Appeasement, Realism, Collusion and Analysis

 “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last”.

Winston Churchill

May 28th. I am an analyst. I am not a politician and thankfully for Europe and the wider world I am not a commander. Some say I am a good analyst. If so, my job is to analyse, not proselytise or order.  Last week I was in Poland at the superb Strategic Ark Conference hosted by the outstanding Polish International Affairs Institute and led by my friend, the impressive Slawomir Debski. At the Conference I spoke to Polish ministers, senior commanders, as well as senior Ukrainian friends and contacts.

Like most reasonable people I deplore Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its subsequent atrocities. I am also firmly committed to a Ukraine that is whole and free and a Europe that is secure from further Russian aggression. BUT, I am not going to collude in the pretence of action where none exists. At the conference one senior Polish figure, who I greatly admire, rather sneered at so-called ‘realists’ for questioning whether Ukraine can evict Russia from the 18% of Ukrainian territory it is currently occupying and thus return to its 1991 borders. His argument was that all wars ebb and flow and whilst this is a hard moment for Ukrainian forces they will somehow magically prevail. 

Wars only flow, as opposed to ebb, because some internal or external factor changes. Take World War Two. Yes, Britain defied the Nazis in 1940 but could not defeat them alone. The external change factor was that America and Russia joined the war in 1941 which acted as a massive force multiplier for Britain’s efforts. At present, Ukraine is fighting an incompetent Russia led by an entrenched megalomaniac nationalist with both sides near exhaustion. The war is thus drifting towards stalemate over the bodies of thousands of dead young men, like some World War One cloud of mustard gas. In the time it has taken me to write this piece more will have been killed in the human meat-grinder that is eastern Ukraine.

And yet, I am being asked to pretend by leaders that Ukraine will win, even though Kyiv’s Western partners are clearly unwilling to take any risk or supply and re-supply the Ukrainians all the necessary equipment and resources they need. Many Western states are not even prepared to rapidly build up their own defence industries simply to replace the weapons they have already given Ukraine.

Let me be clear: as an analyst I will NOT collude with strategically illiterate and pretentious politicians who have done so much to reduce the West this century through their incompetence and risk aversion. They did it in Iraq. They did it in Afghanistan. Now, they are doing it in Ukraine. They are NOT even prepared to provide free Ukraine with the security guarantee of affording NATO membership. This profound lack of strategic imagination and leadership is not just a tragedy for those dying in this war, often horribly (Western publics never see that because our leaders treat us like children).

Freedom can never be secure in the absence of well-led power and playing politics with strategy is the very opposite of good leadership. Once again, Western politicians are asking analysts to pretend the emperor is magnificent when he really does have no clothes simply in the hope that the rest of the world does not see our nakedness…it does!

The tragic irony is that the West is so close to defeating Russia on Russia’s terms if only it had the political will and the courage to offer Ukraine a road-map to NATO membership. Historians will come to view Putin’s War as one of the great historical cockups. OK, he might gain some or all of Donbas and Crimea, but he has already lost Finland, Sweden, and the rest of Ukraine to the West, the very thing he wanted to prevent.

Let me also be clear to strategically challenged wishful thinkers: unless there is a very marked uplift in Western support for Ukraine the stalemate to which I refer will be highly unstable even if a new temporary Line of Contact is established. Ukrainian forces have been forced onto the defensive precisely because the collective West has decided for a host of mainly domestic factors and political weakness that its leaders do not really care enough to make it otherwise. The question now is whether the survival of the rest of Ukraine as a free state is a risk worth taking for Western leaders who time and again this century have demonstrated they lack both the strategic patience and acumen to prevail in long wars. And, how long before Putin launches the next phase?

To paraphrase Churchill: an appeaser is indeed one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last, whilst a colluder is one who assists the crocodile in the business of consumption. A realist, on the other hand, is simply one who understands that unless he can find a way to kill the crocodile first then he too will be eaten. Still, at least he is willing to give it a go…as Churchill did. An analyst? He or she is simply one who describes the crocodile, warts, teeth and all, for what it is…a bloody crocodile. Or, at least, they should be...

Julian Lindley-French 

Putin’s Power Protection Racket

 

Extortion

May 21st. General Omar Bradley once famously said, “amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics”. To Putin’s mind amateurs talk casualties, professionals talk attrition.

