As the geopolitical landscape in Europe and beyond is seeing dramatic shifts, the talks on peace in Ukraine see no input from Russia, and the EU is trying to pace up its defense readiness in the face of the potential crises, Ukrinform spoke with General Sir Rupert Smith, former NATO Deputy Supreme Commander Allied Powers Europe (DSACEUR). A former member of the Strategic Advice Panel to the UK Chief of Defence and military member of the UK National Security Forum advising the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, he has extensive expertise in multinational and multilateral issues, and advised governments, industry and policy makers on defence and security strategies.

The conversation over a cup of tea revolved around the objectives that European leaders neet to achieve to be more prepared to stand up to the threats, re-establishing deterrence, the lessons Europe should learn from Ukraine to this end, the peculiar kind of war Russia has been waging against Europe already for quite a while, and the debate around the security guarantees now being shaped by the Coalition of the Willing. 

EUROPE NEEDS TO REESTABLISH DETERRENCE

- Given the the challenges that the Europeans leaders are now facing, what are the objectives they should achieve, at least in the short term, to find themselves in a safer place?

- I think one should begin with an understanding of where we want to finish up, and then you can consider the stepping stones down that path which give you the short-term objectives. I will start with what I think the long term objective should be. And that is to establish a state of deterrence whereby Mr. Putin, Russia, is deterred from any further military adventure affecting Europe as a geographical feature as opposed to a political one.

The re-establishment of deterrence requires us to accept that deterrence has failed. And for many, particularly those who put their faith in the nuclear weapon it hasn't. Because we haven't had a war with nuclear weapons. So they think deterrence must be working.

I don't think that is the case. I don't think deterrence has worked at all in the recent years. And I think for the whole of this century it has failed vis-à-vis Russia.

And therefore deterrence needs to be re-established.

This means you have to establish in the mind of the person you're wishing to deter a belief that what you threaten is credible – and will hurt them, that it won’t be worth the cost of being hurt. So we have credibility of the threat.

The second requirement is a political will to implement your threat. And this is vulnerbale to all sorts of countermeasures by your opponent. And it has to be maintained over time.

Then you have to convince the person you are deterring that you can find what he values and hit it with your threat – whether it's his bank balance or his weapons...

- … Or his life…

- …And he has to believe that you can actually do this. Again, it must not be just a one-off. If it doesn't work the first time, you'll come back and do it again, and again until everything stops.

So it doesn’t matter what we’re talking about – be it a traffic cop or a nuclear deterrent, one has to believe that if you “exceed the speed limit”, you will be found, that your case will be pursued in courts and that you will be prosecuted. And that if you do it again, it'll happen again.

Why autonomous deterrence for Europe is so important? We cannot trust the Americans to underwrite deterrence in the future. Until Mr Trump, it was still credible that Americans back up their promises. But that isn't credible anymore.

RUSSIA IS WAGING AN AMBIGUOUS WAR AGAINST THE WEST

- So what about the short-term objectives?

- The Russians developed the ideas of what we've come to call hybrid war. I believe at least initially when this was beginning to be discussed in the late 1980s. Early 1990s, the words being used in Russia was “ambiguous war”.

And I think that's a much more telling description, or title for this idea. And the idea was a form of defeating deterrence. Deterrence was always understood in terms of escalation. You do more, with bigger weapons, you build up the escalatory process. We'd start with conventional war and then escalate into nuclear war. There was this whole idea that the escalator only went upwards. But the idea of ambiguous warfare as I understood from the conversations in the 1980s and early 1990s was that you would present your opponent with a situation that was ambiguous, so you didn't know whether you were on the escalator or not.

Secondly, you'd instead of going up the escalator, you went down. It’s about conducting operations, which are much information operations, aimed to alter the understanding of your opponent, to again enhance the ambiguity and to create doubt in the decisionmakers’ minds. To create a context that encouraged your opponent to understand the text of that moment as not being a war. And therefore, they wouldn't be deterred.

There's two fronts. There is the physical front and context of that physical act. That my was my understanding of this idea. And I watched it in one form or another being played out. And a particularly excellent example is the story of Ukraine, the independent state of Ukraine from 1991 onwards. So Russia seeks to control this new state through the apparatus of the old Soviet state that Ukraine was inherited along with those people, many of whom were genuine Ukrainians, but others still thought of themselves as Russians. Moscow's fingers are in that network inherited from Moscow.

