Richard Shirreff: War with Russia

AT HIS CONFIRMATION hearing in the summer of 2015, General Mark Milley, the new Chief of US Army Staff, was asked by the Senate Armed Services Committee what was the greatest threat to the American—and Western—democratic way of life. He answered, “I would put Russia right now as the number one threat… Russia is the only country on earth that retains a nuclear capability to destroy the United States. That is an existential threat.” General Joe Dunford, the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, expressed the same view to the same committee during his confirmation hearings.

I fully agree with that assessment. It is also an assessment shared by a select group of top military leaders; people whose experience puts them in the best position to know the facts of the case. In particular, I applaud my former comrade-in-arms and Deputy Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, General Sir Richard Shirreff, for laying out the risks America and the West currently face in this brave, timely and important book.

As the Strategic Commander of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, I saw Russian aggression firsthand. Of all the challenges America faces on the geopolitical scene in the second decade of the twenty-first century, the most dangerous is the resurgence of Russia under President Putin. Yes, Islamic jihadists pose a massive threat to our security but, until the jihadists can defeat us on the battlefield, they cannot destroy our nation. The Russians are different—and this is the truly terrifying bit—as they appear to be prepared to use nuclear weapons, based on recent, very public comments by Vladimir Putin.

Under President Putin, Russia has charted a dangerous course that, if it is allowed to continue, may lead inexorably to a clash with NATO. And that will mean a war that could so easily go nuclear. As the Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz once said, “War has its own grammar but not its own logic.” I would add that it has its own dynamic. If American and NATO soldiers find themselves in direct combat with Russian troops, that conflict will escalate. And that means the ultimate option will be on the table: the use of nuclear weapons. This book describes brilliantly how this horrific scenario could develop “on the ground.” These are the sort of scenarios that many senior civilians, and especially politicians, throughout history have consistently failed to understand or have wished away.

But this dynamic can be stopped and war averted if NATO, under the leadership of America, shows the necessary resolve and determination. It is a war that can be prevented, but only if the Russians believe we are serious about being prepared to fight to defend our freedoms and those of our allies.

War With Russia tells the story of a war that could result from a failure to stand strong in the face of Russian aggression. It tells the story of how, thanks to a series of misjudgments and policy blunders, NATO and the West stumble into a catastrophic war with Russia; scenarios that I can attest are all too possible and which make for chilling reading. But it also tells the story of how the tide of history can be turned when good men and women stand up to be counted. Above all, the message is that it is not too late to prevent catastrophe.

This is no ordinary “future history,” for it is told by a brave and seasoned warfighter, a former senior NATO commander, who served the NATO Alliance brilliantly as my deputy, and whose judgment I learned to trust; a man whom I, as an admiral, would have leaned on for his judgment on how the land battle should be fought. Moreover, a man who really does understand the geopolitical realities and risks and who has proved that he is not scared to tell it as it is. It is very rare that such a senior and experienced general is prepared to put his reputation on the line, but Richard Shirreff is that man. He correctly called the consequences of the Russians’ invasion of Crimea and annexation of parts of Ukraine back in 2014. I fear that he has again correctly called the Russians’ next moves in War With Russia .

Some will say that the warnings of our most senior American admirals, generals and the author of this book are a predictable response from men with an interest to protect and they are no more than crying “Wolf!” I would remind the naysayers of this: in 2017, it will be a hundred years since the United States committed four million young Americans to the slaughterhouse of Europe, of whom 110,000 gave their lives. Twenty-five years later, America had to do it again—and the cost was much greater in the Second World War. Had it not been for NATO and the determination and sacrifice of a new generation of Americans, the subsequent Cold War could have had a very different outcome.

At a recent top-level convention of senior political, diplomatic and military figures in Europe, an attendee asked, with reference to Russia’s military adventurism and muscle flexing in Europe, was the present situation with Russia more like the slide to world war in 1914, or the failure to stand firm against Hitler that led to the next conflagration of the Second World War. The chilling answer was: “No, this is Europe 2015. With nuclear weapons.”

War With Russia lays out a plausible and startling case of the potential peril ahead—it deserves a serious reading indeed.

THE WAR WITH Russia began in the Ukraine in March 2014.

At that time I was a four-star British General and the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR), deputy to NATO’s American Strategic Commander (SACEUR), himself double-hatted as commander of America’s European Command. We followed in illustrious footseps: General Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first SACEUR with Field Marshal Montgomery the first DSACEUR. Based at NATO’s strategic headquarters (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe or SHAPE in the NATO vernacular) situated just north of Mons in Belgium, I was an experienced NATO man having previously commanded NATO’s Allied Rapid Reaction Corps.

I had been in post as DSACEUR for three years and I confess that, along with my senior military colleagues, I accepted the received wisdom that, despite the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, NATO should aim to foster a strategic partnership with Russia. I visited Moscow on several occasions to build relationships with the senior Russian military leadership and happily welcomed General Valeri Gerasimov, now Chief of the Russian General Staff and Commander of Russian Armed Forces, into my home.

However, the invasion of Crimea, Russia’s support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, its invasion of that country, and Putin’s self-proclaimed intention in March 2014 of reuniting ethnic Russian speakers under the banner of Mother Russia, has changed my view of Russia’s intentions fundamentally. Russia is now our strategic adversary and has set itself on a collision course with the West. It has built up, and is enhancing, its military capability. It has thrown away the rulebook on which the post–Cold War security settlement of Europe was based. The Russian president has started a dynamic that can only be halted if the West wakes up to the real possibility of war and takes urgent action.