Russia’s Grand Strategy

Alec Shelbrooke Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of Russia’s grand strategy.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate again, because I secured a debate last year about the same topic. Then, I outlined Putin’s global policy and I set out how Russia was threatening Ukraine as part of a campaign of blackmail and hybrid warfare directed at the Americans and NATO. I explained how Russia’s grand strategy was being conducted across the whole spectrum of foreign, defence, security and domestic policy. I discussed Russia’s warlike strategic headquarters at its national defence management centre at the old Russian army staff HQ on the Moskva river. Today, I make the same fundamental point as I made last year: Russia has a grand strategy, but we do not.

The idea of global Britain demands a global strategy, which means grand strategy and must be a whole-of-Government enterprise. It is fair to ask, “If Russia has an effective grand strategy, why has it not done better in Ukraine?”, because when the war started, all the assessments predicted that the Russian army would be much more successful. The answer is simple: Putin’s decision bypassed the usual strategy process and went against the views of his general staff.

This is about the difference between policy and strategy. Policy is the aim—the political objective—and strategy is the interactive process by which that policy objective might be achieved. Putin was driven by his obsession to subjugate Ukraine. He overrode the general staff’s strategy process and disregarded the limitations of the army. It could be considered odd that he did that, but he had used lethal force before with great success. In Georgia and Crimea, surprise and speed brought him a quick victory, although on those occasions the general staff were behind him; in Ukraine, they advised him against going to war.

Of course, Putin is not the first to override his general staff in pursuit of an obsessive policy; the same was Hitler’s undoing. It seemed, until a week ago, that it might also be Putin’s, but he has learned from his mistake and has rediscovered strategy. Last week’s appointment of the chief of the general staff Gerasimov as the overall commander brings the general staff back into the planning and command chain. Other commanders, warlords and private military companies will be brought under his authority. As Gerasimov gets a grip of things, I am afraid that we must expect to see Russian performance in Ukraine improve considerably.

Russia is not giving up, so Ukraine’s survival will now depend on western military and economic help being delivered a lot more rapidly and in far greater quantities than it has been so far. Unfortunately, the approach of the UK’s current foreign and defence integrated review refresh process is underpinned by an explicit but premature assumption that Russia will lose in Ukraine and will then prioritise investment in maritime, particularly sub-surface, as well as space, cyber and special forces. It argues that Russia will not invest meaningfully in land forces, but our eastern European and Nordic colleagues do not share that view.

The integrated review refresh risks over-optimism that would allow us to tilt our posture and capabilities away from the most immediate threat in Europe and, instead, towards long-term gambles on technological superiority and a focus on the Indo-Pacific. AUKUS and the tilt to the Indo-Pacific are certainly policies, but they are not backed up by any strategy process to determine if they can be achieved with the limited ways and means that we have available.

The policies of global Britain and AUKUS are admirable and, conveniently, cheaper, but they are not enough on their own. Painful though it is, we need much stronger land power as well. We must still gear up to defend the UK and to deter a war in Europe against a peer enemy. Of course, Russia will invest in sub-surface, space and cyber, but it shows no sign of dispensing with large-scale ground forces, heavy armour and artillery. If anything, the Ukraine war has convinced the general staff of the need to reinvest in their army.

The Nordics and the Poles know that Russia is a land animal. Strategic missile submarines excepted, Russia sees its navy as flank protection for a land war and its air force as the third dimension of that land war. Despite evident lack of progress and perceived weaknesses, Putin shows no signs of intending to stop, of scaling down his demands, of looking for a way out or of making serious proposals for peace. In fact, Ukraine is expecting a new all-out assault in the spring or even sooner.

[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

In the debate last year, I made the point that I felt that we were already in a cold war, which some disagreed with. Does my hon. Friend think that our European allies have changed their position on that or is there still a resistance to accepting that a new cold war is well and truly under way?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I think that we are in denial of not just a cold war, but a hot war. The hot war that is being conducted in Ukraine is laced with rhetoric and invective about NATO being the threat and about the United States of America provoking that threat, so NATO and the United States must somehow be defeated in this war. If we do not understand that Putin is now conducting a hybrid and political war against Europe and NATO, backed by a hot war in Ukraine, we are not yet living in the real world.

