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 chilling warning to Britain’s defence establishment, arguing that the West only has until the end of the decade to rearm sufficiently to protect itself from a Russian attack on Nato soil that would trigger a World War III-style conflict.
The former British Army chief also claimed that the “new Axis powers” of Russia, China and Iran posed a greater threat to the free world than Hitler and the Nazis in 1939, as “they are more interdependent and aligned than the original Axis powers.”
Devastation caused by yesterday’s Russian missile attack on the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in kyiv, specialising in the treatment of childhood cancer victims
Adolf Hitler: Are those who say that Putin is a 21st-century version of the Führer alarmists?
Of course, not all top brass are speaking in such apocalyptic terms. Britain’s defence chief, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, last month chose the 80th anniversary of D-Day – a time to reflect on the horrors of war – to reassure the nation.
Radakin said the likelihood of Britain becoming embroiled in another major conflict, this time with Russia, was small. “Putin does not want a war with NATO,” he said. “Putin does not want a nuclear war.”
He must hope that he is right, although I am not at all sure that he is. Are those who portray Vladimir Putin as a 21st-century Hitler simply fear-mongering? Or is the threat of Russia attacking, say, Poland or the Baltic states, triggering an all-out conflict with NATO that could easily turn nuclear, an eventuality whose risks it would be foolish to downplay?
As if to highlight this danger, China and Belarus began joint military exercises just a few miles from the Polish border just as the latest NATO summit was getting underway in Washington DC.
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, jointly wrote a newspaper article to say they would use the summit to urge other countries to increase their defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP.
They can talk, but can they act? While Rishi Sunak promised the Conservatives would reach that figure by 2030 during the election campaign, Labour will still pledge to accelerate spending to 2.5 per cent “as soon as possible”.
With President Joe Biden in crisis and NATO skeptic Donald Trump looking increasingly likely to 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 goal.
Ukraine is just one of three flashpoints that threaten the world order as we know it. China remains a constant threat to Taiwan and the Israeli conflict in Gaza could escalate into a wider regional war.
But Russia’s war in Ukraine is a 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 am firmly convinced that, cornered, Putin is capable of anything.
The Kremlin has long been promoting the idea that a confrontation with NATO is inevitable and that an attack on Poland in response to some fabricated provocation could rally the nation behind it.
Young patients cradled after yesterday’s missile attack in Ukraine
Vladimir Putin wants to leave his mark on history as a restorer of Russian power
American intelligence services already believe that there is a real possibility that Putin will order the use of nuclear munitions on the battlefield if the situation in Ukraine worsens significantly. And I, for one, am convinced that, faced with the prospect of defeat and disgrace, Putin is perfectly capable of dying in a Hitlerian Götterdämmerung, a catastrophic act of mass destruction.
Since the beginning of the war, state propaganda has been preparing the Russian people for the possibility of becoming a nuclear country. Last month, a military analyst boasted on Russia-1, the main state television channel, that “in just 10 or 15 minutes” 30 or 40 Russian nuclear bombs could “wipe out the state of Poland and the Polish people.”
We can take comfort in the thought that missile launch protocols do not allow a leader acting alone to initiate 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 surprisingly opaque, even to our security services.
Optimists like Sir Tony Radakin are convinced that Russia will ultimately lose in Ukraine. The war has put enormous pressure on the Russian economy and its standing in Europe and the United States, such as it was, has hit rock bottom. If peace were declared tomorrow, it would take decades for Moscow to repair the damage to its reputation and restore normal relations with the West.
And then there are the half-million casualties the armed forces have suffered since the invasion began. The Russians take masochistic pride in their capacity for suffering, but even they have limits.
Public discontent can only grow as recruiting sergeants head to big cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg in search of new cannon fodder.
So, on the surface, logic may be on Radakin’s side, but, as you must surely know, Putin does not act on reason alone. After 24 years in power, he is not interested – if he ever was – in worldly considerations about what is best for his people.
His main concern is to leave his mark on history as a restorer of Russian power, an achievement that would guarantee him a place in school textbooks alongside Peter the Great and Joseph Stalin.
General Sir Patrick Sanders, the recently retired Chief of the General Staff, is clearly a man who believes in going out with a bang rather than a whimper.
History teaches us that it is always wise to take dictators at their word and not dismiss their wildest statements 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 run Russia will probably lose. This is a war of attrition. The Kremlin’s shift to a war economy and its ability, at least for the moment, to compensate for losses of men and material are worrying for the West.
But the financial and human costs are colossal and will eventually translate into political problems for Putin. Even in a society fueled by lies, certain truths are impossible to conceal.
Putin believed that democracies cannot march in unison for long and that the rough consensus that Europe and the United States have maintained since the war in Ukraine began would sooner or later crumble. He believed that time was on his side.
Just this week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, leader of the world’s largest democracy and a traditional 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 Ukrainian President Zelensky, who called the gesture a “big disappointment.”
This episode aside, Putin’s calculus now seems shaky. The West has kept its cool and, in a war of attrition for economies and resources, is vastly outnumbering Russia. NATO attitudes are hardening, as evidenced by the decision to allow Ukraine to use foreign-supplied weapons to strike inside Russia.
But a tilt of the balance in kyiv’s favour could make the world a more dangerous place. Ukraine’s success would frustrate Putin’s dream of historical immortality and, in addition, deal a probably fatal blow to his leadership.
Admiral Radakin no doubt meant well with his reassuring words, but as a historian, I prefer General Sanders’ analysis.
The world has become a very dangerous place and it takes a “whole-of-nation effort” to protect ourselves, starting with a massive investment in our military.
We can only hope that our NATO colleagues also see the urgency.
Patrick Bishop is a military historian and co-host of the Battleground podcast.