And it is civil Society in Ukraine that changes the situation step by step, until we get to the Maidan, but it has been going on very slowly, over that period of roughly 25 years.

That is part of Russian hybrid warfare. They are trying to control Ukraine without going to war. And it fails with the Maidan. So they push the fist inside the context. And then we get Crimea and the Donbas. And it is explained by Russia as the whole thing was provocation. The provocation, of course, is explained by the context: “I'm losing control, so I've got to go and get the bit I want”. And they take it. At best, that is not understood, and more probably willfully ignored by European capitals, after which we get the whole Minsk performance.

The Budapest memorandum should not have failed. It failed because of a failure of deterrence.

The thing we've got to do first, while building up a military industrial capacity, building up fleets of airplanes, and so on, we've got to start to defeat the information operation, including the physical actions as part of this context setting, like breaking pipilens and cables in the Baltic, flying drones over airports, paying criminal gangs to blow up electricity transformers, and so on.

You do not get the head of the security service of the United Kingdom standing up in public and saying “We're at war and have been for some years with Russia”. This is unusual to find that sort of position going public at all.

So that would be short-term aims. Build up the industrial and defense capacities, increase your forces, of course, continue to maintain Ukraine in the fight, learn from Ukraine, and on top of that, just as important, counter and defeat that second front, the informational operation that Russia conducts at the moment.

TO CREATE A PAN-EUROPEAN FORCE, SOME FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS NEED TO BE ADDRESSED

- I heard the term “divorce” when experts spoke about the EU-US ties, so some say in theory, Europe is ready for that divorce, but still in practice, given the really sophisticated structure of the EU, it's really hard to accomplish. There has been the idea promoted by Defense Commissioner Kubilius, of creating a 100,000 pan-European standing army to replace the American forces should they decide to withdrw. What do you think about it?

- The very fact that we're talking in the public discourse across the Atlantic and within Europe of our relationships is undermining the ability of the American underwriting of European deterrents. Whether a European standing army is the correct answer? In the short term, I very much doubt it. And my reasons for doubting it is the sheer practicalities of forming a supranational army. This isn't a private military company, this is an army of the European Union. How does that work?

I was a British soldier. I swore my loyalty to my then Queen. A Frenchman has sworn his loyalty to the Republic. We are bound by the laws of our state, and that state pays us. But here, does the EU pay them? Are they swearing their loyalty to Brussels, or Strasbourg? And what court covers their actions? The legal aspect is crucial because that is the fundamental authority that allows a soldier in the British army to kill a soldier in another army, or even to carry weapons on the street.

Also, would citizens of France accept soldiers from the EU army, the stateless force, to be stationed on their soil? These are very fundamental questions. I’m not saying they can’t be answered but it might take years to find answers. So I don’t see it as a quick solution to the problem.

Perhaps, they will try to create a contingent consisting from national armies and come up with some sort of command arrangement. It would be easy enough to decide on and create but the European Union doesn't really have any command arrangements like NATO has and there's no reason why that can't be part of the European bits of the NATO structure, that could perhaps be double-hatted. It's a tangle.

If the European force is supposed to be able to move around quickly, I don't think that’s too difficult to create but some questions need to be clarified: are those contingents separate from the ones the nations have allocated to NATO? There's only one set of armies, navies, and air forces. No one can afford two sets. And we can barely afford one with our current lifestyles.

FOR AN EXISTENTIAL WAR YOU NEED A WARTIME ECONOMY

- While Ukraine is not part of NATO or the EU yet, de facto Ukraine is already part of Europe’s security and defense architecture. How do you think this may develop?

- In a shorter term, we Europeans, whether in the EU or not, probably using the NATO structures that already exist, need to continue to support Ukraine in every possible way we can – with materiel, training, assistance, etc. We can't risk Ukraine falling into Russian hands. Leave aside freedom of choice or the fact that Ukraine's was invaded. If Russia is in possession of a geographical space called Ukraine, then you have doubled the European border with Russia, and you don't want to do that. And secondly, all those men in Ukraine, with enormous amounts of experience and lots of equipment will be in Russian hands. And they'll start to be pointed at us. And we don't want that either. So, for those two reasons alone, Europe should continue to support Ukraine in every possible way. At the very least, to maintain the current military situation and, ideally, make it a lot better, particularly in the air defense and the electronic spectrum.

