The War in Europe

The End Of The Phoney War

So here we are, at the end of pretence.

World War 3 began in 2014 with the Russian invasion of Crimea. We can let the historians untangle who is responsible for what and who the most slighted party was; I am more interested in what happens over the next few weeks because we have entered the most dangerous, most stochastic phase of the war.

Just like WW2, we have experienced a period where, although the direction and consequences are obvious, everyone has been seeking routes that lead away from a full-blown global crisis with little impact on the trajectory. Just like WW2, and WW1 before it, disaster can still be averted, but the chances of that happening are getting less by the day. Probability is in favour of traumatic events.

Why the gloom from this side of the pond?

Dr Fiona Hill is an Anglo-American expert in Russian affairs. Dr Hill has been a national security advisor and has served as deputy assistant to Presidents Biden and Trump and is now senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution and Chancellor of Durham University. In a Politico interview in 2022, she placed the start of World War 3 even earlier:

"I think there's been a logical, methodical plan that goes back a very long way, at least to 2007 when he put the world, and certainly Europe, on notice that Moscow would not accept the further expansion of NATO. And then within a year in 2008 NATO gave an open door to Georgia and Ukraine. It absolutely goes back to that juncture."

At least we have had more time than in WW2, where the 'Phoney War' lasted eight months. Is this because the stakes are so much higher? Or is it a refusal to acknowledge the obvious momentum in the hope that if it is ignored the world will reset to a more rational stance? Again this is something for the historians to argue over when the world returns to writing history again, but to failure to acknowledge recent events is foolhardy and dangerous.

The battle for Ukraine is still on a knife edge in terms of the outcome, but the intensity is accelerating. Irrespective of what Trump will do, Germany, Poland, and Finland are rearming. France is in conversations with its European partners about extending its nuclear deterrent to the EU. The other European nuclear power, the UK, is in close cooperation with these efforts and the gap between the UK and Europe is closing. To be clear on this point, there is no gap with regard to need and strategy, but the details need to be hammered out and quickly. On the back of this rapid repositioning there is a substantial surge in arms procurement and a realisation that, if we are not ready to repulse more Russian adventurism within a couple of years, the future will be unrecognisable. It might be in any case, despite our the best efforts from this day forwards, because the direction is not in our hands, it is in Putin's.

Before I look at the scenarios ahead, let us consider the effect of President Trump's belated realisation that Putin is a manipulator, not a deal maker. What does this mean for immediate US policy? Unfortunately, such is the state of the GOP and the failure of the Democratic Party, Trump's response is likely to dominate the short-term redirection of policy. And the prospects are bleak.

Trump has staked more than his reputation on his return to the presidency; he has staked his self-worth. The TV Reality Show that he runs from the White House has turned sour. Instead of exhibiting his prowess as a deal maker he is face to face with the real reality that he has been played like a schmuck. Trump can never accept this, so what does he do?

In the near future he will look for someone to blame. This is problematic for him because he set himself front and centre as the only one who could deliver peace, that everybody else's efforts had failed in the past and would in the future. It's difficult to claim you are the man, and then claim you were not the man when it all goes wrong. Indeed, such is his deep personal involvement with Putin that he must be aware that he cannot escape reality by inventing a fall guy. So what else can he do?

Trump can pretend the problem doesn't exist, withdraw all official US engagement in the battle for Ukraine and declare it entirely a problem of Europe's own making. This is a credible claim. There are many dimensions to this. Ignoring the defence and commercial advantages to the US of being heavily involved in European defence since WW2, Europe did downscale its own efforts after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The much-promised 'Peace Dividend' was taken, in the expectation that all of the ex-Soviet countries would align with the liberal democratic and capitalist dream, ending the history we had known before. It made a great book title, but it was wrong. Europe should never have let its guard down as badly as it has. Yes, there are many complex and genuine mitigating circumstances, but it was a colossal error.

So Trump can, with a degree of credibility, declare he tried, but nobody wanted to listen and Europe will have to sort it out. That is joyful news for Putin. Ukraine has been an embarrassment for Putin. Badly informed by both the Russian intelligence services and the Russian Army, what should have been a masterly and nearly bloodless coup on February 24th 2022 has turned into a brutal and expensive stalemate. When it became clear that, far from being a compliant country run by a weak government, Ukraine is a capable and passionately patriotic sovereign nation, his best move would have been to fall back and blame the debacle on poor intelligence and execution, no doubt finding suitable fall guys for the failure. He could then have focused the world's attention on the role of NATO enlargement as the cause of Russia's defensive action and let the dust settle before he looked for his next move. But he couldn't take this direction.

There are two reasons for this.

The first is that Putin has been deeply critical of the regime responsible for the Soviet (read 'Russian') defeat in Afghanistan. He, and many of his generation, promised themselves this would never happen to Russia again. The 2014 invasion of Crimea seemed to prove to Putin, and more importantly his regime and country, that Russia had resumed the mantle of a superpower, able to exert influence in the world once more.

A repeat of Afghanistan would see both his regime—a diplomatic term for the gang of opportunists surrounding and supporting him—and the general population seeking his removal. Ukraine cannot be allowed to fail, or Putin will face deeply personal consequences.

The second reason is that Crimea and Ukraine are just steps in his grand plan to reassemble Greater Russia and its service states, the old Soviet Union in all but name. Putin's mission to return Russia to greatness has clear and obvious practical limits; it is unachievable, but this is not within Putin's purview as he becomes increasingly emotional in his outlook and decisions.

It is possible this messianic belief in his ability to return Russia to power has always driven him. It is increasingly clear this perspective is overwhelming the cynical calculation he is famed for. There never was a military or political reality behind invading Ukraine. Even if Russia does succeed in overwhelming the Ukrainian forces, and that is far from certain, he will then face another Afghanistan situation but an Afghanistan that is larger, wealthier and technically much more capable. So Putin is committed by political reality and his personal beliefs, to continuing the war until one side or the other breaks.

As history tells us, in a technically advanced world a war in Europe will spread to the rest of the world to a greater or lesser extent. Even a 'soft' World War Three would remake maps, destroy economies, kill millions and reshape politics in new and unknowable forms. If Trump understands this, and he might, there is another option available to him: commit to Putin not in words, but in deeds.

This is a nightmare scenario for Europe, and may see its end as the civilisation we understand, but it is a nightmare for the world as well. How might this come to pass? Trump could declare Europe the villain. Not only have the old cynical kingdoms and nations of Europe duped the USA since WW2, but they have thwarted the legitimate aims of the Russian people to claim the territory that they have a right to—Lebensraum 2 if you like. Europe, ultimately, is still a coalition of old and failed post-Imperial powers manipulating world events. So he is recognising Russia's position in full and will return American forces from Europe and institute sanctions against the region.

This offers Trump a credible argument with which he can maintain his sense of self-worth and has the added advantage of aligning his position with a stronger leader. He may even speculate on how a conjoined nuclear hyper-power might carve up the world. He may well gain support and momentum for the concept from free thinkers of the more radical kind, in politics and in business. It also offers the advantage of countering an increasingly dominant and threatening China. There is much food for thought for the aspiring despot and emperor here.

But what does seem only too clear is that we have now reached the position where we can no longer avoid building a credible response to these three scenarios.

I will turn to that in my next post.

The future changes every day