Russia’s Grand Strategy

Bernard Jenkin 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.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

On the point about how we in the west might have set some red lines, I thought at the time that the west was not being firm enough in the red lines it was laying down. What we saw in mid-February was the US President and others talking only about sanctions, and how there would be nothing more than sanctions as a consequence of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I regard the United States as our closest and most important ally and personally I love the United States of America, but on its response to this crisis—it has been voluminous compared with that of the rest of Europe and a lot of money has been devoted to it—its signalling has been very weak. What matters in wartime is not what red lines we set; it is what we actually do.

I am afraid our own Government made a terrible error when we set a red line about the use of chemical weapons in Syria in 2013, and then what did we do? We backed off when chemical weapons were used. The effect of that has been to weaken the influence of the United States, the United Kingdom and the whole of the west in the countries that really count in this war as potential allies or neutral states—for example, the Gulf states, which despaired of our lack of resolve in that conflict. Red lines are less important than what we do, and what we must now do is send far more matériel into this conflict to support the Ukrainians, so that the Russians are deterred or fail to achieve what they attempt to do.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

On my hon. Friend’s point about doing as opposed to just saying, with which I entirely agree, does he agree with me that part of this is that the German Government should now release their legal hold over the export of Leopard tanks from European allies to the Ukrainians to allow them a chance to counter-attack?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I certainly think that is the case, and I think the constant fear of our escalating the conflict has been misplaced because Putin has escalated the conflict anyway. There is nothing we can do to prevent him from escalating. In fact, the signal we have sent by being too timid and too slow in sending support into Ukraine has encouraged him to escalate. There is no deterrence in timidity, which is what too many western Governments have shown.

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

To drag together that point with something my hon. Friend said earlier, surely such timidity also follows failure to have the capability to be more assertive. In other words, now that their defence budgets have been stripped out, western Governments are worried that any attempt to try to show that they are more belligerent, shall we say, exposes the very fact that most of them are simply incapable of delivering any of that belligerence at all.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I entirely agree with that, but in more direct response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois), the timidity of the Germans not just to release their own tanks, but to allow the tanks of other nations, such as Poland, to be sent into the conflict to support the Ukrainians sends more than a signal of timidity—it is appeasement. I am sorry to use that word, which I know has a loaded connotation, but it is appeasement. However, we must congratulate Germany on having come a very long way from the days of Gazprom being chaired by a former Chancellor of Germany and Angela Merkel making Germany dependent on Russian gas as a matter of policy. We have come a long way, and we should welcome the fact that Germany has committed to spend €100 billion more on defence, but we are still yet to see what that really means, and it means nothing if Germany is not prepared to help send heavy armour into this conflict.

If I may say so, we have committed to send 12 tanks, but why not 120 tanks? What are our tanks for? Are they there to sit around on Salisbury plain and in Germany to decorate the British Army’s capability, or should we tool them up and get them into this conflict so that the taxpayer can actually get value for money out of this investment? If necessary, we can launch an urgent operational requirement to acquire some more tanks to replace those that we will probably not ever see again in our own country.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I will, but I do want to press on, and I will probably be overrunning my time very shortly.

[John Howell]

I will try not to interrupt my hon. Friend for too long. Does he agree with me that the timidity on the part of the UK is exampled by the fact that when I asked Zelensky how many air defence missile systems he had, he said 10%—that is all? When I got back to the UK, there was an email from a well-known Cabinet Minister saying, “Be very quiet about this, because we do not want to stress the fact that we are giving him so few.” Does my hon. Friend agree that that is a prime example of such timidity?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

We should not trash what the Government have done, which is considerable, but we should point out that the failure to do much more—much more—is going to cost us in the short term, the medium term and the long term. We must also dispense with the false hopes that some kind of regime change would be likely to reverse the Russian urge to control its near abroad, or to use its army as a tool for suppressing dissent and keeping the country together.

My conclusion is that if the UK is going to help lead the NATO alliance, which protects Europe against Russia, we need meaningful land power to make an effective contribution, supported by mobile air cover and a Navy to deliver the Army to where the action is. For that, we need a new mobilisation system to come out of the integrated review refresh, and a procurement system to back it up that looks much more like a system of urgent operational requirements, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford suggested during the statement earlier this week, than the absurdly slow and costly peacetime procurement process that we somehow insist we have to maintain, despite its delivering—or not delivering at all—equipment, at vast expense, with limited capability.

This demands a drastic—even revolutionary—change of UK grand strategy, which I suppose is why we seem to avoid having one and, I suspect, why the IRR is stuck where it is. In the long term, how do we find a way to stop burgeoning state-backed health and welfare systems crowding out defence and security spending? In the short term, Whitehall in general and the Ministry of Defence in particular must accept that, if we continue to spend defence money as we have done over the last 20 years, we really are lost. We need a complete revolution in defence acquisition and procurement, making it look and feel much more like a continuing series of urgent operational requirements—a system based on wartime emergency procedures that, historically, delivered much cheaper and more timely equipment. We need to regain the ability to adapt our force structure, kit and tactics to outmatch an active enemy, just as the Ukrainians have done and the Poles are doing.