If the process of reinvigorating Russia’s armed forces and preparing for a further assault on Ukraine is not derailed and Putin is successful, by 2024, the west will face a more formidable Russia that believes that it can establish its place in a future world order by force of arms. This is a long-term strategic challenge that requires a long-term strategic response from the UK Government, all European Governments and NATO.

Putin’s strategy depends on time. We all admire Ukraine’s bravery and agility, which have left the Russian army in something of a quagmire, but it would be an epic tragedy if we now allowed Russia the time to mass its forces, so that its brutal war of attrition could become overwhelming. It is crucial for the west to increase the tempo of its supply of weapons systems to Ukraine, so that Ukraine, rather than Russia, can be first to develop the mobile formations necessary to break the current battlefield deadlock. The reality is that Russia’s whole grand strategy is on a knife edge and the next few months could be crucial.

We should not be deterred by Putin’s so-called red lines. In war and crisis, red lines are political and flexible. We proved that when Russia’s build-up to the invasion last year crossed several NATO red lines, and we did nothing. Likewise, Putin’s incorporation of Donbas into the Russian Federation was intended to set up a red line of Russian territory being attacked, but when Ukraine attacked, it turned out there was no red line.

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[Sir Chris Bryant]

Yes. I do not do this very often but I was saying “Hear, hear” earlier in agreement with a point the right hon. Gentleman made. I am reluctant to be too down on the Germans, however, for the simple reason that they have had to make a very dramatic and sudden about-turn in their whole understanding of their defence policy, but they do have to get over this hurdle. Many other countries in Europe want them to and are eagerly pressing them to, and the time is long past for them to do so. Perhaps we need a European security treaty to deal with some of these issues and get that materiel to where it is most needed and in a way that it can be readily used.

I want to talk about something slightly different: how we can help Ukraine rebuild. So far, along with many other countries in Europe, we have frozen but not seized assets. On 9 September 2022 a joint statement by the World Bank, the European Commission and the Government of Ukraine estimated that the current cost of reconstruction and recovery in Ukraine was $349 billion. That is now a four-month-old estimate and the sum will grow exponentially as the war continues. We have all seen the pictures of what has happened in Dnipro; we know of the railways, roads and bridges that will have to be reconstructed, let alone the schools, the housing and the rest. Ukraine is going to need a very substantial amount of money.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

The NATO Parliamentary Assembly was in Washington in the first week of December, and at that time 42% of residential properties in the whole of Ukraine—not just on the frontline—were uninhabitable. That serves to put some flesh on the hon. Gentleman’s point.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

That is very helpful and when the Foreign Affairs Committee was in Ukraine last February, just before the second round of the invasion, we were visiting villages which were being reconstructed, and we were wondering whether that was a wise policy, but of course people need homes. So there is a very significant need: Ukraine estimates Russia has caused $1 trillion-worth of damage since the start of the full-scale invasion last February and that is not allowing for the costs in Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Under international law Russia will owe Ukraine reparations at the end of this war—I hope the Minister will be able to confirm that—as was recognised by a United Nations General Assembly resolution passed on 14 November. About $350 billion-worth of Russian central bank reserves have been frozen by democratic countries around the world, and £26 billion of that is frozen in the United Kingdom. Those figures come from the central bank annual report. Based on the estimates of the World Bank, the European Commission and the Government of Ukraine, the amount that will be owed to Ukraine by Russia as reparations at the end of the war—we could argue it is already owed now—is likely to be several times greater than the central bank reserves theoretically belonging to the Russian state presently frozen worldwide. So it is safe to assume that the central bank reserves we have frozen in the UK are already owed to Ukraine under international law. I would argue that it is a question of when, not if, they will be spent on and in Ukraine. On 30 November 2022 the European Commission President confirmed plans to use €300 billion of frozen Russian central bank reserves as well as more than €19 billion of Russian oligarchs’ funds for the reconstruction of Ukraine, and I applaud that decision.