An extortion racket offers to ‘protect’ property, in this case Russia’s neighbouring states, whilst threatening to inflict the very damage that Russia claims to be offering protection against. The ‘threat’ Putin cites is the false claim of Western ‘fascism’. Putin has thus embarked on a policy of long grey zone coercion with the West aimed at what he sees as the lands ‘in-between’ Russian and Western influence. Such is his hubris that even EU and NATO members and aspirants are included in his hybrid war of coercion. That is why Putin replaced Sergei Shoigu as Russia’s Defence Minister 2ith the economist Andrei Belousov.

It is also why the Moscow-friendly government of Georgia in Tbilisi has imposed so-called Foreign Agents legislation on its citizens, which is simply a cut and paste version of Moscow’s own draconian anti-dissent laws. For Putin this is his way of systemic war against the free West for if a state cannot be conquered by Russia it must be coerced into aligning itself with Moscow.

Theory of victory?

There is much talk these days in the bien pensant class of the West of the need for a ‘Theory of Victory’. Few of them have any idea what it means. It is just one of those phrases that is fashionable for a time. Those that do have an idea seem to suggest a rather vague theory that ‘victory’ in war is more a subjective appreciation of a situation than an objectively measurable fact.  In other words, how to be in a war whilst pretending one is at peace, in which case, such theories of ‘victory’ tend to be little more than a semantic justification for appeasement. The problem is that Putin IS at war with the West, and it is a real war as far as Moscow is concerned albeit one that is not as yet hot.  And, given the extortion racket he is running he needs the West to recognise he is at war with it to justify the enormous costs he is imposing on both Russians and Ukrainians. Given that the first dictum of war is to do what your enemy least wants, perhaps the best one can say is that the West’s refusal to recognise it is at war is a cunning plan to frustrate Putin.

Russians have a ‘nation at war’ doctrine which is very different to contemporary Western ideas of war. There is absolutely no such thing to Russians as a war of choice. ALL wars are existential and even if the balance between information, digital and physical war may shift it is only because the Russian theory of victory is either complete control or annihilation. Western democracies tend to see their armed forces as state-sanctioned mercenaries who act on behalf of their respective publics precisely so that said publics can be kept in a child-like state of blessed ignorance. For Putin he is Russia and if he is at war all of Russia is at war and must be directed towards realising his theory of victory.

False history

History is a particularly important weapon in Putin’s hybrid war arsenal. A vital part of his theory of victory is to impose the Russian historical narrative not just on Russians but on adversaries as well. Take World War Two as an example. Much of the self-loathing West has bought into the idea that Russia won World War Two because so many Russians were killed.  There can be no doubt that millions of brave Russians died fighting Nazism but many of those perished at the hands of an incompetent Stalin regime. Between November 1937 and June 1938 Stalin purged the Red Army officer corps of 35,000 experienced commanders with several thousand of the most senior officers executed. Then, in late November 1939, launched the “Winter War” and invaded Finland but was fought to a standstill by the Finns in much the same way as the Ukrainians have fought Russian forces close to a standstill today. Even though Hitler’s intentions were clear, an in-denial Stalin did little to modernise his forces between the signing of the Nazi Soviet Pact in August 1939 and the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Much of the West has also bought into the idea that it was Russia’s sacrifice that really won World War Two in Europe. In fact, there is a very good reason Western casualties were relatively far fewer in World War Two than the Soviets. The Western Allies fought the war far more effectively and efficiently because they made a conscious decision to put steel and technology before flesh and people. Any Western theory of victory should concern how to convince Putin the West is not going to cave in to Russia’s protection/extortion racket? It will not be easy because Putin's theory of victory is the belief he can successfully exploit Western Europe’s lack of belief in anything much about anything anymore.

War aims

A twenty-first century technology before flesh strategy is needed. Between 1934 and 1943 the British constructed the world’s most advanced air defence system and most capable offensive strategic bomber force by building a technological and industrial surge capacity that saw radar and sonar invented, produced, and deployed. Recently, Anne Keast Butler, Director of Britain’s GCHQ warned that Russia was preparing for “physical attacks” on NATO countries, not just virtual attacks. Both China and Russia have undertaken systematic analyses of the many vulnerabilities with which Western states contend. Vulnerabilities which are at the very core of Putin’s theory of victory.

