Matthew Toy

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Russia/EU chess

Examining Europe’s proposed ‘re-armament surge’

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On June 17, 2025

In Strategy

Andrew Michta’s Helsinki-Commission briefing, available on YouTube and social media, urges Europe to accelerate the deployment of armour and air-defence to its eastern flank. His logistics are solid, yet the argument remains trapped in a materialist mindset. The Kremlin’s strategic theatre is part gun-count, part morality play; it must perform the role of a besieged civilisation to sustain elite cohesion and domestic consent (Giles, 2021). Moscow therefore magnifies even token NATO deployments, weaving them into a narrative of encirclement. Numbers certainly matter, but myths and interpretations drive policy.

Historically, Western analysis rarely pauses on this critical identity driver. Civilisational framings, or what Marlene Laruelle calls Russia’s “anti-liberal European” self-image (Laruelle, 2016), explain why deterrence sometimes falters when, on balance, an alliance should be the rational option. Michta’s focus on equipment and troop-tallies risks underestimating this discursive asymmetry.

NATO’s dilemma: choreographing presence

The security dilemma cannot just be wished away, but its social meaning can be reframed. NATO now plans to defend forward with rotating brigades rather than permanent garrisons. Visibility is deliberate: forces spend most of their time at home and surge only for exercises, reassuring Baltic publics while limiting imagery that feeds Moscow’s siege myth. Twenty-two Allies already meet the 2 per cent GDP benchmark, up from three a decade ago (NATO, 2024), yet credible posture still requires narrative discipline. Radical transparency, such as publishing force-flow schedules and live-streaming major drills, signals defensive intent and denies the Kremlin the fog in which worst-case fantasies multiply. A minimalist inspection regime, of the kind sketched in recent European Leadership Network workshops, could complement this by addressing Russian ontological insecurity without conceding capability (ELN, 2024).

Lessons from outside Europe

Wargames on a Taiwan contingency reinforce the logic. RAND analysts find that smart sea-mines, road-mobile fires and cheap drones raise the PLA’s operational risk more sharply than prestige carriers (RAND, 2023). Denial assets lower the escalatory temperature while still signalling resolve. Yet capability is not enough: Beijing will test whether the coalition’s political will is socially durable. Expanding informal constructs like AUKUS into routine crisis-response exercises needs to narrate a shared story of status-quo preservation rather than anti-China containment.

South Asia offers a counter-example. The 2025 India-Pakistan crisis, analysed at the Belfer Center, showed deterrence only holding once both sides satisfied domestic identity needs with symbolic strikes before back-channeling de-escalation (Belfer, 2025). Conversely, the Israel–Hezbollah dyad illustrates erosion: CSIS charts a steep rise in rocket exchanges as mutually reinforcing victim narratives demand ever larger demonstrations of “honour” (CSIS, 2024). Deterrence frays when stories that cultures tell themselves are left unmanaged.

Policy implication

Europe’s re-armament is necessary, but insufficient by itself. Credible high-readiness forces must be paired with an information architecture that denies Moscow the dramaturgy it craves. That means choreographed deployments, radical transparency, selective arms-control gestures and a public narrative that casts NATO as guardian of a plural security order, not the shadow of tomorrow’s invasion. Any deterrence strategy that ignores identity politics may well become an expensive repeat of history.

Bibliography

Belfer Center (2025) Escalation Gone Meta: Strategic Lessons from the 2025 India–Pakistan Crisis. Harvard Kennedy School.

CSIS (2024) The Coming Conflict with Hezbollah. Center for Strategic and International Studies.

European Leadership Network (2024) OSCE Workshop Report: Strengthening European Security Architecture.

Giles, K. (2021) What Deters Russia. Chatham House.

Laruelle, M. (2016) ‘Russia as an Anti-liberal European Civilisation’, in The New Russian Nationalism, Edinburgh University Press.

Michta, A. (2024) ‘Why NATO Must Step Up’, testimony to the U.S. Helsinki Commission.

NATO (2024) ‘Defence Expenditures and the 2 Per Cent Guideline’.

RAND Corporation (2023) These Technologies Could Defeat China’s Missile Barrage and Defend Taiwan.

