By Ret. Royal Navy Commodore Steve Jermy, Responsible Statecraft, 1/29/25

(Ret.) Royal Navy Commodore Steve Jermy commanded warships in the 5th Destroyer Squadron and Britain’s Fleet Air Arm. He served in the Falklands War and in the Adriatic for the Bosnian and Kosovo campaigns, and retired after an operational tour, in 2007, as Strategy Director in the British Embassy in Afghanistan. He is the author of Strategy for Action: Using Force Wisely in the 21st Century and now works in offshore energy.

In 2024, reflecting a popular Western belief, former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said: “NATO is the most powerful and successful alliance in history.” Yet just two years earlier in 2022, after a 15-year campaign, NATO was defeated by the Taliban, a rag-tag group of poorly armed insurgents.

How can NATO’s humiliating defeat and Austin’s view be reconciled?

Of course NATO was never the most powerful military alliance in history — that accolade surely goes to the World War II Allies: the U.S., Russia, Britain, and the Commonwealth nations. Nevertheless, after 1945, NATO did its job, did it well, and those of us who served in it were proud to do so.

Since the Berlin Wall’s fall, though, its record has become tarnished. Satisfactory in Kosovo. Humiliated in Afghanistan. Strategic failure looming in Ukraine. Are we really sure NATO is up to the job of defending democratic Europe from a supposedly expansionist Russia in the doomsday scenario of a conventional NATO-Russia war?

The doomsday NATO-Russia war scenario is the defining way to explore this question. “Amateurs talk tactics, professionals study logistics,” and our strategic analysis needs to start all the way back in NATO’s logistics rear areas, then work forward to a future line of battle on the continent of Europe.

First, unlike Russia, no major NATO nation is industrially mobilized for war, as evidenced by the fact that Russia is still outproducing NATO on 155mm shells for Ukraine. Which, incidentally, gives the lie to the view that Russia is poised to take more of Europe — if we in NATO truly believed this, we would all be mobilizing at speed.

More importantly, it is not clear that NATO could mobilize at the speed or scale needed to produce the levels of equipment, ammunition, and people to match Russia. And certainly not without a long build up that would signal our intent. This is not just about lost industrial capacity, but also lost financial capacity. Of the largest NATO nations, only Germany has a debt to GDP ratio below 100%.

Second, to have the remotest chance of success in this doomsday scenario of a NATO-Russia war, U.S. forces would need to deploy at scale into continental Europe. Even if the U.S. Army was established at the necessary scale — with a 2023 establishment of 473,000, under one third of the current Russian Army, it is not — the overwhelming majority of American equipment and logistics would have to travel by sea.

There, they would be vulnerable to Russian submarine-launched torpedoes and mines. As a former underwater warfare specialist, I do not believe that NATO now has the scale of anti-submarine or mine-warfare forces needed to protect Europe’s sea lines of communication.

Nor, for that matter, would these forces be able to successfully protect Europe’s hydrocarbon imports, in particular oil and LNG so critical to Europe’s economic survival. Losses because of our sea supply vulnerability would not only degrade military production, but also bring accelerating economic hardship to NATO citizens, as soaring prices and energy shortages accompanying an outbreak of war rapidly escalated the political pressure to settle.

Third, our airports, sea ports, training, and logistics bases would be exposed to conventional ballistic missile attack, against which we have extremely limited defenses. Indeed, in the case of the Oreshnik missile, no defense.

An Oreshnik missile arriving at Mach 10+ would devastate a NATO arms factory, or naval, army and air force base. As in Ukraine, Russia’s ballistic campaign would also target our transport, logistics, and energy infrastructure. In 2003, while I was working for the British MOD’s Policy Planning staffs, our post 9/11 threat analysis suggested a successful attack against an LNG terminal, such as Milford Haven, Rotterdam, or Barcelona, would have sub-nuclear consequences. The follow-on economic shock-waves would rapidly ripple across a European continent, now increasingly dependent on LNG.

