Riga, Latvia. 15
September. Two thousand five hundred years ago the Chinese military strategist
Sun Tzu wrote, “To fight and conquer in all our battles is not supreme
excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance
without fighting”. Russia is fighting a
war of conquest in Ukraine and it is Europe’s first true strategic test of the
twenty-first century. It is an intelligence-led (FSB and GRU) ambiguous or hybrid war in which
disinformation, deceit and distraction are the primary tactics. The immediate aim is to confirm the seizure
of Crimea as a fait accompli and to create a new Russian protectorate called Novorossiya,
the Tsarist-era name for south-east Ukraine.
If successful Russia will review the performance of its strategy and the
response of the West before it considers if such a strategy can be applied
elsewhere around its borders. The over-arching strategic objective is to re-create a new sphere of influence that would
strengthen Russian prestige and influence in Europe and create a buffer zone between Russia, the EU
and NATO. The dynamic centre of Moscow’s
strategy is the modernising Russian armed forces reflective of a Kremlin world view that
has abandoned partnership as unfavourable to Russian interests. Instead, Moscow has returned to a zero sum game analysis of power in
which only one side can prevail. How can
Russia’s ambiguous warfare be countered?
Sitrep: Russia remains as committed to its war aims as ever. This week’s separatist-led attack on Donetsk Airport and the illegal entry of a
new convoy into Ukraine marks the beginning of a new phase of Russia’s ambiguous
war. The first phase hid behind the
strategic denial of European leaders that Russia would undertake such conquest in the twenty-first century Europe. As Europe's leaders have slowly awakened to this reality this new
phase hides behind a ceasefire that Moscow claims to back but which is now breached daily.
The
Western Response: Do
the same to Russia as Russia is doing to the West. In other words the West must as a collective
entity prey on Russia’s insecurities as Russia is preying on Western
insecurities. Russia insecurities essentially concern costs
versus benefits for an essentially fragile state and can be thus summarised: a)
Russia is a declining power that must act now if it is to establish a European
order that is Russia-friendly and thus prevent in the Moscow strategic mind the
consolidation of the EU and NATO on its borders; b) irrespective of current
actions Russia will over time be locked out of the European financial and
energy markets and must therefore re-establish Russian strategic
‘independence’; and c) in spite of Russia’s military modernisation programme over the longer term Moscow will become relatively weaker compared with NATO. The next decade is decisive.
Countering
Russian Strategy: The West must complicate Moscow’s strategic
calculations. The aim must be to
convince the Kremlin that the survival of the Putin regime requires an
accommodation with the West, most notably the EU. Such a strategy would need four elements: a
new political strategy; NATO military modernisation; a new NATO Forward
Deterrence Concept; and an Allied intelligence-led ambiguous warfare concept.
New
Political Strategy: The West must develop a political counter-strategy to
contain and roll back Russian aggression.
The aim of such a strategy would be to convince the Kremlin that it
would be in Russia’s best interest to withdraw from Ukraine (including Crimea)
pending talks that are aimed at finding a just settlement for ethnic Russians in Ukraine and the protection of the Russian Black Seas Fleet base in Sevastopol. Such a strategy would
preserve Ukrainian territorial integrity and enable Moscow to claim it is
acting in the best interests of all the parties to the conflict. However, such a
strategy would require first and foremost unity of effort and purpose. Sadly, that is lacking. For example, having supposedly suspended the
sale of two advanced warships to Russia at 0430 hours on Saturday the French
permitted Russian crews to re-commence training on one of the ships in St
Nazaire.
Good Cop, Bad Cop: France, Germany and indeed the EU could act as the ‘good cops’ committed to
keeping lines of communication open and offering Russia a new political relationship with Europe. Such
open communications would have four objectives: a) to demonstrate to Moscow
the political and economic consequences of continued aggression; b) the
benefits of respecting sovereignty and close working relationship with the EU; c) the need to re-posit all European
disputes within institutional frameworks that promote peaceful and legitimate
conflict resolution. The US and UK would, on the other hand, play the bad cops,
emphasising the threat Moscow poses to the European order. London and Washington would thus champion the medium to long term strengthening of NATO as a “bastion against
madness”, in the words of my good friend Professor Simon Serfaty.
NATO
Military Modernisation: The pace and scale of NATO’s
military modernisation must be overtly linked to that of Russia. Russia needs to see that the strategic
balance in Europe has been affected by its actions but to Moscow’s
detriment. Today Moscow believes the
Baltic States are indefensible. Moscow
also believes that between 2015 and 2020 the so-called correlation of forces
will shift inexorably in its favour given its military modernisation programme
and lack of any substantive countervailing modernisation in NATO Europe
(whatever last week’s NATO Wales Summit said).
Therefore, as NATO nations spend four times that of Russia on defence it
must be made clear to Moscow that any attempt to establish military supremacy
in Europe will fail and thus simply be a waste of money.
NATO
Forward Deterrence: NATO
must create a Forward Deterrence conventional force concept in support of all the Eastern Allies to
underpin strategic reassurance and collective defence. Moscow believes the Baltic States are
vulnerable to disruption, destabilisation and are thus effectively indefensible. Therefore, effective collective conventional deterrence is
at least as important as effective collective defence. Building on the NATO
Wales Summit the Alliance must establish a properly graduated response designed
to ensure the West dominates the escalation ladder. A Forward Deterrence strategy would confirm
the creation of a trip wire force on the territory of all the Eastern Allies. This force would involve US, UK and other high-end
Western combat forces permanently established in the Baltic States and elsewhere. NATO is already doing this to an extent but such a force
would need to be properly established within twenty-first century layered deterrence.
Twenty-First Century Layered Defence: The new Spearhead Force must be reinforced by the NATO Response
Force which in turn is established on a modernised NATO Article 5 defence that
combines advanced deployable forces, missile defence and cyber-defence into an effective
bastion. Critical to such an Allied
defence strategy would be the reinvention and modernisation of the old NATO
REFORGER concept with US and Canadian forces flying from Continental North
America to provide reinforcement during times of tension. Such a layered defence would need to be
designed, exercised, tested and validated.
Allied
Ambiguous Warfare: The West must convince Moscow that its
strategy is in fact backfiring. Therefore,
NATO must invent its own form of ambiguous warfare. For example, Special Forces
in relatively small numbers could be sent to Ukraine as advisers to assist Kiev’s forces in
a policing mission in Eastern Ukraine. Certainly, the presence of such forces would
complicate Russia’s strategic calculus. The forces
could go to Ukraine either under a NATO flag, an EU flag or as part of a coalition of
national flags and at the invitation of the Ukrainian Government. The aim would be to assist with a disciplined
and proportionate response by Kiev to the threat posed to Ukrainian stability prior
to talks over a new constitutional settlement.
Russia would not of course object as according to Moscow it is an internal matter for Ukraine and Russian forces
are apparently not engaged in Ukraine.
The presence of Western Special Forces would be reinforced by a major
NATO-led training mission in Ukraine (NTM-U).
The best way to combat
ambiguous warfare is through ambiguous warfare.
The real test is whether Moscow is right or not. Is there a West and if so does
it have the collective political courage and guile to craft and enact such a
counter-strategy?
Julian Lindley-French