The paradox is that there is neither much new in the Russian way of war or the West’s lazy response to it. Russia’s inferiority complex with the West has traditionally led it to use coercion short of all-out war to force its neighbours to comply with its demands. The reason Moscow is endeavouring to turn the Russian way of war into an avenue is because Western leaders have created the opportunity for it to do so. For too many years the West has been in thrall to economics as the essence of statecraft whilst other Moscow-useful idiots have propagated the false belief that because security, prosperity and interdependence are intertwined war is impossible. One day these people will read a history book.

The West’s theory of victory should be simple, tried and tested: speak softly but carry a bloody big stick. Then there will be no need for these meaningless theories of victory. Unfortunately, the Western democracies prefer speaking loudly whilst carrying a small stick. Putin knows this, which is why his extortion racket might work. Yes, it is a bluff but never bluff a bluffer!

Julian Lindley-French

The Alphen Group: Ukraine Assessment.

 

May 3^rd, 2024

www.thealphengroup.com

“Plan A is not working; Plan B is needed”.

The Russo-Ukraine War is at a tipping point and the determining factor will be the extent to which Western powers are willing or not to support Ukraine in its war aim of regaining the land seized by Russia since 2014. In that context, four issues were considered: the current situation on the ground; Russia’s campaign aims in 2024; and the possible strategic, political, and operational impact of additional security aid packages to Ukraine, and the NATO 75 Washington summit. The aim of Russian strategy is to exhaust the Ukrainians politically and militarily by exploiting what Moscow believes is its greater strategic depth of people and power.  Therefore, West needs to re-state its support for Ukraine to demonstrate to Moscow strategic clarity, political determination, the capability and capacity to prevail, and strategic patience, none of which are immediately apparent.  

At the grand strategic level any political progress in Ukraine is only likely to result from direct talks about the wider geopolitics of European security between Russia and the West, more precisely between Russia and the US. There is uncertainty about the level and consistency of American support for Ukraine and, despite increased financial and materiel support for Ukraine the latest package could also be the last, particularly if Trump returns to the White House.  The impact on Ukraine of the loss of American support would be critical given the level of war fatigue in Ukraine and Zelensky’s increasingly precarious political position.  

At the military-strategic level, Ukraine is in a difficult position on the ground but the belief in London is that in “3 to 6 months the pendulum will swing back”.  Whilst Russian forces have suffered enormous losses Moscow has adapted its strategy to limit losses to its air power in particular by operating from within its territory using ‘stand-off’ attacks to destroy both Ukraine’s will and capacity to fight.  To counter the Russia strategy there is some evidence the US is supplying long-range ATACMS to Ukraine thus enabling Kyiv to target oil and other Russian infrastructure deep inside Russia vital to the war effort.

At the operational level Ukraine urgently needs more offensive power. Ukraine has switched to a defensive posture whilst it awaits the arrival of more Western war stocks.  For example, Russia currently enjoys a superiority of 15:1 in critical 155mm artillery shells and has adapted drones to attack Western supplied armour to some effect.  Moscow is also making effective use of electronic warfare which only Western forces could counter.  Kyiv also needs to reconsider its operational art and science. The 2023 Ukrainian summer offensive failed not simply because it lacked the military weight to breakthrough Russian defensive lines, but because Kyiv’s forces did not employ advanced Western equipment to best advantage.

If a ‘Plan B’ is to forge a position of relative Western strength in this proxy systemic Russo-Ukraine War the West will need to demonstrate to Moscow that it is Ukraine’s strategic depth. This will only be achieved if Ukrainians can rely on a secure supply of resources and money, the Western defence technological and industrial base is properly mobilised, there is unity of purpose and effort across the Euro-Atlantic community, and the West ceases to self-deter. Moscow’s war in Ukraine has come at an enormous price for Russia by “undoing the legacy of Peter the Great and Stalin” through the loss of influence in the Baltic Sea and Nordic Europe.  However, for Putin the war in Ukraine is existential for him and his regime and the West must understand that.  The West must urgently answer several questions, with the Quad powers to the fore.  What does the ‘West’ want? What price is the West still prepared to pay?  What happens to NATO if Putin can declare victory in Ukraine? Above all, what is Plan B and who should make it? 

There is a choice now to be made between making peace with Russia now at Ukraine’s expense in the hope it “would close a chapter and make Europe more secure”, or only making peace with Russia when Ukraine has been successfully defended and in so doing send a clear message to the world about the West’s collective determination to resist such aggression.

Julian Lindley-French, Chairman, The Alphen Group