Fourth, unlike Russia, NATO nations’ forces are a heterogenous bunch. My own experience, while leading the offshore training of all European warships at Flag Officer Sea Training in Plymouth, and later working with NATO forces in Afghanistan, was that all NATO forces were exceptionally enthusiastic but had very different levels of technological advancement and trained effectiveness.

Perhaps more contemporarily important, other than a handful of NATO trainers forward deployed in Ukraine, our forces are trained according to a pre-drone “maneuver doctrine” and have no real-world experience of modern peer-to-peer attritional warfighting. Whereas the Russian Army has close to three years experience now, and is unarguably the world’s most battle-hardened.

Fifth, NATO’s decision-making system is cumbersome, hampered by the need to constantly communicate from Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe to national capitals — a complexity made worse each time another nation is admitted.

Worse still, NATO cannot do strategy. Shortly after arriving in Afghanistan in 2007, I was shocked to find that NATO had no campaign strategy. In 2022, notwithstanding numerous Russian warnings about NATO expansion constituting a red-line, NATO was wholly unprepared, strategically, for the obvious possibility of war breaking out — as evidenced again by our inability to match Russia’s 155mm shell production.

Even now, in 2025, NATO’s Ukraine strategy is opaque, perhaps best summarized as “double-down and hope.”

In summary, NATO is positioning itself as Europe’s defender, yet lacks the industrial capacity to sustain peer-to-peer warfighting, is wholly dependent on U.S. forces for the remotest chance of success, is unable satisfactorily to defend its sea lines of communication against Russian submarine, or its training and industrial infrastructure against strategic ballistic bombardment, is comprised of a diverse mix of un-bloodied conventional forces, and lacks the capacity to think and act strategically.

An easy NATO victory cannot be assumed, and I am afraid that the opposite looks far more likely to me.

So what? Conventionally, we could now work out how to redress the manifest weaknesses revealed. Strategic audits to confirm the capability gaps. Capability analyses to work out how to fill the gaps. Conferences to decide who does what and where costs should fall. Whilst all the time muddling on, hoping that NATO might eventually prevail in Ukraine, notwithstanding all the evidence to the contrary.

But without unanimous agreement of the NATO nations to increase military investment at scale, we would be lucky to solve these capability shortfalls within ten years, let alone five.

Or we could return to consider — at last — the judgement of many Western realists that NATO expansion was the touchpaper for the Russo-Ukraine War. The Russians warned us, time and again, that such expansion constituted a red line. So too did some of our very greatest strategic thinkers, starting with George Kennan in 1996, Henry Kissinger, Jack Matlock, even Bill Burns in his famous ‘Nyet means Nyet’ diplomatic telegram, and most recently John Mearsheimer with his 2014 forecasts. All ignored.

The truth is that NATO now exists to confront the threats created by its continuing existence. Yet as our scenario shows, NATO does not have the capacity to defeat the primary threat that its continuing existence has created.

So perhaps this is the time to have an honest conversation about the future of NATO, and to ask two questions. How do we return to the sustainable peace in Europe that all sides to the conflict seek? Is NATO the primary obstacle to this sustainable peace?

RT, 3/28/25

Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed placing Ukraine under a temporary international administration as one possible way of resolving the ongoing conflict. The idea, he said, draws on international precedent and would aim to restore legitimate governance before any peace deal could be finalized.

During his meeting with Russian nuclear submarine officers on Thursday, President Putin described a possible international mechanism for stabilizing Ukraine – placing it under temporary external administration coordinated by the United Nations.

Here are the key takeaways from Putin’s proposal:

Problem: Collapse of legitimacy in Kiev

Putin argued that Ukraine’s constitutional legitimacy has broken down due to the expiration of Vladimir Zelensky’s presidential term last year and the lack of elections since – rendering all of his government’s claims to authority invalid.

“Presidential elections weren’t held… under the constitution, all officials are appointed by the president. If he himself is illegitimate, then so is everyone else.”

Consequence: Power vacuum filled by radicals

Putin has warned that groups with neo-Nazi views, such as the notorious Azov battalion – which receive Western weapons and actively recruit followers – could increasingly exert de facto control in Ukraine, potentially replacing formal civilian authorities.

