By Patrick Bishop
July 10, 2024
General Sir Patrick Sanders is clearly a man who believes in going out with a bang rather than a whimper.
The recently retired chief of the general staff yesterday issued a blood-curdling warning to Britain’s defence establishment in which he argued that the West has only until the end of the decade to rearm sufficiently to ward off a Russian attack on Nato soil which would trigger a World War III-style conflict.
The ex-head of the British Army also claimed that ‘the new axis powers’ of Russia, China and Iran represented a greater threat to the free world than Hitler and the Nazis did in 1939 as ‘they are more interdependent and more aligned than the original Axis powers were’.
Not all the top brass speak in such apocalyptic terms, of course. Britain’s defence chief Admiral Sir Tony Radakin last month chose the 80th anniversary of D-Day – a time for sobering reflection on the horrors of war – to reassure the nation.
He claimed the likelihood of Britain finding itself embroiled in another huge conflict, this time with Russia, was small. ‘Putin does not want a war with Nato,’ Radakin declared. ‘Putin does not want a nuclear war.’
He must hope he is right – although I am far from certain he is. Are those who portray Vladimir Putin as a 21st century Hitler just scaremongering? Or is the threat of Russia attacking, say, Poland or the Baltic states,triggering an all-out conflict with Nato that could easily go nuclear, an eventuality the risks of which we would be foolish to downplay?
As if to highlight this danger, China and Belarus started joint military exercises a few miles from the Polish border just as the latest Nato summit kicked off in Washington DC.
On the day after Russia launched a sickening attack on a children’s hospital in Kyiv, our new Foreign and Defence Secretaries, David Lammy and John Healey, co-authored a newspaper article to say that they would use the summit to urge other countries to increase their defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP.
They can talk the talk but can they walk the walk? While Rishi Sunak committed the Tories to reaching that figure by 2030 during the election campaign, Labour will still only pledge to accelerate spending to 2.5 per cent ‘as soon as possible’.
With President Joe Biden in crisis and the Nato-sceptic Donald Trump looking ever more likely to make a return to the White House, it has never been more important for Nato to announce a timeline for its member countries to reach the new target.
For Ukraine is only one of three key flashpoints that threaten the world order as we know it. China remains a constant threat to Taiwan and the Israeli conflict in Gaza could well escalate into a wider regional war.
Nevertheless, Russia’s war in Ukraine is the clear and present danger. As someone who spent three decades covering conflicts around the world as a foreign correspondent before becoming a military historian, I’m firmly of the view that – backed into a corner – Putin is capable of anything.
The Kremlin has long been peddling the narrative that a showdown with Nato is inevitable and an attack on Poland in response to some trumped-up provocation could rally the nation behind him.
US intelligence already believes that there is a real prospect of Putin ordering the use of battlefield nuclear munitions if the situation in Ukraine significantly worsens. And I, for one, am convinced that, given the prospect of defeat and disgrace, Putin is quite capable of going out in a Hitlerian Götterdämmerung – a catastrophic act of mass destruction.
Ever since the start of the war, state propaganda has been preparing the Russian people for it going nuclear. Only last month, a military analyst boasted on Russia-1, the main state-owned TV channel, that ‘in just 10 or 15 minutes’ 30 to 40 Russian nukes could ‘make the state of Poland and the Polish people disappear’.
We may comfort ourselves with the thought that missile launch protocols do not allow a leader acting alone to start a nuclear war and that wiser heads further down the chain of command would refuse to carry out such an order.
But who knows? The inner workings of the Kremlin remain remarkably opaque even to our security services.
Optimists such as Sir Tony Radakin are convinced that Russia will eventually lose in Ukraine. The war has placed a huge strain on Russia’s economy and its standing in Europe and America, such as it was, has hit rock bottom. If peace were to be declared tomorrow, it would take Moscow decades to repair the reputational damage and restore normal relations with the West.
And then there are the half a million casualties the armed forces have suffered since the invasion began. Russians take a masochistic pride in their ability to suffer but even they have limits.
Public disquiet can only grow as the recruiting sergeants turn to big cities like Moscow and St Petersburg in search of fresh cannon fodder.
So logic may appear, ostensibly, to be on Radakin’s side. But, as he must surely know by now, Putin does not operate on reason alone. After 24 years in power, he is not interested – if he ever was – in mundane considerations of what is best for his people.
His overwhelming concern is to leave his mark on history as a restorer of Russian might, an achievement that would grant him a place in school textbooks alongside Peter the Great and Joseph Stalin.
History tells us that it is always wise to take dictators at their word and not discount their wilder utterances as fantasies.
No one can predict with certainty the outcome of the current conflict but Radakin is probably right when he says that in the long term Russia is likely to lose. This is a war of attrition. The Kremlin’s switch to a war economy and its ability, for the time being at least, to replace losses of men and material are worrying for the West.
But the financial and human costs are colossal and, in time, will translate into political problems for Putin. Even in a society fed on lies, certain truths are impossible to hide.
Putin believed that democracies cannot march in step for long and that the rough consensus that Europe and the US has sustained since the Ukraine war began must sooner or later fall apart. Time, he believed, was on his side.
Only this week, India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, leader of the world’s biggest democracy and traditionally a friend of the West, greeted Putin with a hug when he arrived in Russia for a two-day state visit – much to the irritation of Ukraine’s President Zelensky, who branded the gesture a ‘huge disappointment’.
This episode aside, Putin’s calculation is now looking shaky. The West has kept its nerve and, in an attritional struggle of economies and resources, massively outmatches Russia. Nato attitudes are hardening, as evidenced by the decision to allow Ukraine to use foreign-supplied weapons to strike inside Russia proper.
