain a war that is unlikely to end soon.

.  Ukraine has fought hard, skilfully and cleverly and revealed the very-clunky nature of the Russian military. Their efforts at battlefield-shaping with attacks on the Russian Army’s rear-areas, lines of communication and logistics chains are helping to keep Russian forces and their commanders’ off-balance.  This is precisely why the Russians have resorted to lines of defensive positions not dissimilar to the Hindenburg Line in 1917.  There are also vulnerabilities in the Russian command chain that the Ukrainians have exploited to effect between field commanders, the General Staff in Moscow and the Kremlin.  Above all, there appears to be a significant lack of ‘jointness’ between the Russian Army, the Air Force and the Naval Infantry which have been deployed, as well as between the Western, Central and Southern Military Districts from which the bulk of Russian forces have been drawn.    

However, for all the incompetent caricature of an invasion the Russians have mismanaged to effect there are still competent officers and officials who are fast learning the hard lessons of failure.   The Russians are learning to identify concentrations of Ukrainian forces far earlier than a year ago. They are improving the accuracy of their still extensive artillery using the Strelets battlefield computer system together with reconnaissance drones. The system also enables Russian forces to avoid counter-fires more effectively than hitherto.  They are also targeting Ukrainian military facilities, command centres, supply routes and ammunition and fuel depots, as well as logistical hubs more effectively. Their use of infantry also seems to be changing.  They continue to use ill-trained formations to probe for weaknesses in Ukrainian forward positions, whilst better-trained, more mobile and more agile smaller formations are held back for defensive missions.  Their use of thermal camouflaging is also reducing the effectiveness of Ukrainian anti-tank systems. 

Therefore, the most the Ukrainians can realistically achieve with the counter-offensive is to significantly disrupt Russia’s land bridge to Crimea via the Donbas.  In spite of the twenty or so new brigades the Ukrainians have worked up in advance of the counter-offensive the force does not have the necessary weight to forge a decisive war-winning breakthrough on the battlefield. That begs a further question: what would win this war?  Ukrainians are not going to march into Moscow and even if Russian forces were pushed back over Russia’s borders would that end the war?  Even a scant understanding of Russian history suggests not. What is the game-changer?

What options do Ukraine's Western partners have?

NATO is Ukraine’s game-changer. Military success on the battlefield would be painfully irrelevant if it happens in a political and strategic vacuum caused by dissolute Western partners and a divided Alliance. At the Vilnius Summit NATO leaders need to ask themselves some tough questions. How badly do they want Ukraine to win?  Do they all agree on what ‘winning’ would look like?  Will they collectively commit to the application of effective strategy with Ukraine in support of Ukraine? Will it  make a public statement of such determined intent? Will they give Ukraine the weapons they need? Rather, there is what might best be termed strategic ad hoccery whereby nations compete with each to say how much they are giving to Ukraine whilst quietly disparaging other Allies. The result is a small Ukrainian force (in relative terms) armed with an increasingly diverse range of systems.

At Vilnius, NATO and its Partners need to agree and announce a real strategy that effectively answers all of the above questions, not least so that the whole world fully understands the Alliance sees itself as Ukraine’s strategic depth and does whatever it takes for however long it takes.  In other words, what Ukraine needs now is an unequivocal statement from the Alliance timed to coincide with the counter-offensive that NATO fully understands its vital role in enabling Ukraine achieve its legitimate war aims so that said offensive does not take place in a political and strategic vacuum.     

Strategic depth in his war is not simply about supporting Ukraine. NATO is and will remain the back-stop of European security and defence which means putting the Alliance’s deterrence and defence posture on the new footing that was agreed at Madrid last year.  Specifically, the NATO Allies must collectively meet the challenge of SACEUR General Chris Cavoli’s “family of plans”. This means not only replacing the weapons sent to Ukraine but building the New Force Model agreed at the NATO Madrid Summit in 2022, particularly the force readiness goals and all that implies for Europe’s broken defence and technological industrial base.   

When to be offensive?

Napoleon once said that one should never interrupt an enemy when he is making a mistake and that one should always do what the enemy least wants you to do. The decision when and where to advance should be left to Ukraine’s political and military leadership with the simple aim of generating best results at least cost.  However, Kyiv is all too aware that the counter-offensive will be aimed as much at the Allies and their lack of strategic clarity and shared resolve as Russia’s wavering armed forces. Vilnius?  If nothing else Ukraine must have that clear statement of solidarity from the NATO Allies to support Ukraine in its efforts to return to their 1991 borders whatever it takes and for how long it takes.  Nothing more, nothing less.  The when and how of Ukraine’s NATO membership? That will be the litmus test of Alliance seriousness and Vilnius will have failed if the Ukrainians are not offered at the very least a dynamic Deterrence and Defence Partnership.    Why does it matter?  The Russo-Ukraine War is being fought in Ukraine.  It is also being fought in Europe over the future nature of power in Europe and there must be no illusions about that.  

When to be offensive? The most important one thing Ukraine’s partners can do to shape the battlefield is to relieve Kyiv of the constant need to look over its political shoulders. Then, the Ukrainian military commanders can simply decide when and where to attack at any given time and in any given place based solely on the military situation on the ground.

Ukraine can no longer afford to fight a political zweifrontenskreig.  As Winston Churchill once famously said, “Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job”.

Julian Lindley-French