Digital Union Jack / Tank and Drone

Is the Strategic Defence Review an Engineered Response? Rethinking UK Defence in an Age of Bricolage

By

On June 9, 2025

In Strategy

Abstract

Looking at the situation, the United Kingdom’s 2025 Strategic Defence Review (SDR) projects a confident rationality: an “Integrated Force” designed to deter, fight, and win through “constant innovation at wartime pace” (Ministry of Defence, 2025, p. 14). Yet Moscow’s conduct in Ukraine has revealed a profoundly different strategic grammar. Russia behaves, in Ondřej Ditrych’s terms, as a bricoleur – an opportunistic tinkerer that stitches together ad hoc “assemblages” while actively cultivating contradictions to wrong-foot a rule-bound opponent (Ditrych, 2024, p. 2). This article argues that a defence posture optimised for elegant integration may prove brittle when confronted by such an adversary. It posits that Russia’s dialectical approach is designed to exploit the very linear logic that underpins Western military planning. By contrasting the systemic fragility of Russian bricolage, vividly exposed by the Wagner Group’s implosion, with the SDR’s search for institutional longevity, this analysis suggests that effective deterrence now requires the UK to supplement integration with a capacity for institutionalised improvisation. This ‘controlled bricolage’ is presented as a form of adaptive power, essential for reassuring allies and succeeding in an era of disorderly, attritional conflict.

1. A Strategy of Contradiction

To understand the contemporary threat is to look beyond conventional military net assessment and into an opponent’s strategic culture. Ondřej Ditrych (2024, p. 3) characterises the Russian state not as a grand strategist but as a bricoleur, a tinkerer that improvises solutions from a limited repertoire of available parts. This is more than mere opportunism; it is a dialectical method. It is comfortable with, and indeed actively cultivates, the very contradictions that would paralyse a Western staff college. Russia’s strategy often appears to be a pastiche of mutually exclusive signals: complaining of encirclement while expanding its territory, invoking international law while flouting it, and deploying high-tech weaponry alongside crudely adapted civilian technologies. This is not strategic incoherence but a feature designed to create a chaotic information environment, wrong-footing an adversary who seeks clarity and predictability.

The Wagner Group was, perhaps, the ultimate expression of this method. It was a composite entity that simultaneously functioned as a proxy military force, a resource-extraction enterprise, a political influence operation, and a vehicle for plausible deniability (Ditrych, 2024, p. 3). It allowed Moscow to project power into Africa and the Middle East in ways that circumvented the rules of state-on-state competition. Yet this bricolage has a breaking-point. Such ad hoc structures lack institutional resilience. Wagner’s spectacular implosion following Yevgeny Prigozhin’s 2023 mutiny was not the result of external pressure but of the unbearable internal frictions of the system that created it (Ditrych, 2024, p. 4). This reveals the core vulnerability of the bricoleur: a reliance on improvised, personality-driven structures that can shatter under systemic stress, a stark contrast to the West’s enduring, if cumbersome, search for institutional longevity.

2. The Limits of an Engineered Deterrence

The SDR’s answer to this disorderly world is a renewed drive for rational integration. It proposes a force “integrated by design” (Ministry of Defence, 2025, p. 15-16), directed by a new Military Strategic Headquarters and equipped via a streamlined Defence Investment Plan. The document is, in itself, a signal of intent, a blueprint for a logical, legible, and thereby deterring military machine. However, in applying this lens, it arguably misreads the nature of the challenge. As the RAND Corporation’s work on national power suggests, military effectiveness is not simply a function of material capabilities– the ships, tanks, and aircraft a nation possesses. It depends equally on the efficiency of the conversion process that turns those national resources into usable military power (Treverton and Jones, 2005, p. 18). Russian bricolage is, in essence, a high-speed, high-risk conversion strategy. The UK’s SDR, with its focus on creating new bureaucratic structures and processes, risks optimising its inventory of capabilities while neglecting the need for a truly agile conversion mechanism.

This creates a deterrence paradox, which plays out for multiple audiences. The first, and most obvious, is the adversary. As Keir Giles argues, Russia often discounts material symbols of Western strength, focusing instead on a perceived lack of political will and a hesitation to accept risk (Torun, 2024, p. 667, summarising Giles). A bricoleur state, seeking seams to exploit, is unlikely to be deterred by a show of conventional force that it believes will never be used in the ambiguous ‘sub-threshold’ where it prefers to operate. The second, and equally critical, audience is domestic and allied. Effective deterrence requires not only a credible threat but also the reassurance of one’s own public and partners that the nation can withstand and respond to shocks. This requires a resilient defence industrial base capable of surging production. The SDR acknowledges this, noting that a nation’s Armed Forces are only as strong as the industry behind them (Ministry of Defence, 2025, p. 7), but the deep-seated challenge of moving from peacetime efficiency to wartime industrial mass remains a critical constraint on the UK’s own risk appetite and, therefore, its credibility.

3. Towards an Elastic Architecture: Institutionalising Bricolage

If Russia’s strategic advantage lies in its tolerance for disorder, then an effective counter-strategy cannot lie solely in the imposition of a more perfect order. The UK must learn to fight fire with fire, supplementing its integrated blueprint with a capacity for institutionalised improvisation. This means cultivating a form of ‘controlled bricolage’ as a source of adaptive power. Treverton and Jones (2005, p. 11) noted two decades ago how the information technology revolution would inevitably move action away from slow-moving governments and “toward nimbler organisations.” The SDR’s proposal for an “expert Digital Warfighters group” (Ministry of Defence, 2025, p. 47-49) is a promising, if nascent, step in this direction. For this to become a genuine source of advantage, however, it must be treated not as a specialist enclave but as a guiding ethos for the entire force, empowering small teams at the tactical edge to experiment, adapt, and exploit opportunities at a speed the adversary cannot match.