The UK has so far provided £3.8 billion in aid to Ukraine in the first eight months since the second invasion, but the central bank reserves we are holding in the UK are six times that amount. It is time that the UK Government passed legislation to repurpose frozen Russian state assets so they can be used to aid Ukraine during and after the war; if the Government do not do that, perhaps some Back-Bench MP will bring forward a ten-minute rule Bill on 7 February to do it.

On the whole I do not like Governments seizing other people’s assets; on the whole it is a bad idea, but there are situations in which we choose to do it, such as when the assets are clearly unexplained wealth that has almost certainly come from corruption. In essence, the UK can find money from three places to support Ukraine. It can come from taxpayers, but taxpayers have funded £3.8 billion already so there is not much spare cash in the bank so far as I can see. Secondly, it can come from frozen oligarch funds. There is a difficulty with that as those are the assets of private individuals and seizing them is likely to be a costly and drawn-out process. The legislation necessary to seize such private assets would necessarily involve a court supervision—because we believe in the rule of law—in order to protect the oligarchs’ rights to their property under the European convention on human rights, or for that matter under normal British law. I am sure these cases will also be defended by some of the richest, most legally savvy and deep-pocketed people on the planet, and the resources available to the Government agencies tasked with confiscating those assets would inevitably be very modest. So I think both those routes are pretty much exhausted at present.

On the other hand, seizing state assets of the Russian Federation will be quick. It is a political decision and there will be no lengthy lawsuits. Unlike oligarch assets, these are state assets, specifically the £26 billion of central bank reserves clearly belonging to Russia, a nation deemed an aggressor by the United Nations, that has been ordered by the UN General Assembly and separately by the International Court of Justice to withdraw its troops from Ukraine, and which has failed to do so and continues its aggression against Ukraine. These funds could be made immediately available to Ukraine should we adopt the legislation to do so. Canada already has similar legislation in place.

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[Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) on once again bringing this important debate to the House. I also congratulate all the Members who are attending it, many of whom were here for the previous debate a year ago.

“Russia’s grand strategy” is an interesting title, which leads to the question of what constitutes the counter-strategy. As was said a year ago and as has been said by several Members today, where the current actions have come from has been laid out along the line by Putin, whose actions are pretty clear. If you are a citizen of Lithuania, probably Belarus, east Poland or the Caucasus, you will notice that you are mentioned in Putin’s essay of 20 July, and you will certainly not sleep easily if you think that we will step back and let Russia win the battle in Ukraine.

I have a concern that many have touched on which is that a certain amount of hubris is starting to develop among western nations when they say, “We will win in Ukraine.” I very much hope that that is true, and we are doing everything we can to do so, but it does not seem to take into account the way in which Russia is now regrouping, restrategising and re-energising, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex said in his opening speech. We have to take a strong look at how we are going to supply Ukraine and how it is to move forward.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) has already made the point about Leopard tanks. European defence as a whole needs to take a long, hard look at itself. There can be no excuse for countries to say, “We will supply the tanks that are needed, but we need Germany to approve it” and for Germany to say, “Well, it’s up to the US.” It really is not up to the US. It is really up to nations within Europe. What concerns me, and Putin will be well aware of this when we are looking at the grand strategy, is that he will see that article 42 of the Lisbon treaty—the permanent structured co-operation, or PESCO, commitment—and where that leads to could spell a real problem for NATO.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I reflect on the irony that one of the reasons why some of us wanted to leave the European Union was that it was insisting on having its own defence policy and armed forces, ostensibly in order to be independent of the United States, because of course it is NATO that guarantees peace in Europe and the EU would be incapable of doing so on its own. So it is a bit of an irony that Germany is now saying that it cannot send tanks to Ukraine until the US approves. It rather gives the lie to the idea that the EU is capable of even thinking independently of American defence policy.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I do not seek to raise an EU Brexit issue here. I want to highlight where I think there is a real concern about the future of NATO, what Putin will be looking at and why it is so important that we do not allow Russia to be victorious.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) made a good speech, and I congratulate him on researching the speeches that we all made last year in this debate. It is important to know the context. He said that the Budapest memorandum was not worth the paper it was written on. That is an important statement to make because with Putin, nothing is worth the paper it is written on. When people talk about moving towards a negotiated settlement, what does that actually mean? If we get commitments on paper from Putin, it is frankly a waste of everybody’s time. The only way this conflict will be resolved is by winning it militarily.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that reaching a negotiating settlement with Putin risks his doing exactly what he did last time? He negotiated a settlement and that just gave him time to regroup and come back stronger with yet more violence.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I totally agree. I think a negotiated settlement is a form of appeasement because I just do not believe that it will work in the long run. I genuinely believe that if we say, “OK, however it may be; we will look over that section of it”, it will just give him time to regroup and rearm and decide what he is going to do next.