But a tilt of the scales in Kyiv’s favour could well make the world a more dangerous place. Ukrainian success would dash Putin’s dream of historical immortality as well as dealing a probably fatal blow to his leadership.
Admiral Radakin no doubt meant well with his comforting words. But as a historian, I prefer the analysis of General Sanders.
The world has become a very dangerous place and ‘a whole nation effort’ is needed to protect ourselves, starting with a massive investment in our armed forces.
We can only hope our fellow Nato members see the urgency, too.
Patrick Bishop is a military historian and the co-host of the Battleground podcast.
Original article, with photos and videos, here:
I completely disagree. Although the mafiosi are bloodthirsty ghouls with zero compassion for even children and animals, they are not suicidal. I also doubt that most of their nukes and ICBMs still work.
Tony Radakin declared. ‘Putin does not want a nuclear war.’
True, but he thrives on the threat of one and no one can say for absolutely certain that he won’t deploy a tactical device in Ukraine if he thinks he can gain from it.
Putler is an unpredictable, depraved, evil, poisonous dwarf straight from a Bond novel: which reminds me of Blofeld.
By way of light relief from all the horror, I copied something from FB a while back and unfortunately can’t remember the source. It concerns Bond actor Roger Moore and it was of interest to me because my father knew him a little. The story conforms with what he told me about him:
“There’s a wonderful true story about Roger Moore meeting a young fan in Nice airport in 1983.
Mark Haynes was seven years old when he recognized Moore as James Bond while travelling with his grandfather and asked if it was okay to get an autograph.
“As charming as you’d expect, Roger asks my name and duly signs the back of my plane ticket, a fulsome note full of best wishes,” remembers Mark. “I’m ecstatic, but as we head back to our seats, I glance down at the signature. It’s hard to decipher it but it definitely doesn’t say ‘James Bond’. My grandad looks at it, half figures out it says ‘Roger Moore’ – I have absolutely no idea who that is, and my hearts sinks.
“I tell my grandad he’s signed it wrong, that he’s put someone else’s name – so my grandad heads back to Roger Moore, holding the ticket which he’s only just signed.
“I remember staying by our seats and my grandad saying: ‘he says you’ve signed the wrong name. He says your name is James Bond.’ Roger Moore’s face crinkled up with realisation and he beckoned me over. When I was by his knee, he leant over, looked from side to side, raised an eyebrow and in a hushed voice said to me, ‘I have to sign my name as ‘Roger Moore’ because otherwise…Blofeld might find out I was here.’
“He asked me not to tell anyone that I’d just seen James Bond, and he thanked me for keeping his secret. I went back to our seats, my nerves absolutely jangling with delight. My grandad asked me if he’d signed ‘James Bond.’ No, I said. I’d got it wrong. I was working with James Bond now.”
The story doesn’t end there. It gets even better.
Years later, as a scriptwriter, Mark had the opportunity to work with Moore again. “I was working as a scriptwriter on a recording that involved UNICEF, and Roger Moore was doing a piece to camera as an ambassador. He was completely lovely and while the cameramen were setting up, I told him in passing the story of when I met him in Nice Airport. He was happy to hear it, and he had a chuckle and said: ‘Well, I don’t remember but I’m glad you got to meet James Bond.’ So that was lovely.
“And then he did something so brilliant. After the filming, he walked past me in the corridor, heading out to his car – but as he got level, he paused, looked both ways, raised an eyebrow and in a hushed voice said, ‘Of course I remember our meeting in Nice. But I didn’t say anything in there, because those cameramen – any one of them could be working for Blofeld.’
“I was as delighted at 30 as I had been at 7. What a man. What a tremendous man.”
“Putler is an unpredictable, depraved, evil, poisonous dwarf straight from a Bond novel: which reminds me of Blofeld.”
That’s because he has been dealing with one spinless loser in the West after another ever since he weasled his way into the kremlin. Which Western leader was like a Reagan, or Thatcher, or Churchill? No one! Nix! Nada! Nichevo! All spineless. All snivling whim ps. All incompetent. All easily fooled. All losers.
Putin, however, did not hesitate to blow up the dam…
he keeps the possibility of sabotaging the nuclear power plant…
He’s been dreaming of being a genius, a czar for at least ten years, he’s not going to accept taking a beating like that and going down in history like the sociopath he is. he’s a limitless asshole who wants to win but we can see that he’s going to set the whole world on fire. you can bet that even his children have no real importance/value in his eyes. he respects nothing and no one outside his own navel…neither Russia nor the rest of the world has the slightest importance.
we can hope that in his entourage there will be a certain number of individuals who will want to do otherwise than follow him to the grave, and cool him down…
so we have a shit psychological profile, known to everyone for a long time coupled with a nuclear arsenal. I would be surprised if a responsible manager would say to himself that nuclear power is obsolete, let’s bet and we’ll see….
which does not take away from the parallel management of other threats which seem to aggregate and grow.
In short, it’s a complex situation and a shitty time…
Even if the rat is willing to use nukes and assuming his subordinates are willing to follow him down the fiery path of destruction, I would still not be intimidated by his threats.
By the way, managing time and managing conflagration does not particularly mean that we are intimidated. certainly with the information we have, this actually gives a cruel impression of powerlessness and cowardice… History will tell.
certainly being faced with this horrible situation is painful
I think certain Western leaders are plentifully intimidated. That’s one reason why they have allowed this war to be dragged out.