“Amid the de facto illegitimacy… Neo-Nazi formations are receiving more weapons,” and could take “the actual power in their hands.”

Putin argued that this makes negotiating with Ukraine’s current government even more unreliable and unstable: “It’s unclear who you’re even signing any documents with – tomorrow new people could come and say, ‘We don’t know who signed this – goodbye.’”

Suggestion: UN-led temporary external administration

Putin proposed the use of a UN-led transitional authority, referencing prior international missions such as in East Timor, Papua New Guinea, and parts of former Yugoslavia.

“In such cases, international practice often follows a known path – under UN peacekeeping, through what is called external governance, a temporary administration.”

Purpose: Restoring constitutional order and setting a legal framework for stable peace

The main goal, according to Putin, would be to organize democratic elections and install a functioning, legitimate government trusted by citizens and recognized globally. He stated that only such leaders could sign peace agreements that would be recognized worldwide and upheld over time.

“Why do this? In order to hold democratic elections, in order to bring to power a government that is capable and enjoys the trust of the people, and then begin negotiations with them on a peace treaty, sign legitimate documents that will be recognized worldwide and will be reliable and stable.”

Not the only option – but a viable one

Putin emphasized that this idea is not the only possibility, but an example drawn from historical precedent.

“This is just one option… I’m not saying other options do not exist, but it is hard right now, or maybe even impossible, to lay everything out clearly because the situation is changing so fast,” he said.

Multilateral cooperation beyond the West

Putin said such an initiative should involve not just the UN or the US, but a broader coalition, including BRICS nations and others Russia considers reliable.

“We will work with any partners – the US, China, India, Brazil, South Africa, BRICS countries… and, for example, North Korea.”

He also stressed that Russia remains open to working with the EU, even though Moscow’s trust in the Western European countries has been fundamentally undermined by their manipulation of peace efforts as a tactic to buy time and rearm Ukraine.

***

Trump Says He’s ‘Pissed Off’ at Putin, Threatens ‘Secondary Tariffs’ on Russia

By Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com, 3/30/25

President Trump said on Sunday that he was “pissed off” at Russian President Vladimir Putin and warned he could hit Russia with “secondary tariffs” on its oil if a peace deal to end the Ukraine war isn’t reached.

Trump said he was unhappy with Putin questioning Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s legitimacy. On Friday, Putin suggested replacing Zelensky with a “transitional administration” to prepare for elections in Ukraine.

Putin’s comments came after Zelensky said that he believes the Russian leader will soon be dead. “He will die soon, that is a fact, and everything will be over,” Zelensky said in an interview on March 26.

Trump has previously criticized Zelensky for not holding elections and even called the Ukrainian leader a “dictator,” but said in a phone interview with NBC News that he was “angry” over Putin’s comments about the Ukrainian leader.

“If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault — which it might not be — but if I think it was Russia’s fault, I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” Trump said.

“That would be that if you buy oil from Russia, you can’t do business in the United States. There will be a 25% tariff on all oil, a 25- to 50-point tariff on all oil,” the president added.

It remains unclear if the current negotiations between the US and Russia will lead to a full ceasefire in Ukraine and a lasting peace deal. While both sides have nominally agreed to stop targeting energy infrastructure and halting attacks on the Black Sea, fighting continues to rage across the frontlines, Russian strikes are pounding Ukraine, and Ukraine is still launching drones into Russia.

By James Carden, Substack, 3/14/25

Alexander Motyl, a little known Ukrainian nationalist teaching in Newark, first came across my radar about a decade ago when he filed a bigoted attack on the people of the Donbas (who, at the time, were being targeted by a Western-funded “anti-terrorist operation” launched by Kiev) as “the most reactionary, intolerant and illiberal population within Ukraine.” They also—and this is the real sin from the standpoint of Ukrainian nationalists—speak and read and teach in their native language.