The war that is now taking place represents a huge threat to the European nations because, some would say, of the ambitions and ideology of article 42—PESCO— “What is wrong with that?” It says that you would procure as a whole; that there would not be replication of procurement, with countries buying the same equipment rather than focusing on where it will go.

When I talk to our American allies at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, they certainly think developing the European defence fund is a good thing that will up spending to 2%. As we are seeing now, one of the biggest risks to NATO in its history as a military alliance is that a country such as Germany—the only country that has the equipment, or that can manufacture the equipment, needed for an operation—is able to say, “Sorry, no,” or, “We are not going to do it.”

Article 42 exists and PESCO has been established, so NATO needs to work out its protocols before these issues become prevalent in a procurement generation or two—in 20 or 30 years’ time. It has to be addressed now because, fundamentally, it is Russia and Putin’s strategy to probe the strength of western military capability.

I am very worried about Germany’s attitude of waiting to see what the US does, because it is not President Biden’s core instinct to make such decisions. When he was Vice-President, he and Obama had a big falling out over the surge in Iraq. And when he was a Senator, he wanted less American intervention. Intervention is not his natural instinct. I praise the Americans for the amount of money President Biden is signing off, but a situation is developing in which other European countries are hiding behind a delaying tactic, and that delay is a problem because Putin needs time to rebuild and restrengthen.

As the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) rightly said, the rebuilding cost is getting bigger and bigger, probably exponentially. I have cited some of the statistics, and the cost directly reflects on our citizens. He said taxpayers have already paid about £3.2 billion, but the cost is much greater in the price inflation we have seen for energy, fertilisers, food and crops. We all know the reasons, and it will not be resolved while this continues.

Upping military capability and spending in this country, and in Europe, is vital because it will improve our taxpayers’ long-term cost of living. Drawing on my experience as a procurement Minister, industry needs a far longer commitment to armament manufacturing than the sporadic increases and decreases we have seen. Industry cannot make the commitment needed to manufacture armour, weaponry and other capital equipment on a continuing basis if it is not sure how long the contract will last. That is straightforward business sense, and it is why we have to make a long-term funding commitment, and we need to encourage Europe to do so, too.

[Matt Western (Warwick and Leamington) (Lab)]

I agree with everything the right hon. Gentleman is saying. Unfortunately I missed last year’s debate, but this is an honest, simple question. Back in 2017-18, when I was new to this place, were we having debates about the request from Ukraine to help it arm itself? I do not know that we were. If we were not, why not?

[Alec Shelbrooke]

We were having those debates, not least in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. There was a Rose-Roth seminar of the Parliamentary Assembly in Kyiv in June 2016. The Ukrainians could not have been clearer to the allies who were there about what the invasion of Crimea meant, and it was brushed aside because there were too many vested interests in the way energy policy was going at the time and, quite frankly, because there was disbelief that anything like this would happen.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

As I understand it, when Foreign Office officials made that point to the then Foreign Secretary, who subsequently became Prime Minister, he pooh-poohed the idea of arming Ukraine.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

We can find examples from across Government over that period of time. When the invasion happened just under a year ago, many conversations took place, and still take place to this day, along the lines of, “Well, Putin is terminally ill.” “Look at Putin’s face, he has a terminal disease.” “This is the act of a dying man.” People were trying to make excuses for him to understand why he did it. They should just accept that the man is a fascist dictator who is trying to expand the Russian empire. There is the answer; it is as simple as that. But still our natural instinct says that this is so far beyond what anybody would expect that there must be another reason behind it.