Then, we have a great deal to learn from Ukraine – and I am not talking about the tactical battle where, of course, people are learning things at a rather higher level. We've got to learn, or relearn, what it means to have a wartime economy.

A wartime economy involves gaining control of your manpower. Because if you don't do that, you won't get a balance between soldiers on the ground, the right people in the ships and airplanes, and the right people in the factories and so on and so forth. And we're watching Ukraine having great difficulties in doing this. It's very difficult, and it's not the same answer as you would have applied 70 years ago during the Second World War. Each state and Europe as a whole have to start to learn that lesson and work out solutions advance. It's not something you want to be doing on the run.

Secondly, there’s industrial and technical development necessary to maintain defense and wartime economy. Where’s the balance between guns and butter? Also, there must be balance between technological development and industrial capacity.

And we can see that going on in Ukraine. The lessons are there. There was a limited but existing industrial capacity to make shells and armored vehicles, and so on. But if they just went on doing that, none of the other innovations would have been possible. You have to recognize that there's a technological battle in a war between the two sides, and you want to win it.

Then, there's a manufacturing battle, so you want the best possible gun. But you need to produce plenty of them. And there is a balance to how you do that. And again, you can see it going on in Ukraine. There is wonderful, clever innovation in some given brigade, and another set of innovation in some other brigade. The circumstances of one brigade might be different to another one. But I observe there's very little cross-fertilization between these developments, so you have a fragmented application. And that makes it extremely difficult to produce the volumes.

In Russia, they have fewer innovations but they are maximizing production.

The right answer will be different in each society and in each war. But you need to have the understanding and the mechanisms in place in your societies in advance to make these judgments. And that we do not possess.

So if it’s not a war of choice but an existential war, you need to have a wartime economy. There’s other things, too, like we need have the same discussion about hospitals, the way we allocate the doctors and so on.

If you do all that in advance, you will have much more credibility and capacity to conduct this war, which you don't want it to happen and wish to deter.

Also, there’s potential for some virtuous investment into Ukraine that brings weapons back into European armies. That could be engineered. It doesn't happen next week, but you could start that process. When Britain is making Ukrainian designed drones, that sort of thing is an excellent idea. And let's do more of it. It benefits everybody.

EU WAS INITIALLY CREATED TO PREVENT EUROPEAN NATIONS FROM FIGHTING EACH OTHER

- As part of building up that deterrence you mentioned that political will that must be in place but it is challenging to achieve that political will in such complicated political systems that there are in Europe, with the people enjoying the luxure of peace for so long and with politicians bound by electoral cycles. What should be done to inspire meaningful national debates to prepare the people for potential crises?

- I agree that we have a very complex political situation. And the complexity is wider than what’s been mentioned. There's a geographical complexity – the man in Sweden isn't going to think like the man in Spain or Portugal, so a geographical point of view is different. And also, Europe knows that it has to do it collectively. But we've never given, until very recently, the collective Brussels, any authority to consider these issues.

Remember, the European Union is at base the idea to prevent the Europeans from fighting each other ever again, to create a situation where the practicalities of going to war with each other again were neutralized. So the processes and the laws and all the rest that’s been developed was founded on that idea.

Now, in the last two decades, perhaps a little more, Europe has started to be having to become so significant - whether it's money, or its regulatory position, or its sheer volume of people, or now when Russia attacked Ukraine, that it suddenly has to look outwards instead of inwards. So Europe is yet to cut that knot of looking inwards and start to figure out how to make decisions that are looking outwards.

NATO was always able to do that because it was the military, defense part of a larger strategy, essentially an American strategy of containing Russia. And NATO grew to become the manifestation of the military component of that strategy. And it rarely only had a few decisions to make. Once again, no nation allocated its forces to NATO. Only a little part of the forces were prepared, equipped and trained together, but they weren’t formally given to the Supreme Allied Commander until a primary decision had been made in the North Atlantic Council.

