http://www.politico.eu/article/old-cold-war-warrior-imagines-war-with-russia-nato-brexit-vladimir-putin/
Old Cold War warrior’ imagines war with Russia
Retired British general and former NATO deputy commander insists his fictional scenario is ‘entirely plausible.’
By
Richard Martyn-Hemphill
6/6/16,
Retired British general and former NATO deputy commander insists his fictional scenario is ‘entirely plausible.’
LONDON — A blow-by-blow of Russia’s invasion of the Baltic States in May 2017, and the nuclear Armageddon it could unleash, is already available in hardback.
Splayed across a red cover illustrated with tanks and exploding warheads, the title reads: “2017: War with Russia — An Urgent Warning from Senior Military Command.”
General Sir Richard Shirreff, a retired British Army officer and former NATO deputy supreme commander for Europe, describes his first literary foray as a “slightly racy novel.” It sketches out a fictional war that includes cyberattacks, fighter jets, and nuclear missiles — a scenario he claims is “entirely plausible.”
Shirreff’s career move from military man to doomsday prophecy novelist comes at a time when relations between Russia and NATO show little sign of thawing, and Russian Prime Minister Dimitri Medvedev warns the world has entered a “new Cold War.”
His 37-year military career spanned the First Gulf War, three tours in Northern Ireland and peacekeeping missions in Kosovo and Bosnia. He also served in Iraq from 2006 to 2007, a time of heightened conflict. His experience informed the novel, but he was keen to keep the contents “firmly in the pages of fiction.”
“2017: War with Russia” is a blend of genres: part spy novel, part think-tank paper, and part satirical memoir, the novel is heavily influenced by John Le Carré and the films of Peter Sellers. (“Dr. Strangelove,” in which the world charges madly towards nuclear conflict, comes to mind.)
The book has its fair amount of cheesy pantomime villainy and comic book heroism. Its cast is a jumble of pseudo-fictional officials, spies, jet pilots, provocateurs, and kidnapped soldiers. But, if the book is unlikely to attract much literary praise, it is eminently readable — and often downright gripping.
* * *
Without giving too much away, the story is set post British exit from the European Union. The U.S. has just elected a new president (a vague mash-up of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton). Emboldened by signs of frailty and disunity in the West, the Russian president — a crafty, callous adrenaline addict and Shakespeare enthusiast — re-engages in the war in Ukraine and activates a plan to invade the Baltics. Russia claims to want to protect Russian-speakers living in the region, but what the Kremlin really wants, it turns out, is to discredit an already flailing NATO Alliance. Russia deploys a variety of non-conventional war tactics — cyberattacks and disinformation designed to confuse and delay NATO’s response — while it presses ahead with a full scale attack.
NATO, meanwhile, is bogged down in a series of painful deliberations over whether to invoke its Article 5 on common defense. Here, Shirreff reveals his own longstanding exasperation with the interminable squabbling of Brussels diplomats at NATO headquarters. If the story has a moral, it is this: Hollow out defense spending at your peril, because NATO will take too long to react to a serious threat and the nuclear option is not a credible one.
Deterrence, Sherriff argues, is as important now as it was during the Cold War. But must be done differently. Unless NATO beefs up its defenses in the Baltic region, the vacuum will needlessly tempt Vladimir Putin, whose regime has already shown its willingness to break international security agreements. He cites Russia’s war in Georgia in 2008, its seizure of Crimea in March 2014 and incursions in eastern Ukraine.
The gloomy geopolitical backdrop, and Shirreff’s clamorous, brash and undiplomatic literary style, has left the U.K. government bristling over Shirreff’s decision to swerve beyond a modestly conventional retirement route of memoirs, lecture circuits and golf courses.
“Inflammatory,” U.K. Foreign Minister Philip Hammond said of the general’s work, criticizing the author’s “quite irresponsible language.”
Hammond harshly dismissed the soldier’s warnings. “I don’t think there’s anybody serious around who thinks the kind of scenario he is postulating is remotely likely,” he told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
“None of us should be complacent about what the future might hold,” Shirreff responded, in an interview with POLITICO at the Cavalry and Guards Club in Mayfair.
This was just the latest in a series of lively public crossfires between the two men. They reportedly clashed over cuts to the armed services when Hammond was defense minister. When Shirreff called the cuts “a hell of a gamble,” Hammond threatened to have him court-martialled, Shirreff recalled. Hammond has denied this.
“Some people may say that a retired general, writing a book saying that we are in danger of war and therefore we need to bolster our defenses, is an old Cold War warrior looking for a return to good old days,” Shirreff said. “Well, far from it, actually.”