As the journalist and author Lev Golinkin pointed out in response,

…That is correct: eastern Ukraine — a land where the vast majority of the population speaks Russian as its native and primary tongue — has an overabundance of Russian schools and newspapers. A similar situation can be found in Canada’s French-speaking province of Quebec, whose reactionary, intolerant and illiberal French-speaking population has the gall to inundate their French-speaking region with the French language that nearly everyone there speaks. It can also be found in most Chinatowns, or Little Koreas, or pretty much most linguistic enclaves in America.

Over the past month, Motyl has published a number of pieces in The Hill which might fairly be, given the two assassination attempts on Trump during the 2024 campaign, characterized as incitement.

On February 25th, Motyl envisioned a “palace coup” that “could rid the country of an illegitimate leader [Trump] and usher in a transition to moderation and democracy — call it a Thermidor — that Vance would be unlikely to survive politically.”

“There will be chaos,” he concludes, “but America will have the opportunity to save itself from the revolutionaries and terrorists.”

The following day, Motyl once again appeared in The Hill to answer the question: “Was 40-year-old Trump recruited by the KGB?” Well, according to Moytl, could well be…

The former head of Kazakhstan’s intelligence service, Alnur Mussayev, recently claimed in a Facebook post that Donald Trump was recruited by the KGB in 1987, when the 40-year-old real-estate mogul first visited Moscow.

The allegation would, if true, be a bombshell. Mussayev provides no documentary evidence —but then how could he? He alleged that Trump’s file is in Vladimir Putin’s hands.

…the fact that three KGB agents located in different places and speaking at different times agree on the story suggests this possibility should not be dismissed out of hand. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the first Trump administration and from the initial weeks of the second, it is that everything, including what appears to be impossible, is possible.

March 3rd found Motyl once again in the pages of The Hill warning readers that “Trump’s second administration resembles totalitarian political systems.”

This was followed up (does he sleep?) with a hysterical screed in which he charged that Trump has “effectively endorsed Vladimir Putin’s genocidal war” and that “Trump and his sycophantic subordinates” might one day be tried before the the International Criminal Court. To sum up: Trump, according to Motyl is a criminal, a totalitarian, and, possibly an agent of the Kremlin.

Galician nationalists specialize in these incitements to violence—as some of us who have been repeatedly placed on their enemies lists know only too well. Starting well before Putin’s February 2022 invasion, Galician nationalists and other far-Right extremists began publishing enemies lists such as the notorious Myrotvorets (Peacemaker) which doxxed hundreds of American and European journalists who were credentialed by the governing authorities in the breakaway People’s Republic of Donetsk.

As Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute has written,

…The Ukrainians seemingly love to make lists of their “enemies.” One of their most notorious of these is the infamous “kill list” put out by the Mirotvorets Center in Kiev. From that list several have already been murdered by Ukraine, including prominent Russian journalist Daria Dugina.

Last year, a Ukrainian NGO called TEXTY released a list of its own which included scores of American politicians, journalists and analysts. At the time, Dr. Sumantra Maitra, senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America, told The Spectator that in his view,

…It’s clarifying to see the State Department-funded Ukrainian NGOs showing their true colors and creating blacklists, demonstrating how utterly Soviet they still are.”

This week comes news of a Ukrainian “intelligence gathering” service called MOLFAR with an “enemies list” that includes, among other notables, the current vice president, JD Vance.

What makes this all the more galling is that it was ( is?) being funded by the US government though USAID. Whatever sympathy we may (and do) feel for people who have lost their jobs at USAID and at USAID-linked contractors, the Trump administration was absolutely right in pulling the plug on this kind of nonsense.

Worryingly, Trump’s determination to force Zelensky to the negotiating table could well put him in the crosshairs of Ukrainian nationalists—like those in the diaspora such as Motyl and those the Biden administration spent the last 3 years arming to the teeth.

Col. Douglas Macgregor was exactly right when, in a new interview with Tucker Carlson, said, with regard to Ukrainian ultras,

…I would be very worried about our president. I think the president is very much at risk, these people seem to have no sense of limitation—they’re capable of anything, I hope the Secret Service is on its toes.”

