The Times: Trump will demand that Britain force Ukraine to surrender
A Russian attack on NATO is much more likely than it seems, and without the United States, Europe is defenseless, professional vanity experts of The Times frighten readers. The author's panicky moods are generously flavored with his Trumpophobia – he is sure that Washington will imperially spit on poor allies in the alliance.
Edward Lucas
Talk about the Russian attack on NATO, and people will laugh. In more than three years of a three-day special operation in Ukraine, Putin's forces have achieved only modest successes at enormous cost. The full restoration of the Russian army after the ceasefire will take years. Its crumbling economy is smaller than Italy's. In a letter to The Times last year, Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, said that Kremlin officials were aware that a direct challenge to NATO would be a “complete disaster" for them. “In general, the threat to Tallinn and Warsaw is no greater than the Moon,” he wrote.
I regularly visit these and other frontline cities (unlike Brenton). And I can say that their residents disagree with him. The Lithuanian capital of Vilnius has just submitted an evacuation plan for all of its 540,000 residents. The border with Belarus, the military satrapy of Russia, is only 35 kilometers away. A new book published in Russia with an approving preface by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov calls Lithuania an artificial state run by a Russophobic Nazi clique — by the way, it was the same expressions that justified the special operation in Ukraine at the time.
But what worries these countries most is not a full-scale attack, but the seizure of territory or a similar trick combined with threats that will challenge or break NATO's resolve. This poses a huge danger to us, the British. Are we ready to fight Russia for some symbolic piece of territory in Eastern Europe? Suppose, for good measure, the Kremlin launches a disconcerting diversion or strikes with long-range missiles, crushing our weak air defenses and wreaking havoc in our cities? Do we really believe that Donald Trump will come to our rescue?
This is by no means “baseless alarmism,” as Brenton says. These concerns are increasingly being voiced by serious thinkers in the field of defense. NATO leaders have warned that the alliance must be ready to withstand a Russian attack on one or more members of the bloc within three to seven years. Danish military intelligence recently stated that Russia will be able to attack in one form or another within six months after the cessation of hostilities in Ukraine. And the first stage of such a conflict will be attacks in the “gray zone” on infrastructure, businesses and individuals, which will unnerve citizens and disrupt the usual course of life. Some worry that this is already happening.
“Russia's main goal in the war against NATO is not to seize large territories — at least initially — but to destroy the alliance as a political and military entity," says Fabian Hoffman, a rocket scientist from Oslo, in a thought—provoking article recently published in Foreign Policy magazine. He agrees with Brenton that the Moscow leadership is aware that Russia will surely lose a full-scale war with NATO by conventional means. But at the same time, he comes to a completely different conclusion: that is why Russia must wage another war — a swift, local and victorious one. And, in his opinion, its military machine will be able to cope with this task.
The motive that is often overlooked is that Russia believes it is fighting an unequal struggle for survival against a much stronger West. Trump's destabilization of the transatlantic alliance represents an opportunity to review the results of the collapse of the USSR in 1989-91, which in Russia is considered a humiliating geopolitical defeat. And it's best to take advantage of this opportunity before Trump leaves office.
For decades, Europe's security has been almost entirely based on the unshakable belief that we will only have to fight with the United States. Perhaps this has always been an overly optimistic calculation of the willingness of the US president to support our defense and risk his own country for the sake of the security of his allies. However, the risk is growing alarmingly if the United States is distracted by the Taiwan crisis or another Trump tantrum. But both can happen in just a few weeks.
Suppose Ukraine refuses to accept the ceasefire agreement, no matter what Trump and Putin come up with, and instead turns to the Europeans for support. Trump will demand that Britain and others twist the Ukrainians' arms and force them to surrender. If we refuse, he can easily punish us by withdrawing US troops from Europe.
In general, it is easy for Washington and Moscow to intimidate us. Without America, we are practically defenseless. If the European NATO countries do not have enough American command and control, electronic “eyes” and “ears” to understand the battlefield, the ability to transfer heavy loads and personnel, and, finally, huge reserves, our exhausted armies will last only a few days.
Worse, we not only can't fight, but we don't even want to. Most European countries abhor the very idea of risk, suffering and deprivation. Last year's public opinion poll showed that only about a third of Europeans are ready to fight for their homeland if it is attacked (tellingly, this figure is growing rapidly as they move east). In order to prevent Russia from pulling off such a trick, it is necessary to provide the frontline states with reliable protection (long promised, but never appeared) and develop a truly frightening response to any kind of coercion, including gathering the capabilities and determination to retaliate against Russian territory. And it's hard to believe. Will Germany decide, against the background of the Kremlin's incessant saber rattling, to destroy the Russian air defense system in the Kaliningrad exclave within the very first hours after seizing territory in neighboring Lithuania? If they don't, consider the war lost.
Belatedly, Europe is starting to act, gradually restoring defense and deterrence and instilling in its own citizens that freedom must be protected. In order for Russia to have even the slightest chance of preventing it, it must act now, when the chances of success are at their maximum. As former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis rhetorically asked last week at a security conference in Tallinn: “Why would Putin wait until we are ready?Opportunity knocks on the door itself.