His book’s basic premises, Shirreff maintains, are based on the findings of recent war games and reports focused on NATO’s northeastern flank, some of which Shirreff himself helped draw up. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — EU and NATO members since 2004 — are widely considered to be vulnerable flashpoints in the ongoing standoff between NATO and Russia, which has been re-militarizing in the region and probing Baltic air and sea space over the last few years, often conducting snap drills close by.
* * *
Concerns over NATO’s ability to respond to Russian expansionism is widespread, and Shirreff is by no means a lone voice on the subject. A recent report by RAND Corporation, a think tank with ties to the U.S. military, suggested current NATO forces deployed in the Baltics would be outgunned “within days” of a potential Russian invasion. The BBC show “Inside the War Room” dramatized NATO attempts to cool off a hypothetical pro-Russian separatist movement a majority Russian-speaking part of a Baltic country.
“It’s in our interests to see the Baltic states are properly defended so we avoid the ghastly events that I outline,” said Shirreff.
He is heavily skeptical of NATO countries who rely too heavily on the Alliance’s nuclear deterrence capabilities or Rapid Reaction force to deter a possible Russian invasion. A nuclear response would be disproportionate, he argued, and a rapid reaction force would always to be too slow onto the scene.
“If the first recourse you have is to nuclear,” he asked, “is that really credible? Much, much better to be able to match deterrence at every level.”
NATO must station forces on the ground to deter Moscow, Shirreff argues, waving aside concerns about whether this would contravene the NATO-Russia Founding Act, which, some claim, included a commitment to Russia that no substantial permanent NATO force could ever be stationed in the Baltics. He points to the number of international agreements Russia has already contravened, and to ambiguity in the language of the agreement.
The book is a military man’s rallying cry of the likes of Sir John Hackett’s 1979 “The Third World War.” Ultimately Shirreff wants the novels to be preventative, rather than prescient. His book, he says, is not “fiction as such:” It is “fact-based prediction, very closely modeled on what I know.”
Still, the novel form, Shirreff has come to believe, is the only way to keep his message from drowning in the morass of think-tank papers, while Whitehall policymakers, keen to cut back on defense spending, look on with indifference.
“In a democracy, these are issues that people need to think about and need to understand,” he said forcefully. “It’s not something you can just relegate to specialists and experts.”
Old Cold War warrior’ imagines war with Russia
Retired British general and former NATO deputy commander insists his fictional scenario is ‘entirely plausible.’
By
Richard Martyn-Hemphill
6/6/16,
Retired British general and former NATO deputy commander insists his fictional scenario is ‘entirely plausible.’
LONDON — A blow-by-blow of Russia’s invasion of the Baltic States in May 2017, and the nuclear Armageddon it could unleash, is already available in hardback.
Splayed across a red cover illustrated with tanks and exploding warheads, the title reads: “2017: War with Russia — An Urgent Warning from Senior Military Command.”
General Sir Richard Shirreff, a retired British Army officer and former NATO deputy supreme commander for Europe, describes his first literary foray as a “slightly racy novel.” It sketches out a fictional war that includes cyberattacks, fighter jets, and nuclear missiles — a scenario he claims is “entirely plausible.”
Shirreff’s career move from military man to doomsday prophecy novelist comes at a time when relations between Russia and NATO show little sign of thawing, and Russian Prime Minister Dimitri Medvedev warns the world has entered a “new Cold War.”
His 37-year military career spanned the First Gulf War, three tours in Northern Ireland and peacekeeping missions in Kosovo and Bosnia. He also served in Iraq from 2006 to 2007, a time of heightened conflict. His experience informed the novel, but he was keen to keep the contents “firmly in the pages of fiction.”
“2017: War with Russia” is a blend of genres: part spy novel, part think-tank paper, and part satirical memoir, the novel is heavily influenced by John Le Carré and the films of Peter Sellers. (“Dr. Strangelove,” in which the world charges madly towards nuclear conflict, comes to mind.)
The book has its fair amount of cheesy pantomime villainy and comic book heroism. Its cast is a jumble of pseudo-fictional officials, spies, jet pilots, provocateurs, and kidnapped soldiers. But, if the book is unlikely to attract much literary praise, it is eminently readable — and often downright gripping.
