As the situation begins to fracture in Moscow, we find ourselves at a crossroads in the pan-European war unleashed by Vladimir Putin. It is a hot and bloody war for the Ukrainians and “grey” for its allies, as we come under attack from cyber warfare and information warfare in which Russia is very adept. It should be a moment of maximum cohesion within NATO which – with the arrival of Finland and that of Sweden which will soon follow – is objectively the strongest of all time. Yet the alliance approaches the Vilnius summit this week in a state of disarray that can only benefit the Kremlin.
The most visible symptom is President Biden’s reported preference for Ursula von der Leyen as Jens Stoltenberg’s eventual successor as NATO Secretary General. But his record is that of the worst defense minister in recent German history. She is also President of the European Commission. By supporting her, the American president is behind Emmanuel Macron’s worrying and Anglophobic vision that the next NATO chief should come from the EU.
Yet the obvious candidate a mile away is Ben Wallace, a soldier who was instrumental in rescuing Ukraine in February 2022. By right, he should follow in the footsteps of the MoD’s George Robertson at HQ in NATO. He has ruled himself out, however, for now at least.
At such a critical time, such musical chairs are worse than a crime. They are a mistake. And they point to a deeper and hitherto misunderstood threat to British national security; because we are attacked on two fronts.
Since 2016, and aware of their waning influence, Paris and Brussels have aggressively sought to revalidate the legitimacy of the French vision of federal union on firmer ground. This chosen field is the most fundamental: defense and security. The instrument is a project known as “Permanent Structured Cooperation”, or Pesco, with an emphasis on the “P”. It is an instrument for deepening defense cooperation between Member States, under French and European leadership.
The context of Pesco is the shift of the center of power in the EU from Paris to Warsaw, bypassing Berlin. For the first time in a lifetime, this dynamic is not under the control of the United States and current trends appear to be actively contrary to President Biden’s wishes. His recent actions on NATO leadership seem to confirm this.
But Pesco is not a benign project. In fact, it is moving towards plans for an EU Defense Union which, in practice, would threaten a reverse takeover of NATO by Brussels. This is the meaning of Macron’s opposition to Wallace. Nothing could be more dangerous to the national security of the United Kingdom and to the security of mainland Europe in an age of gray and hot warfare.
Britain has not joined Pesco, but our ministers are misinformed. They are told it is safe for the UK to participate on a case-by-case basis, dining a la carte only subscribing to its military mobility scheme. This is not the case. Like the devil, EU initiatives always dance through the details. The sotto voce war cry of Brussels is: he who controls the details, wins.
I have therefore documented the detailed history and workings of Pesco, first before the European Review Select Committee in May 2023 and soon in a full report published by Briefings for Britain. It shows – on the facts – how the UK’s incitement to subordination via the Military Mobility Project entails binding commitments that would keep the UK in “high dynamic alignment” with EU rules. The EU’s tactic is that of “bait and hook”. In this it resembles other branches of its interconnected strategy, also seen in the Northern Ireland protocol and the Horizon science program.
There is an alternative. Because it retains abundant hard power and has avoided destroying its economy through green extremism, relying on fossil fuels while preparing for nuclear power, Poland is becoming the most prosperous and secure state on the continent. This underpins its emerging status as Europe’s premier military land power, alongside battle-hardened Ukraine: the two main armies between the UK and Putin’s Russia.
The Baltic states naturally gravitate towards this continental center, as does Scandinavia, whose newly active alignment in NATO is the major geopolitical fact of recent times in Europe, making the Baltic a NATO sea. For cultural and military reasons, this new alignment is looking to the UK for support, not least because of our prominent role in Five Eyes.
Is the UK really about to pass up this opportunity in favor of the dismal alternative vision proposed by Macron, Von Der Leyen and Pesco? Or has 40 years of life as a member state within the EU so atrophied the mental nerves of Britain’s political class that, now that the cage door is open, the canary dares not s fly away to greet the sun of rediscovered sovereignty?
It is imperative that ministers understand this; that they look east to properly preserve NATO, proactively engaging with the fledgling alliance centered on Poland. That they stop imagining that they can dine à la carte in complete safety at the Hotel Pesco, when the resubordination of our sovereignty is essential today’s special.
Gwythian Prins is Emeritus Research Professor at the LSE, former NATO adviser and author of ‘Protecting UK National Security from PESCO’, published by Briefings for Britain this week
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