The hon. Member for Rhondda is correct that people, whoever they were—in this case, it was the then Foreign Secretary—simply did not believe that this would happen. That was true among many of our European allies, but given what we now know, we must be aware that it will go beyond Ukraine. There is no point in saying that Putin would not dare to move into NATO territory. If he wins in Ukraine, then, yes, he will. It is not just Putin, but the Russian set-up—the Russian leadership. There are people beneath Putin who will carry on this war if he were to go. This involves not just one person, but a regime.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for setting the scene. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) clearly warned this House on many occasions about the situation in Crimea, but hesitation led the day on that occasion. With this debate on Russia’s grand strategy perhaps what we are really looking at is where we are today and the strength that we have through NATO and the US all standing together. That is the positive attitude that we want to send out from this debate, so that Russia understands that, today, we will not take any more and that this is the line in the sand. Clearly, Ukraine’s battles are our battles as well.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but the point that I make is this: Putin will observe this situation today with Germany and the tanks and he will also observe the European direction in defence policy. He will then start to think, “Well, how much will they push back?” The allies will sit there and say, “He won’t dare to invade NATO territory.” But it was only a year ago when I thought that he would not invade Ukraine. I can stand here and say that; I just did not think that he would. I thought that he was probing to see how the west would react. I thought that he was seeing what our reaction would be, but that his attention was on another part. I think at the time I was saying Azerbaijan, Armenia—mineral-rich areas. I think he thought that if we did not react to Ukraine, we certainly would not react in the Caspian sea. I just did not believe that he would do this in Ukraine. Why did I not believe it? It was because, rather than looking at what was staring me right in the face, I decided not to believe it.

We must accept right now that we need to enter into solid, long-term contracts. We need to do that with support from all parts of the House. Her Majesty’s Opposition must be in lockstep with the Government in our support for Ukraine and in recognising European defence policy. The Opposition have moved on from where they were a few years ago. There is no question about NATO support now, which should be welcomed across the House. It is very important that this country, this Government and this House have the same views. Therefore, there should be no reason not to invest.

I shall be drawing my remarks to a close soon, but let me just say this before I do. We know that it is important that we do everything that we can, but let me explain why. When I was Minister for defence procurement, I went to North Yorkshire and met the troops and the Ukrainians being trained by our armed forces. I was lucky to be there on day one when a batch of people came in. They all came from different aspects—one was 65 and one 18—but what did every single one of them have in common? They all said, “I am not losing my country.” That strength of feeling for a country is worth a huge amount, but it still needs to be backed up with equipment.

Russia’s strategy is clear: it will carry on expanding beyond Ukraine. It will take no notice of any treaty that is put in place. Only military capability will stop it. Europe must know that this is not the end, and it must ensure it is moving in lockstep on manufacturing and recognising—as I said a year ago, and I was pooh-poohed—that the cold war has started. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex said, we are also in a hot war, but there is a cold war along an entire border, and that costs.

As I said last year, we must get back to spending the sums we spent at the end of the cold war, when we were spending 5% of GDP on defence. How we do that is a matter for different budgets and different questions, but the reality is that we will have to, and we will have to bring other countries along. If we are to defeat the Russian grand strategy, we need a Europe-wide strategy, and that starts with ensuring that we have the commitments in place for funding, for the military and for the equipment that others need, as well as for our own defence.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

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[Dave Doogan]

Is that it? I thought it was going to be a hard one. As he and I agree, nuclear weapons are an appalling weapons system that we hope will never be used. They are a deeply troublesome weapons system, but they do exist. In so far as they do, I am not certain that the 150-odd warheads—sorry, weapons packages—that the United Kingdom will invest in will make much difference to the polar threat of nuclear armageddon that is presented by the 3,000 warheads that Russia has and the 5,000 warheads that the United States has. These are the polar dimensions. The United Kingdom spending billions and billions of pounds in the middle is not going to change anything.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?