Deciphering the Kremlin's next move

The author knows both the region, and the netherworld of Western decision-making. His fury with complacent, cost-cutting politicians drips from every page. Reviewers have criticized the book for clunky characterization and dialogue. But the real issue is whether the scenario it paints is plausible enough to deserve serious treatment.  Would Russia really risk nuclear war with the West in order to seize Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in an all-out military attack?

Clearly the answer in some cases is yes. If we had a President Trump (or Sanders) in the White House who explicitly disavowed America’s security guarantee to Europe, plus Russia-friendly leaders in the other nuclear powers (Jeremy Corbyn in Britain; Marine le Pen in France), then clearly NATO would cease to function as a nuclear alliance. But those are big ifs.

There are more: we would also have to assume that amid NATO’s collapse, Europe’s remaining military-minded countries (Norway, Poland, the Netherlands—perhaps also Sweden and Finland) had failed to deploy any serious military forces in the Baltics.

Given such conditions, then Russia would perhaps be tempted to use the geographical and other advantages it enjoys.

Yet even that outcome is not a certainty. Would Russia really want to fight against a determined partisan resistance? Would it want to risk financial sanctions and political pariahdom?

I think the main function of Russia’s armed forces is to intimidate, rather than to actually fight. The military imbalance in the Baltic unnerves people there—and abroad. If people think that defending these three small countries risks World War III, then they may decide it would be better not to do it in the first place. (This, I fear, may be one unintended effect of Sir Richard Shirreff’s book).

What really tempts the Kremlin is achieving its means without all-out war. If you confuse your adversary, leave him friendless and break his will, fighting becomes unnecessary. For that reason we should be paying a lot more attention to the way that Russia attacks our willpower and decision-making. In this context I strongly recommend a new paper by British intelligence expert Mark Galeotti at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

Putin’s Hydra is the best account yet of how Russia’s spy agencies actually work. He is careful not to be alarmist (even arguing that talk of a “new Cold War” is overstated: ouch). He notes that Russia is not run by a monolithic “spookocracy.” The intelligence and security services pander to Vladimir Putin’s paranoid worldview, rather than trying to correct it. The product they supply is shoddy. They are corrupt and squabble a lot.

But whereas Western intelligence officers mainly stick to finding things out, Russian spies also try to make things happen—with stunts ranging from assassinations to blackmail, bribery and impersonation. The aims of these “active measures,” Mr. Galeotti writes, include “subverting and destabilizing European governments, operations in support of Russian economic interests, and attacks on political enemies.” Western countries are only beginning to get to grips with this, and particularly Russian espionage’s overlap with crime, business and propaganda.

The “powerful, feral, multi-headed, and obedient” spies that Mr. Galeotti describes should be a much bigger worry than the Clancyesque nightmares in Sir Richard’s book.