In recent weeks the headlines have been alarming. There have been drone strikes on Moscow and St Petersburg, retaliatory missiles on Kyiv, evacuations from Crimea, the former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev threatening Finland, reports of border closures with the Baltics, fresh whispers about provocations towards Poland and a Russian spy plane dropping sonar trackers in the path of a Royal Navy aircraft carrier. Underneath it all: the steady hum of Russian bots putting pressure on every social, cultural and religious fault line the West has.
Russia is still advancing in Ukraine, slowly and at a monstrous cost. Its economy is bending under sanctions, fuel is being rationed in Moscow and St Petersburg, an entire Baltic Fleet arsenal was destroyed by Ukraine in June, and Russia’s elite is at last beginning to feel the effects of this war. For more than four years, the war was something that happened to somebody else’s sons. The strikes on Moscow and St Petersburg have changed all that. Ukraine’s defence industry is booming and the technological edge has shifted in a direction the Kremlin did not plan for.
What will Vladimir Putin do? When Russia finds itself cornered, it escalates. It won’t try to win the war it is losing, it will try to change the game. The aim is to force the US – not Ukraine – to the table to negotiate an end on terms that lets Moscow claim something like victory. For the past few years, the core of that escalation has been nuclear rhetoric. This has been effective in the sense that it has kept Washington cautious and it has bought Russia time. With that time, the Russians have rebuilt.
Despite the rhetoric, I do not believe the next step is a nuclear engagement. In some ways, the next step is more dangerous. I believe Russia will escalate horizontally, sending drones over a Nato country to see what happens; testing smaller states, daring the alliance to respond. The prize is not more territory, but a diplomatic exit route that forces Nato into a negotiated settlement over Ukraine.
There is an assumption baked into our public conversation that if Russia attacks a Nato ally, Britain is at war. Yet that is not what Article 5 says and it is not how Nato works. What Article 5 says is that an armed attack on one member is considered an attack on all, and that each member will take “such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore… security”. In short, every ally decides what they are willing to do. That could be anything from tanks and troops to a well-drafted statement of concern. Article 5 is a promise of solidarity; it is not an automatic trigger. The mechanism through which it becomes tangible action is a political decision.
Imagine for a moment that, this winter, unidentified forces or unmarked drones believed to be Russian cross the border into Estonia or Latvia or Lithuania. What will the United Kingdom do?
It’s not a question of “what will Nato do?”. Nato will meet, Nato will draft, Nato will – if we are honest about the state of the alliance under the Trump administration – take weeks to reach any decision at all. Consultations that people imagine happening in a matter of hours can, in the wrong conditions, take months. By the time funding thresholds are met and a communiqué is agreed, the situation could have escalated into war, with untold consequences for the whole of Europe. But I am confident that Nato would, ultimately, stand strong and united.
I would argue, however, that the UK cannot wait for the alliance. My own position is straightforward, and it should be stated now so Moscow hears it: if a Nato ally is subject to armed attack, and states ask for our military help, British forces will be committed. The UK’s political decision must be that deterrence that has to be negotiated after the tanks roll in is not a deterrence at all.
In Ankara on 7 and 8 July, 32 heads of state and government met and pledged more money to Ukraine, describing Russia as a threat to Euro-Atlantic security. Anyone watching the American briefings in the run-up to the meeting, the Truth Social posts, the force posture reviews, the change in official language from burden-sharing to burden-shifting, will draw their own conclusions about how quickly Washington would move if the phone rang from Tallinn.
Our answer to the Article 5 question has to come from Downing Street. Every prime minister wants to be a domestic prime minister. And every prime minister discovers, usually within six months, that the international in-tray takes up the majority of their time. Britain’s next leader will not have six months. Their first Nato summit may well be an emergency session called because something has happened on a nearby border. They will be asked what Britain will do. For our own security and that of our allies, we cannot be found wanting.
That is the single most important question in British politics right now, but it is not being addressed because it is easier to talk about buses and devolution and the price of a pint. All of those things are important, but none of them matters if we get security wrong. When the next crisis arrives – and it will – the UK will not need a manager. It will need a leader who has thought about this long before the phone rings. I have. I hope the country’s next leader has too.
[Further reading: You can’t blame Brexit any more]