Russia Matters, 3/28/25

1. Russia and Ukraine are in a war of attrition, which “will lead to a gradual but steady erosion of Kyiv’s position on the battlefield, regardless of any U.S. or allied attempts to impose new and greater costs on Moscow,” according to the U.S. intelligence community’s annual Worldwide Threat Assessment presented this week. The document, which as its predecessor, refers to Russia as America’s adversary, predicts that Vladimir Putin “will be unable to achieve … total victory” in spite of having sacrificed 750,000+ in killed and wounded Russian soldiers, but acknowledges that “Russia in the past year has seized the upper hand in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and is on a path to accrue greater leverage to press Kyiv and its Western backers to negotiate an end to the war that grants Moscow concessions it seeks.” It also follows from WTA-2025 that both Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Putin “for now probably still see the risks of a longer war as less than those of an unsatisfying settlement.” For a more detailed review of WTA-2025’s Russia-related propositions, see this blog post.
2. “Our troops have the strategic initiative along the entire contact line. Only recently, I said that we would squeeze them into a corner, but now we have reason to believe that we are set to finish them off,” Putin claimed while visiting the Russian Northern Fleet’s Arkhangelsk nuclear submarine on March 27. During the visit to this Project 885M Yasen-M vessel, Putin claimed that the Russian armed forces had captured 99% of the Luhansk region and over 70% of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. Putin’s estimate regarding the four provinces is close to a March 23 estimate provided by the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War to RM. According to the ISW estimate, Russian forces have captured 73.6% of Kherson Oblast; 73.3% of Zaporizhzhia Oblast; 70.2% of Donetsk Oblast; and 99.3% of Luhansk Oblast. It also follows from the interactive map maintained by Ukraine’s DeepState OSINT team that Russian forces had captured 46 square miles (118 square kilometers) in the 30 day period from Feb. 21, 2025, to March 23, 2025. It follows then that if Russia were to focus only on these four regions, advancing at this rate of 46 square miles per 30 days (or some 1.5 miles per day), then it would take Russian forces more than 15 years to “finish off” the takeover of these four regions, ceteris paribus.
3. In the past month (Feb. 25–March 25, 2025), Russia gained 73 square miles of Ukraine’s territory, an area roughly equivalent to about 3 Manhattan islands, according to the March 26, 2025, issue of RM’s Russia-Ukraine War Report Card. Meanwhile, in Russia’s Kursk oblast, Ukraine currently controls just 32 square miles, or 4%, of the 470 square miles it controlled in early autumn 2024, according to the card.  
4. The separate talks U.S.officials held first with Ukrainian officials, then with Russian officials, then with Ukrainian officials again, in Saudi Arabia on March 23–25, failed to either usher in a ceasefire in the Black Sea or prevent violations of an earlier moratorium on Russian and Ukrainian attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure. The three sides produced competing accounts of the outcomes of the talks, from which it could be inferred that the biggest obstacles to the Black Sea ceasefire are the conditions Russia has added to its account of the talks. The Kremlin said the agreement can enter into force only after Western sanctions impacting its agricultural exports are lifted, which the EU has rejected. That Russian-U.S. talks, which lasted for 12 hours on March 24, failed to produce any breakthrough was stated openly by one of the Russian negotiators on March 28. One of Russia’s negotiators and former deputy foreign minister Grigory Karasin said U.S. proposals at the talks were “unacceptable” and predicted that negotiations may drag on into next year. While keen to refrain from antagonizing Trump, who has invested political capital into the effort to end the war, the Kremlin didn’t expect a breakthrough at the talks in Saudi Arabia. This follows from Putin’s choice of Karasin and Sergei Beseda, who had lost high-ranking posts in the MFA in 2019 and FSB in 2024, respectively, some time ago, and whom Russian commentator Georgii Bovt described as “elderly retirees,” as the two lead negotiators for the March 24^th talks. If that signal was not strong enough, then Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov’s preview of the talks, in which he said, “we are only at the beginning of this path,” was.
5. This week has seen U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reject the notion of setting any deadlines for the Russian-Ukrainian peace talks, even though his president has earlier promised to end the war in a day, or in 100 days. When asked on March 28 how long he anticipated the negotiations would take, Rubio responded: “We’re committed to trying to achieve peace as long as it takes. That doesn’t mean that I can guarantee you that there’s going to be an agreement in a week or a month. I just can’t put a timeframe on it because it doesn’t depend on us. It depends on the Russians, and it depends on the Ukrainians. It also depends on our partners in Europe who have sanctions that will have to be taken into account, I believe, as part of any final deal.” During his campaign for presidency last year, Trump claimed he could end the Russian-Ukrainian war within 24 hours of taking office. Upon beginning his term on Jan. 20, however, Trump designated retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg as his special envoy for Russia and Ukraine and tasked him with ending the war within 100 days, which put the deadline by or on April 30, 2025. More recently, “people familiar with the planning” of the Trump administration’s Ukraine peace efforts told Bloomberg they hope a broad ceasefire in Russia’s war in Ukraine can be reached by April 20, which this year is Easter in both the Western and Orthodox churches. That Rubio now refuses to offer a deadline for completing talks might be an indication that his evaluation of prospects of success at the negotiating table in the near future has evolved.
6. Even as European leaders rejected this week the possibility of easing sanctions on Russia per its demands as a precondition for implementing the Russian-Ukrainian Black Sea ceasefire, some European majors have begun to eye returning to Russia. Vitol, Trafigura and Gunvor are all weighing when to re-enter Russia’s markets, according to FT. In addition to these European oil traders, South Korea’s Samsung, LG Electronics and Hyundai are weighing whether to re-expand their presence in Russia, according to Korea Times. This week has also seen Putin welcome a Western consumer flagship, Italy’s Ariston, back by canceling the temporary nationalization of its Russian unit, according to AFP. Last week saw Putin tell the Russian Cabinet of Ministers to create a procedure for Western businesses to return to Russia. It has also been reported by Reuters earlier this month that the Trump administration is working on a plan that would ease sanctions against Russia, which is under more sanctions than the next six targets combined, according to The Economist. More recently, Rubio said on March 26 the United States will evaluate Russia’s aforementioned demands for easing sanctions.
7. Ending the war in Ukraine will be on Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s agenda  when he holds talks with Russian leaders during his visit to Russia on March 31–April 2. Meanwhile, North Korea, which has reportedly sent an additional 3,000 troops this year to fight against Ukrainian forces, is already in talks with Russia on potential visits by Kim Jong Un to Moscow and by Sergei Lavrov to Pyongyang.

