Tag: ukraine

Full Mettle Jacket

A week ago I started reading Admiral Jim Stavridis and Elliott Akerman’s second book, ‘2054’, which like the first (‘2034’) is a work of fiction designed to tell us about how our own world is evolving and the risks that will confront us. Without spoiling the plot, ‘2054’ demonstrates how new technologies can be deployed in nefarious ways, with the goal of turning the tide of geopolitics. However, as much as I enjoy the work of the Stavridis/Akerman team, my reaction to ‘2054’ was much the same as ‘2034’ (‘2034 – are we already there?’), which is that it has been rendered out of date by bizarre events in the real, political world

The detonation of over seventy years of American diplomacy and soft power by the various speeches and deeds of the Trump administration is a fin de siècle moment, that has drawn comment across the diplomatic world (the most pertinent was that of the Singaporean defence minister who described how he saw the USA moving from a force for ‘moral legitimacy’ to a landlord seeking rent’).

The worry now is that the US will treat its allies like enemies and its foes like friends. There was much consternation in Europe, but as this note has argued so many times, very few European countries have faced up to the challenges of the post-globalized world (Mario Draghi’s speech to the EU parliament last week put it very well…’do something!’).

There is now a furore over Eur 500 bn defence bonds, joint nuclear shields and defence equipment shopping lists. But, a more urgent task than buying fighter jets is the need for Europe to have a coherent security strategy. In a weekend where many are anticipating the results of the German election, a neglected development was the collapse of government formation talks between Austria’s centre-right OVP and the far-right FPO.

Some weeks ago, the parties had agreed on an economic programme, but could not settle on  a common foreign policy, a critical stumbling point was oversight of the intelligence services (the OVP wanted to be in charge). This is a sensitive topic given that the FPO has a soft spot for the Kremlin, and specifically the fact that in 2018 the Herbert Kickl (FPO leader), when he was Austria’s interior minister, ordered an investigation into the country’s security services. Today, few of its EU peers share intelligence with Austria.

Reflecting that, the immediate challenge from Russia is infiltration, sabotage and manipulation across Europe (the Gerasimov doctrine and David Kilcullen’s work on Russian/Chinese tactics are both worth a read here ‘From Great War to Total War’). The EU has done relatively little to push back on this interference, and now has an urgent security (as well as defence) challenge.

This could take various forms.

The first is to penalise EU states that systematically go against the grain of the policies, values and interests of the Union. Hungary is the main offender here and whilst some EU funds have been withheld from Viktor Orban, the EU has in general failed to confront him. In the recent past there has been talk in the European parliament of excluding Hungary from the EU, which is technically difficult, but is a necessary part of a more ideologically consistent Europe, and one where bad actors face a penalty for their actions.

A second strand is to have much greater oversight over the movement of Russians in Europe, and of their capital. Vienna, Milan and the south of France, not to mention parts of Switzerland, are popular destinations for wealthy Russians and some European capitals are saturated with Russian money (Mark Hollingsworth’s book ‘Londongrad’ is instructive here as is Oliver Bullough’s ‘Butler to the World’). To emphasise the point, Russian interference in UK and lately Irish politics has not been aggressively countered, and my fear is that this is much worse in other countries like Germany.

Instead of clamouring to buy rocket launchers, Europe’s political classes have a lot to do domestically to shut the door on Russian interference in European affairs.

Then, on a more structural level, there is scope for much greater intelligence sharing across governments and joint task-forces on organised crime (gangs are a favourite extension of the Russian state). From the point of hardware, there is a need for increased joint use of satellites and electronic warfare collaboration.

The distinction between security and defence is an important and urgent one and a reminder of how complacent European governments have been. Whilst defence capabilities will take time to build up, the measures to be enacted in the security domain are less challenging to operationalise, but constitute a real test of European governments’ mettle.

