There should be no surprise over the barbaric Russian attack on a children’s hospital and maternity clinic in Kyiv this week, killing 36 people – it’s what Moscow does. Between 2014 and 2022, during the Syrian civil war, on over 1,000 occasions I saw how the Russians and Assad regime wilfully attacked hospitals and healthcare workers; how the attacks ultimately enabled them subjugate the population, utilising every method of war – including chlorine gas – to destroy the will of civilians to resist.
But as Nato begins its major 75th anniversary summit, it should remember that, while President Putin is morally responsible for these horrific episodes, we in the West are also to blame for enabling him; first by not providing the missile air defences that Kyiv has screamed for ever since the full-scale invasion began, and – more fundamentally – by not providing an effective deterrent to Russia’s unrelenting aggression.
If the missile strikes on civilian targets fail to drive this home, the visit this week by the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi to Moscow for a two-day summit – deliberately timed, one assumes, to overshadow the one in Washington – should certainly do so. He even called Putin a “dear friend” and went so far as to embrace the Russian leader on his arrival, much to Putin’s obvious delight.
Putin, in short, is rubbing it in our faces. Where once he was persona non grata, he is now signalling that he is able to summon the leader of the world’s largest democracy straight to his doorstep, commit flagrant war crimes, and – incredibly – steer the UN security council this month.
And what is Nato’s response? Apparently, more of the same weak, and evidently ineffective, policies – or so we have been led to believe in the build-up to the summit. Washington and Berlin, for example, rather than symbolically join the chorus of many Western powers calling for a clear path for Ukraine to one day join the alliance, have instead put up more barriers, insisting that membership cannot be progressed without a number of structural and anti-corruption reforms undertaken by Kyiv. It also looks likely that the summit will only agree to a €40 billion pledge for ongoing military support, much less than the initial $100 billion multi-year package first proposed by secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg earlier this year.
Much of this weakness, it has to be said, rests on Europe’s shoulders. Donald Trump was right: the Continent, and Britain, has consistently dropped the ball by its overreliance on the US, meaning it can only follow Washington’s lead rather than carve its own defence identity. In good times, that hasn’t been an issue, but now that isolationism is back in American politics, the White House is hamstrung by caution. While the US is distracted by its election, Europe is dangerously exposed, unable to defend even a single nation on our doorstep.
As General Sir Patrick Sanders, the outgoing chief of the defence staff, put it: Britain barely has enough military capability to fight a small war for about a week, and this is true for most Nato countries.
So what can Nato do to seize the initiative? It is a long list, but at the top must be to accelerate its arming of Kyiv and loosening the handcuffs of what President Zelensky and his generals are allowed to do with Western weapons. It took over two years for Washington to allow its missiles to be used on targets on Russian soil, despite their vital importance for Russia in attacking Ukraine, and even now there are restrictions in place as to where Ukraine is allowed to hit. In an existential war, that is insanity. Instead, it should be offering locked-in, non-restricted long-term support that is “Trump-proof”.
Second, it should far more clearly articulate where its red lines are. I don’t think it’s too controversial to say that it is no longer politically conceivable for Western powers to allow Kyiv to fall. If that scenario were likely, it should do far more – perhaps even putting some boots on the ground in certain regions. So why not say that? Why not install some Nato troops in Western Ukraine, making it clear there is no chance for Russia to carve deeper into the country than the 18 per cent it now controls?
Third, it must be more assertive. The US, UK and France knocked out Iranian drones and missiles fired at Israeli cities, so why not Russian ones fired at Ukrainian hospitals and schools? There was no retaliation by Iran, and little Russia could do to us if we did. This would have a huge impact on the outcome of this war, as the front lines are at stalemate.
Fourth, and finally, all Nato countries must recognise that there is no longer a “peace dividend” and arm themselves properly to form an effective deterrence. They must see that, despite strong words when the invasion began, the West is more or less where it was in terms of army sizes and weaponry.
In short: Nato needs to flex its military muscle in Washington. Time is running out. If Trump is elected in November, then all bets are off: Europe could find itself alone, and Ukraine unable to defend itself. Then I am certain Nato will never reach another landmark birthday like this one.
Hamish de Bretton-Gordon is a former commander of UK and Nato CBRN (Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear) Forces
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