Author: Nicholas Watt
In 1649 an English composer called Thomas Tomkins wrote a work “for these distracted times” – he was writing at the time of the English civil war. With a war in Europe and with tensions in the Middle east and the South China Sea and occasional outbursts of violence around the world, 2024 may well be characterised as a distracted year.
The war in Ukraine has shaken the west out of a complacent attitude towards defence and security policy thinking. Pundits and politicians became comfortable debating whether they could afford a 2% GDP commitment to defence spending when there are so many other demands on the public purse. The lack of readiness of many western armed forces was not seen as a matter requiring urgent attention.
The zeitenwende resulting from the outbreak of war in Europe has seen policy makers and commentators rediscover the importance of old fashioned conventional war planning and also the need for readiness and capability. However much the level of defence spending might have to rise to, deterrence is cheaper than the costs of reconstruction following a major war.
In parallel with the efforts to support Ukraine in its fight to repel the invader, Europe has found that its discussions about strategic autonomy have become secondary to the need for a closer engagement with the United States. A new Cold War means that the Atlantic Alliance has become more significant in European thinking about its defence and security policy.
But – western policy makers and politicians fall to easily into the trap of thinking that the calculations being made by autocrats around the world fit into the same worldview as their own. The west invested a lot of resources into developing a military that is high tech to secure an advantage over a potential enemy that possesses large numbers of personnel and cheap equipment to throw at us in the event of a shooting war.
Chinese thinking has long revolved around the ability to win a war without having to fight one. Despite having blundered into a war in Ukraine, much of Russian strategic thinking follows the same logic. Why fight the west when you can undermine it? Unconventional warfare is a better way of achieving your objectives. If warfare is the continuation of politics by other means, unconventional or hybrid operations are warfare by other means.
Recently we have seen: attacks on undersea gas pipelines & threats to fibre optic cables. Chinese fishing vessels intruding into disputed waters in the South China Sea; Spy balloons drifting over the USA; Russian cyber-attacks on Ukrainian critical national infrastructure, before the invasion of 2022. This is in addition to disinformation and Deep Fake efforts to disrupt elections, or to promote adversarial narratives on social media. So called Hybrid warfare and the use of cyber enabled measures to influence opinion, or to attack critical infrastructure have become part of the modern Statecraft tool kit being used against western interests. How can Europe respond to these developments?
Russian calculations about western resolve have been borne out by the response by European governments to the invasion of Ukraine. There was initially reluctance by many governments to commit to supply the weapons needed to repel the invader. Subsequently there was reluctance to subscribe to a list of comprehensive sanctions against individuals and companies. The reason was easily understood, many countries have developed deep trading relations with Russia and are reliant on a supply of Russian gas to heat their homes and offices.
There is now a serious debate going on throughout European civil society about how resilient our societies are in the face of fake news amplified through social media. In 2024 countries with more than half of the world’s population will go to the polls to choose a new government. How easy would it be for a malign state to seek to influence the outcome of a national election? Many European states have coalition governments comprised of three or four parties, each of which will want its share of ministries and policy leads.
In Europe there is a need for vigilance with regard to those countries who seek to join the European Union or NATO. Russia has been active in the Balkans region and in Moldova, seeking to destabilise pro-western regimes. Bosnia Herzegovina and Georgia have expressed their desire to join NATO as has Ukraine. Destabilising a pro-western government could be the ambition of the Kremlin. The delay in ratifying Swedish membership of the NATO Alliance shows the effect one blocking vote can have. This matters because the implementation of Article 5 of the Washington Treaty in a time of crisis requires unanimity. Imagine how a delay to this process might advantage Russia if it undertook an incursion into NATO territory.
Both Russia and China pursue measures against western democracies that seek to undermine confidence in democratic structures. Belgian police arrested a far right politician working for Chinese interests. Russian GRU operatives visited Catalonia at the time of the independence referendum in 2017.
Western democracies need to equip themselves with sufficiently robust legislation to close loopholes in civil society that allow fake news to circulate. This should be the business of law makers in European democracies and EU institutions. National Security agencies should ensure that measures are taken to counter disinformation and where possible to identify the source. A credible military capability can act as a deterrent to efforts to destabilize vulnerable countries. The British Army has a designated unit 77th Brigade to address the Hybrid warfare threat and specialist Ranger regiments that provide support for friendly governments when requested.
Eurodefense will engage with this important question; how can we keep ourselves safe, and how can we do so in a way that safeguards and respects our values as democratic societies? What measures can be enacted at the European level? What measures should be the preserve of national security agencies? Eurodefense will endeavour to keep this area of defence and security policy in the public eye and in the minds of policy makers.