Madam Deputy Speaker, I am drawing to a close. There are growing pockets of awareness and belief in the value of strategy in the civil service, the diplomatic service, the security services, the National Security Council, the MOD, the Foreign Office and No. 10, but Whitehall as a whole is still miles away from the kind of capability and capacity for constant strategic analysis and assessment that would provide Ministers with the right questions and might lead them to the right answer. Why do we not have a Minister in the Cabinet Office for national security who is responsible for answering on grand strategy? Without the right apparatus and the right culture in government, we will always be behind the curve of events, as we seem to be now, and mis-appreciating what is really happening. We need to find the right answers to the new and evolving threats the UK and the whole of the free world must confront before it is too late.

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[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

When I started the process in the Council of Europe that had Russia expelled, I was unsure where it would end up. One of the things I have done since then is to introduce what I hope will turn into a new convention or treaty that will hold Russia to account for its aggression against the environment. Human lives and human aggravation are already accounted for, but there is nothing to be able to hold it to account for aggression against the environment.

Secondly, I have asked for a current affairs debate on two countries: Serbia and Kosovo. Why have I asked for a debate on Serbia and Kosovo? Because it is clear to me that Putin is making a big effort to make Serbia a second front to take our attention away from Ukraine. I think he is also doing it as a result of wanting to expand Russia. It is a pretty good example of that.

In 2015, the Russian state media, Sputnik, began broadcasting anti-EU and anti-NATO disinformation. It began broadcasting it not from Russia, but in the western Balkans from its regional base in Belgrade. Only at the end of last year, on 13 December, a rally was held in Belgrade to demand the intervention of the Serbian Government in Kosovo. Members may think there is nothing to be said about that, but many of the people attending that rally were waving Russian flags and chanting hateful and racist comments.

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

In fact, it is even worse than that. The state-controlled media in Serbia simply broadcasts Russian propaganda and has recently accused Ukraine of killing its own civilians, when in fact those civilians were being killed by Russian missile attacks.

[John Howell]

I am glad my hon. Friend has taken away a large part of what I was going to say, which has made it much easier to concentrate.

Russia and Belarus have provided Serbia with 14 MiG-29 fighter jets. Eight are donations from Belarus and six are from Russia, and Serbia has bought the rest. Russia has also beefed up Serbia with 30 T-72 tanks and 30 other armoured vehicles. The Pantsir-S1 air defence system has reportedly also been sold to Serbia, along with the longer-range Buk air defence system. A shipment of Kornet anti-tank missiles has also arrived from Russia. The co-operation in military activities has gone from 50 in 2016 to over 100 joint military exercises in 2021. It is no wonder that, according to the US Department of Defense, Serbia provides the “most permissive environment” for Russian influence in the Balkans. When Kosovo took reciprocity measures regarding the temporary licence plate issues in 2021, Serbia escalated the military provocation, flying Russia-donated MiG-29 fighter jets and continuing to make available Russian helicopters on the border with Kosovo.

We know the short-term reasons why Russia is doing this: to stop Kosovo having a role to play in the EU and in the Council of Europe. We have defied Russia in the Council of Europe and given Kosovo seats so it is able to participate in debates, even though, for the moment, it cannot vote; that is because of the opposition of Serbia and that will be dealt with.

This is a serious situation because it affects not just Kosovo. We must not forget that Serbia is also influential in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Hon. Members may have seen that, only last week, in the Republika Srpska, the Muslim part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik, the Bosnian Serb leader, with great pride said that he was giving Putin the highest medal of honour for his

“patriotic concern and love for Republika Srpska.”

I ask you. Members can judge for themselves what that concerned.

We are dealing with some very unpleasant people. The Republika Srpska has the site of the genocide of Srebrenica. We are not allowed to call it a genocide because the Serbians do not like that term being used for it, yet it was a genocide of almost 8,000 Muslim people killed in that area.

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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.

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[Alec Shelbrooke]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Bernard Jenkin]

I thank everyone who has taken part ably in this debate, and my hon. Friend the Minister for his response. I would point out to the Scottish nationalists that I do not think that President Putin would have attacked Ukraine if Ukraine still had nuclear weapons. But the main point that I wish to make—for all the positive things that my hon. Friend said—is that it is complacent to say that Putin’s strategy is failing and our strategy is succeeding. Setbacks, yes, but two words keep coming up in military literature in Russia at the moment: Stalingrad and Finland. Stalingrad because its doctrine is victory at any cost and Finland because that is where it expects the west to compromise to cede territory in order to gain peace, which is what Finland did in 1938.

Russia is tooling up its entire economy for war. It is reported in Vedomosti, the business daily in Russia, that Putin when visiting a factory called the work of the Russian military-industrial complex one of the factors of victory in the Ukraine war. We have yet to hear that the UK Government are doing enough to support Ukraine—I regret that—although we are leading many other European nations from the front. Russian grand strategy has been clear for at least a decade, yet the west has been continually blindsided because we do not have a strategy of our own. We do not have the capacity for analysis and assessment that would keep us alert to these threats. This is a topic to which I will return, I can assure this House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

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