As to that primary decision depended on answering a question: Is that big red arrow on the Moscow-Paris axis moving or not? And the moment we all agreed it was moving, then all the forces were to be allocated to the SACEUR command, and the Alliance went to a general deployment plan as to the forward defense of the NATO territory. And if that failed and the Soviet or some other army had penetrated, then we would face the second decision. Do we go nuclear or not?

That was essentially the decision-making processes in NATO. And it was all on the basis that this adventure was underpinned by the United States military power. And the purpose of the defense of Western Europe was to give time for the striking fleets and strategic Air Force to get across the ocean and into Europe. It's not called the North Atlantic treaty organization for nothing.

Since the end of the Cold War, there have not been the decisions faced by NATO. And it would be difficult under the current political circumstances to see that situation being recreated.

In the end, NATO would need unanimity to trigger Article 5.

The whole idea of ambiguous warfare is to create a situation where ambiguity will rule.

THE CURRENT ACTIONS OF THE COALTION OF THE WILLING ARE ABOUT SIGNALLING

- As to the deterrence of future Russian aggression against Ukraine, the Coalition of the Willing is only shaping up the outlook of security guarantees. Only two nations pledged boots on the ground after ceasefire is achieved – the UK and France. While it’s unclear how this will be implemented, do you think this whole debate is feasible at this stage?

- I think it's feasible. There is a possibility that you will want to put troops on the ground. And you want to do it with allies so there must be some cross fertilization between the different capitals. I think there’s merit in doing this in public now because it shows intentions, it shows commitment. However incredible the prospects might seem, at least someone's thinking about it. If Europe is demonstrating that there are ready to think of the matter and make statements about what they are going to do, that boosts credibility to some extent.

What is not being said, because there isn't peace agreement and they don't have to say it, is what are the parameters within which this force will be committed. Indeed, we’re at a very early stage of the negotiating process.

By the way, last autumn, when we got a ceasefire in Gaza, there was going to be some form of force going to be deployed. To the best of my knowledge, there isn't one yet…

So now I read the actions of the Coalition of the Willing as signalling.

- To Russia?

- And very much across the Atlantic, too, it’s signaling to all of those parties.

The UK is not a member of the EU and it will have to act on itself, and the sooner it shows the cards that it’s prepared to play, the better. It's the only act they have at the moment in relation to defense and security.

- So it is probably impossible to say today what the best framing of the security guarantees will be. After all, no one still knows to which extent the US could be involved.

- Absolutely. Until you know what has been agreed and acted upon, it's very difficult to say what you can secure. Everyone has at least slightly different interests as to how to contribute. And it will play out in the domestic parliaments and capitals as to whether that was a good thing or not.

IT’S RUSSIAN OLIGARCHS THAT COULD STOP PUTIN

- Under what conditions do you think Russia would stop the war?

- If Putin is the sole decision maker, then the cost to his own position of making peace has to be less than the cost of sustaining the war.

And for two and a bit years now, the Western press have carried articles about how the economy and manpower is all imposing on Russia the cost on continuing the war. But it hasn't reached that tipping point.

And the tipping point is not the people. It’s the ruling oligarchy, the large-scale criminal enterprise running the country. But I’m not confident that Putin, in the end, is a decision maker.

Quite a good example in the past might be the Russian-Japanese war of 1912 when they had to make peace. And that peace was largely dictated by aristocracy. The cost to the Tsar of making peace was less than the continuing situation in the country.

And part of my argument of attacking and neutralizing this Russian information war is that you start to do the same thing in the other direction. And I don't think we're doing anything of this kind. I see very little, but certainly not as concerted as I wish it was. We could target the veterans or their families – because remember, the Afghan war veterans had been the irritants of the Soviet regime, and it paid off.

Also, we can say we've got your money and we’re taking it away. And we’re taking your house wherever it is, and you’re never crossing out of Russia. Or we turn off your electricity somewhere. We could do that, I’m sure. Dare fly your drones over Brussels again and your Moscow Metro will stop operating for 48 hours. If our technological competence is as good as we think it is, then we ought to be able to do that. And it will become part of the information op, this time ours. It would be great fun!

Ievgen Matiushenko, Brussels

Photos provided by Sir Rupert Smith