Have a great week ahead,

Mike

Cold War to Total War

As I stepped out on the street in Kreuzberg (Berlin) on Monday, all was calm, with little to worry about save the choice of the excellent local food, loud music, beer and football (the Dutch invasion was just starting ahead of Tuesday’s match against Austria). Kreuzberg was of course once on the frontier of West Berlin, looking across to East Berlin and will have featured in the high stakes espionage between the West and East (notably so when Markus Wolf ran the Stasi).

Having once run into Mr Wolf, I was pondering what Berlin was like at the time, and we should not be surprised that it is still regarded as ‘the city of spies’, and that it continues to feature in espionage literature.

Given that context, it was no surprise to learn that Germany continues to be targeted by foreign spies. Over a week ago, German Interior minister Nancy Faeser launched the annual threat assessment of the German domestic intelligence service – which pinpoints Russia as well as China and Iran as the authors of multi-faceted attacks (disinformation, cyber-attacks, manipulation of people flows and racial tensions) on Germany, not to mention a recent spate of assassination attempts in Germany by Russia.  

Of great concern is the range of threats to Germany (the same is true in most other countries), from Russian operatives defenestrating enemies of Moscow, to plots to overthrow the German state by the far-right to Islamic terror (there are over 27000 known radicalised Islamists in Germany, and the threat of Islamic terror has been growing since the October 7 attack).

The tactics that the enemies of Europe (and democracy) are deploying are likely very different to those crafted by the likes of Markus Wolf. Espionage during the Cold War was motivated by a need for information, with plenty of proxy battles for influence taking place around the rest of the world.

Today, the aim seems to be outright destabilisation and provocation – from the multiple attacks on arms production facilities across Europe to an epidemic of coups d’état across Africa, to the waves of disinformation on our social media. There is also the impression that the US is being tied down in multiple conflicts around the world.

Today, the eyes of the world are on Gaza and Ukraine – and we are bracing for a new Trump Presidency – perfect conditions to ramp up outright destabilization and provocation. The issue then, is what the EU and its member countries need to do.

The first is to confront the problem and bring it into the open. Nancy Faeser’s report is just one of a growing number from security services across Europe – in May the head of Britain’s GCHQ outlined a similar, urgent threat landscape. The second will be for governments to give security services larger budgets (a Trump presidency might help), and potentially, to allow them a more flexible modus operandi.

The new development relates to the new EU commission. Following last week’s meeting of heads of state, it now looks likely that Ursula von der Leyen will continue as president – and with Katja Kallas as foreign representative, the tone of the next commission will tilt from ‘Green Deal’ to ‘security’ and ‘strategic autonomy’. Defence infrastructure and innovation will become a key trend in the private investment industry (private equity and venture). Von der Leyen has already flagged that enormous amounts of capital will be required to support this, and given the failure of the EU to build out its capital markets union (CMU) this will be an immense challenge.

One element that might help, a little, is von der Leyen’s proposal to create an EU defence commissioner. If it does happen, it will run into two of the common problems that beset bright ideas in Brussels.

First the role of defence commissioner will need to be based on the reallocation of powers from other commissioners – some defence innovation and military logistics responsibilities from Thierry Breton’s department, transport and infrastructure from the Transport commissioner (Valean) and various other responsibilities from the foreign representative.

The second issue is that it might take some power from national defence ministries, but there is also a strong argument that they need to be better coordinated.

In that sense the new EU defence commissioner might reflect changes that John Healey (currently the shadow defence minister in the UK) wants to usher in – an office for value for money in the Ministry of Defence and a restructured defence command.

The EU defence commissioner might also start by coordinating the purchase and use of heavy duty equipment, such as large transport aircraft, and driving the integrated use of new technologies across countries. Another potential task is to find means of better coordinating European security agencies and militaries, so that their collective, offensive capability becomes stronger.

It is a depressing, though necessary use of resources, and a sad sign of our times as globalization fades away.

Have a great week ahead,

Mike