This, in turn, requires a fundamental shift in the Ministry of Defence’s culture of procurement and risk. It necessitates an embrace of “good-enough” solutions that can be fielded rapidly, with iterative upgrades baked into the process, rather than pursuing perfect capabilities that risk arriving too late. Such an approach accepts that in a state of constant technological flux, some failure is inevitable and should be treated as an opportunity for accelerated learning. This is the logic behind the Royal Navy’s planned regulatory “sandbox” for autonomous systems (Ministry of Defence, 2025, p. 105-106), a concept that must be expanded across all domains. An elastic and adaptive force, capable of improvising under pressure, offers a more credible deterrent to a bricoleur than a rigid one, however powerful. It signals a capacity to endure, to adapt, and to respond effectively amid the very chaos the adversary seeks to create.

4. Conclusion

Arguably, a rationally designed and integrated force remains indispensable for the enduring demands of high-intensity warfare. Integration alone, however, is no longer sufficient. The central insight for UK defence is that an over-optimisation for elegant, systemic coherence can itself become a vulnerability when facing an opponent whose strategy is to weaponise disorder. Power in the 21st century is increasingly a function of adaptability. The challenge, therefore, is to create an architecture that is not only strong but also elastic; one that can, when necessary, fracture gracefully into many semi-autonomous nodes, each authorised to improvise within the commander’s intent. Deterrence means more than pure strength, it is the ability to adapt one’s defence to the changing strategic landscape.

Bibliography

Ditrych, O. (2024). DECONSTRUCTING RUSSIA’S BRICOLAGE TACTICS: Strategic insights for defeating the Kremlin. EUISS Brief 18. Paris: European Union Institute for Security Studies.

Ministry of Defence. (2025). Strategic Defence Review 2025: Making Britain Safer, Secure at Home, Strong Abroad. London: HM Government.

Torun, Z. (2024). Review of ‘Russia’s War on Everybody. And What it Means for You’, by Keir Giles. Europe-Asia Studies, 76(4), pp. 667-668.

Treverton, G. F. and Jones, S. G. (2005). Measuring National Power. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation.

Header image for an article on PGM usage by Russia

Precision Reconsidered: Russia’s Shift from Guided Missiles to Mass Bombardment

By

On May 29, 2025

In Strategy

Previously Russia positioned itself as a modern power able to cripple an adversary’s decision-cycle with carefully targeted precision-guided munitions. Three years of war in Ukraine have punctured that story. The Kremlin now relies on volume rather than accuracy, trading the prestige of “surgical” strikes for the blunt attrition of drone swarms and repurposed air-defence missiles. What follows traces that transition and asks what it does to Western analytical assumptions about technology, ethics and power.

From Surgical Imagery to Saturation Practice

Pentagon tallies show that Russian forces loosed more than one thousand one hundred guided missiles in the first month of the invasion, yet many exploded in apartment blocks rather than command nodes (Department of Defense, 2022). Domestic production never kept pace. By mid-2023 Russian factories were turning out roughly sixty new cruise missiles a month, a fraction of operational demand (Williams, 2023).

Facing depletion, Moscow shifted firepower architecture. S-300 surface-to-air missiles were redirected at ground targets, increasing miss distances, while Iranian-designed Shahed drones began to pad nightly salvos (Army Recognition, 2024). Guided-missile launches fell steadily while drone use soared, reaching an estimated total of four thousand deployed by the first quarter of 2025 (Atalan and Jensen, 2025). The identity of the high-tech precision striker gave way to the practicalities of magazine depth and industrial capacity.

Implications for Western Analysis

Western security discourse long treated accuracy as a twin proof of technical mastery and ethical restraint (Schmitt and Widmar, 2014; Wilson, 2020). Russia’s practice weakens both pillars. Norms endure through consistent observance and recognition; when a major power claims the vocabulary of precision while accepting wide error margins, the social meaning of accuracy erodes (Tannenwald, 2017).

The episode therefore offers a methodological caution. Counting missiles without attending to their symbolic weight risks analytical short-sightedness. The shift towards low-cost saturation munitions signals a recalibration of Russian strategic identity and alters the deterrence calculus of adversaries who must now defend against continuous drone attrition rather than episodic cruise-missile raids. Civilian resilience, alliance solidarity and arms-control expectations all pivot on how quickly that new reality is understood.