* * *
Without giving too much away, the story is set post British exit from the European Union. The U.S. has just elected a new president (a vague mash-up of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton). Emboldened by signs of frailty and disunity in the West, the Russian president — a crafty, callous adrenaline addict and Shakespeare enthusiast — re-engages in the war in Ukraine and activates a plan to invade the Baltics. Russia claims to want to protect Russian-speakers living in the region, but what the Kremlin really wants, it turns out, is to discredit an already flailing NATO Alliance. Russia deploys a variety of non-conventional war tactics — cyberattacks and disinformation designed to confuse and delay NATO’s response — while it presses ahead with a full scale attack.
NATO, meanwhile, is bogged down in a series of painful deliberations over whether to invoke its Article 5 on common defense. Here, Shirreff reveals his own longstanding exasperation with the interminable squabbling of Brussels diplomats at NATO headquarters. If the story has a moral, it is this: Hollow out defense spending at your peril, because NATO will take too long to react to a serious threat and the nuclear option is not a credible one.
Deterrence, Sherriff argues, is as important now as it was during the Cold War. But must be done differently. Unless NATO beefs up its defenses in the Baltic region, the vacuum will needlessly tempt Vladimir Putin, whose regime has already shown its willingness to break international security agreements. He cites Russia’s war in Georgia in 2008, its seizure of Crimea in March 2014 and incursions in eastern Ukraine.
The gloomy geopolitical backdrop, and Shirreff’s clamorous, brash and undiplomatic literary style, has left the U.K. government bristling over Shirreff’s decision to swerve beyond a modestly conventional retirement route of memoirs, lecture circuits and golf courses.
“Inflammatory,” U.K. Foreign Minister Philip Hammond said of the general’s work, criticizing the author’s “quite irresponsible language.”
Hammond harshly dismissed the soldier’s warnings. “I don’t think there’s anybody serious around who thinks the kind of scenario he is postulating is remotely likely,” he told reporters at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
“None of us should be complacent about what the future might hold,” Shirreff responded, in an interview with POLITICO at the Cavalry and Guards Club in Mayfair.
This was just the latest in a series of lively public crossfires between the two men. They reportedly clashed over cuts to the armed services when Hammond was defense minister. When Shirreff called the cuts “a hell of a gamble,” Hammond threatened to have him court-martialled, Shirreff recalled. Hammond has denied this.
“Some people may say that a retired general, writing a book saying that we are in danger of war and therefore we need to bolster our defenses, is an old Cold War warrior looking for a return to good old days,” Shirreff said. “Well, far from it, actually.”
His book’s basic premises, Shirreff maintains, are based on the findings of recent war games and reports focused on NATO’s northeastern flank, some of which Shirreff himself helped draw up. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — EU and NATO members since 2004 — are widely considered to be vulnerable flashpoints in the ongoing standoff between NATO and Russia, which has been re-militarizing in the region and probing Baltic air and sea space over the last few years, often conducting snap drills close by.
* * *
Concerns over NATO’s ability to respond to Russian expansionism is widespread, and Shirreff is by no means a lone voice on the subject. A recent report by RAND Corporation, a think tank with ties to the U.S. military, suggested current NATO forces deployed in the Baltics would be outgunned “within days” of a potential Russian invasion. The BBC show “Inside the War Room” dramatized NATO attempts to cool off a hypothetical pro-Russian separatist movement a majority Russian-speaking part of a Baltic country.
“It’s in our interests to see the Baltic states are properly defended so we avoid the ghastly events that I outline,” said Shirreff.
He is heavily skeptical of NATO countries who rely too heavily on the Alliance’s nuclear deterrence capabilities or Rapid Reaction force to deter a possible Russian invasion. A nuclear response would be disproportionate, he argued, and a rapid reaction force would always to be too slow onto the scene.
“If the first recourse you have is to nuclear,” he asked, “is that really credible? Much, much better to be able to match deterrence at every level.”
NATO must station forces on the ground to deter Moscow, Shirreff argues, waving aside concerns about whether this would contravene the NATO-Russia Founding Act, which, some claim, included a commitment to Russia that no substantial permanent NATO force could ever be stationed in the Baltics. He points to the number of international agreements Russia has already contravened, and to ambiguity in the language of the agreement.
The book is a military man’s rallying cry of the likes of Sir John Hackett’s 1979 “The Third World War.” Ultimately Shirreff wants the novels to be preventative, rather than prescient. His book, he says, is not “fiction as such:” It is “fact-based prediction, very closely modeled on what I know.”
Still, the novel form, Shirreff has come to believe, is the only way to keep his message from drowning in the morass of think-tank papers, while Whitehall policymakers, keen to cut back on defense spending, look on with indifference.
“In a democracy, these are issues that people need to think about and need to understand,” he said forcefully. “It’s not something you can just relegate to specialists and experts.”
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