There is a lot going on in the news at the moment, but there is a story that is consistently being underreported: Russia. A (potentially with )

And in the UK - we have to recognise that Russia, and her actions, are the NUMBER ONE strategic threat that we face.

(You wouldn’t know this from the House of Commons where a lot more time is spent debating the Middle East - which - although it is important, is an order of magnitude less important to the UK in strategic terms than the Russia story)

The war in Ukraine is the centre of the Russian story. It has settled down into an incredibly costly stalemated war, where both sides are waiting for the other to collapse. (Black is internationally recognised borders, Red is the limit of Russian expansion into Ukraine, Blue is the Ukrainian limit into Russia)

At the beginning, it was a reasonable strategy for both sides to take: - Russia felt, after the withdrawal from Afghanistan (and other things), that the West had no staying power and would give up - The West felt that they could collapse the Russian economy with unprecedented sanctions and international pressure. Both turned out to be wrong.

And with the failure of the 2023 Ukrainian offensive (remember that?!), the West’s strategy of waiting out Russia is the wrong one. The Russian economy is resilient, they are still able to trade (especially oil), and they are going on the offensive elsewhere in Europe (of which more later).

It has been clear since the failure of the Ukrainian offensive in the Summer of 2023, that Russia was simply waiting for the US presidential election, which is now next week.

The Biden administration, who signalled so well at the beginning of the conflict, failed in one key aspect of their signalling to Russia: they let it be known that they feared “escalation” of the war.

(As if you could escalate a genocidal war where children are kidnapped and taken back to Russia, and where civilian water and power infrastructure are bombed with impunity).

This is a key problem when you have people making decisions about war who do not have a deep experience of them - they fail to understand the psychology that underpins them.

Yet whilst the Biden administration has failed to get the signalling right, Europe has failed to step up to the moment. It took six months - SIX MONTHS - to lay the UK orders for increased munitions after the Feb 2022 invasion. This is a dereliction of duty. It’s a complete farce.

So let’s lay this out … as clearly as we possibly can … the West, and the UK, is at a strategic inflection point.

Look at this. 1) Russian invasion of Ukraine 2) Russia throwing elections in Georgia 3) Russia interfering in Moldova referendum 4) Wagner in Sudan / Central African Republic 5) Wagner in Mali and wider Sahel 6) Russian submarine and naval activity off west coast of Ireland (and Iceland gap) 7) Russia in Syria

And I ran out of space on the map - don’t forget Wagner in Libya, and a whole host of Russia undercover subversion in European states.

This is Europe’s time. Whatever the results of the US Presidential Election - Europe needs to step up, and start rolling back Russian activity in the European periphery.

And that starts in Ukraine. We - the UK - have to gain the clear sense that Ukraine winning the war is the primary strategic priority for the UK (and for Europe).

Ukraine losing is catastrophic for us because it opens up a number of strategic pandora’s boxes. The three most important of these (quite apart from Russian activity in the European periphery being emboldened) are:

1) If Ukraine’s territorial integrity is not restored, NATO Article 5 (mutual defence) will be tested, probably in the Baltic states. 2) Nuclear proliferation will increase dramatically because the lesson from this conflict will be that nuclear powers (i.e. Russia) can face down the West. 3) Taiwan. Be in no doubt, China is watching very carefully the Western response in Ukraine.

Ukraine is the strategic centre - hold Ukraine, and these other elements, can be rolled back. Lose Ukraine (i.e. some shoddy deal) and we will be looking at generalised conflict.

Over the next few weeks, I will unpack each of the areas in this thread (with !) to illustrate just how pervasive Russian activity is. I will also try and link to things that I think the UK government should be doing.

For now, I will just leave one thought. The UK is conducting a Strategic Defence Review at the moment, which is due to report early next year. This is an MOD only review, and so it seems that the government is not considering the strategic envelope within which the review will be conducted (which would normally be a whole of government exercise).

This is a bit like asking how to spend a £50bn budget without setting out what to do with it. We had heard rumours, but the slightly evasive answer from the Minister to my written Parliamentary Question seems to confirm this. https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-09-05/4499/…

Without deciding first on strategy, or even goals, the “Strategic” Defence Review will end up being a Treasury-led cost cutting exercise where the services fight each other for their prized programmes. Exactly NOT what is needed now.

More to follow in later threads. Bye for now!