We have all awoken from our slumber to a new age of war in Europe, made all the more shocking by Putin’s multiple threats to use nuclear weapons if his forces were to be interfered with, a tactic that is consistent with the Russian Army's doctrine of first use of nuclear weapons. We must be very clear that this new and unprovoked war in Europe has been initiated and caused by Putin's expansionist ambitions, that will in time almost inevitably see him indicted as a war criminal.
However, whilst Putin is the aggressor, our governments in the West are also complicit as they have failed to learn the lesson of history meted out by past dictators who have started world wars that let loose rivers of blood. That lesson is simple: the only way to deter conflict is to prepare for a war with full-spectrum deterrence so that war never occurs, and to match military capability with political intention, much as Thatcher expounded to Argentina and the USSR.
Ten years of Putin's increasing aggression and hostility, matched by similar expansionism and aggression from Xi in China, has culminated in the past few years with Russian submarines moving almost feely off our coastline in ways never allowed in the Cold War, and Russian planes regularly probing our air space in aggressive reconnaissance activities, all with hostile intent to find our weaknesses.
With our weak responses to the Salisbury poisonings (the use of a weapon of mass destruction on British soil) and the route from Afghanistan at the behest of Biden that signalled that the West was vulnerable under the weakest US president in history, the risks and threats to our nation have risen to a crescendo.
During the same period, Europe and especially Britain’s governments have systematically destroyed our defence capability, to the point where today, when we most desperately need it, it is now all but non-existent.
The defence of the realm is the first responsibility of a government, and yet this and successive governments seem to believe that political bluster could replace the only thing that can contain a military dictator – hard military power. They have compounded their mistake by failing to understand Putin's inner psychology and objectives that have been facilitated by a new, positive commodity cycle feeding Russia’s war coffers. So much so that we are not looking at a weak Russian economy that will crumble under sanction, but a very strong one that accumulated $680 billion of foreign reserves (most of which we have now expropriated!) and with a national debt of 18% of GDP. Furthermore, it is a fundamental mistake to describe Putin as illogical, just because he does not follow our Western logic. Rather, he is a dictator and, as our enemy, rather than ridicule him, we must seek to understand his logic to get inside his decision cycle if we are to prevail.
In addition, the strategic alliance now formed between Russia and China matches Russia's commodity production to a willing and voracious buyer whose supply lines will now be over land and no longer vulnerable to a naval blockade. This alliance of dictators now represents the greatest threat to the democratic world since Nazi Germany in 1939. We must realise that Xi cannot afford to see Putin fail, as a change of leadership in favour of the West would see them surrounded and Xi's expansive ambitions constricted.
Indeed, by a consistently poor choice of foreign policy over the past decade, we in the West have forced Russia into the arms of China, forging the free world's nightmare alliance. Consequently, no amount of sanctions will work against Putin. Instead, we must wake up to the terrible error of our naive ways and recognise that only hard power and a strong intention to use force if attacked will deter aggression.
Time is now very short for our nation’s survival, with the next commodity cycle high predicted for 2025 – a historic phenomenon and cycle that in the past started the American Civil War, WW1 and marked the peak of the Cold War.
Britain has followed its great tradition of standing up to dictators in Europe and quite rightly has and is leading the Western world in its support of Ukraine, with so-called defence lethal aide that is now destroying his tanks. But Britain has become the number one target for Putin's threat of retaliation to those that intervene and support Ukraine.
Our dire predicament of being totally unprepared for war with a modern industrial adversary demands an emergency rearmament programme of 5–10% of GDP, which is designed to put significant new forces into active deployment within two years before the peak of the commodity cycle, when a major world war is most likely.
In addition, we need new thinking in our nation's political and military leadership. We need to replace the dominance of linear reactive, non-strategic peacetime thinking with lateral strategic thinking that will get us ahead of the Russian and Chinese plans to destroy our Western culture, which by now should be obvious to everyone.
As Tolkien said in The Hobbit, this is the doom of our time. To not act now and decisively will inevitably mean we, the proud island nation of Global Britain, will be overcome by war within a short measure of time.
Lastly, Global Forecaster has been receiving unwelcome attention from Russian hackers, which means that our work is damaging to Putin's cause … a very welcome signal!
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© David Murrin 2025. All images courtesy of Getty Images. |