Intellinews, 3/14/25

Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to enjoy the trust of 83% of the Russian populace, according to a poll by the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), conducted between March 7 and 9, TASS reported on March 14.

The trust rating was up 2% increase from the previous survey. Similarly, the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) reported that 79.3% of participants affirmed their trust in the president, reflecting a 0.6% uptick.

In terms of job performance, 83% of those surveyed by FOM approved of Putin’s actions, while VCIOM’s data showed a 77.2% approval rating, a 0.5% rise.

The Russian government’s management of the country received a 57% approval rating in the FOM poll, with 59% endorsing Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s performance. VTsIOM findings were slightly lower, with 52.4% approving of the government’s handling of affairs and 53.1% supporting the prime minister’s efforts.​

Support for political parties also showed notable improvements. FOM’s research indicated that backing for the ruling United Russia party increased by 2%, reaching 46%. Conversely, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) experienced a 2% decline, settling at 7%, while the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) saw a 1% decrease to 8%. The A Just Russia-For Truth party maintained steady support at 3%, and the New People party observed a 1% rise to 3%.

VTsIOM’s data presented a slightly different picture: support for United Russia stood at 34.9%, a 0.4% decrease; the KPRF’s backing increased by 0.4% to 10.4%; the LDPR experienced a 0.7% decline to 10.5%; A Just

Russia-For Truth saw a 0.4% increase to 4.4%; and the New People party’s support remained constant at 6.6%.