In Summary

Russia’s move from precision-guided missiles to mass bombardment is more than a supply-chain story. It marks the point where an identity built on technological finesse buckled under material constraint, transforming both the battlefield and the normative landscape around it. Analysts tracking future conflicts would do well to remember that weapons categories are not only hardware inventories but carriers of meaning, and that meaning can shift faster than production lines.

Bibliography

Army Recognition 2024. ‘Russia Repurposes S-300 Surface-to-Air Missiles for Ground Attacks Against Kharkiv’, 5 January.

Atalan, Y. and Jensen, B. 2025. Drone Saturation: Russia’s Shahed Campaign. CSIS Brief, 13 May.

Department of Defense 2022. ‘Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby Holds a Press Briefing’, 21 March.

Schmitt, M. and Widmar, E. 2014. ‘On Target: Precision and Balance in the Contemporary Law of Targeting’. Journal of National Security Law and Policy, 7(3).

Tannenwald, N. 2017. ‘How Strong Are the Nuclear Taboo and the Chemical Weapons Ban?’ The Washington Quarterly, 40(1), 79–98.

Williams, I. 2023. ‘Russia Isn’t Going to Run Out of Missiles’. CSIS Analysis, 28 June.

Wilson, N. 2020. ‘The Ambiguities of Precision Warfare’, Intimacies of Remote Warfare commentary, 12 June. 

UN Helmet on the ground

Reflection – The UN’s Legitimacy Gap: A Haiti Case Study

By

On May 18, 2025

In Strategy

Thomas Weiss identifies five “gaps” that chronically hamper global governance: knowledge, normative, policy, institutional and compliance (Weiss 2013).  In Haiti, those gaps seem to have coalesced into what many Haitians read as an enduring legitimacy deficit.  A more charitable interpretation does note instances of UN adaptation – better crime mapping after 2011, a dramatic scaling-up of the Haitian National Police (HNP), and a science-led cholera response – but, examined closely, such achievements tend to appear partial and fragile, leaving the larger breach largely intact.

Knowledge and compliance.  MINUSTAH’s 2004 start-up underestimated the dense, shifting alliances between gangs and political patrons.  When a contingent from Nepal inadvertently introduced cholera in 2010, infecting more than 800,000 people and claiming over 10,000 lives (Frerichs et al. 2012; Katz 2013), the Organisation spent six years contesting its own liability before an apology was issued (United Nations 2016).  Subsequent epidemiological work certainly curbed transmission, yet the delay itself suggested an accountability reflex still subordinate to reputational caution – an impression hard to reverse.

Normative conduct.  Sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeepers, including minors among the victims, seriously undercut the UN’s human-rights narrative.  The Associated Press counted more than 2,000 allegations between 2004 and 2016, with very few domestic prosecutions (Associated Press 2017).  Reforms adopted in 2017 – victim-centred assistance, mandatory pre-deployment training, a voluntary trust fund – mark welcome movement, and Haiti arguably catalysed those global norms.  Even so, the survivors’ experience of limited redress reinforces a perception that institutional learning operates at UN headquarters, not in the quartiers populaires where the harm occurred.

Policy and institutional adaptation.  Supporters of the UN strategy point to iterative mandates: from peace enforcement (MINUSTAH) to rule-of-law mentoring (MINUJUSTH) and, since 2019, a slim political office (BINUH), with a Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support force now in train (UN Security Council 2023).  Elections held in 2006, 2010 and 2016 proceeded on schedule with heavy UN logistical underwriting, and the HNP expanded from roughly 4,000 officers in 2004 to more than 15,000 by 2020 (Malone and Day 2020).  Yet the police have struggled to retain personnel and equipment since the draw-down, and gang territory has again expanded.  The pattern suggests that short, mandate-driven cycles may be ill-suited to a state so hollow that capacity must be nurtured for decades, not rotations.

Legitimacy in the balance.  Survey data gathered in Port-au-Prince in 2015 found only a minority favouring immediate UN withdrawal, indicating a degree of conditional acceptance; most respondents nonetheless judged the mission “only somewhat” effective (International Crisis Group 2016).  Such grudging tolerance implies utility rather than genuine confidence.  In other words, the Organisation remains necessary but is seldom trusted.

Taken together, Haiti illustrates how partial advances in knowledge production, normative reform, and institutional design, whilst real, have not yet outweighed the reputational cost of early missteps and uneven compliance.  Unless the UN sustains a far longer horizon of engagement – accepting that legitimacy is rebuilt in increments and measured locally – its blue helmet risks settling into an increasingly tarnished emblem: credible enough to be tolerated, rarely persuasive enough to inspire.

Bibliography

Associated Press. 2017. “UN Child Sex Ring Left Victims but No Arrests.” Associated Press investigative report, 12 April.

Frerichs, R. R., et al. 2012. “Nepalese Origin of Cholera Outbreak in Haiti.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109 (47): 19944–19949.

International Crisis Group. 2016. Haiti: Security and the Reinforcement of the Rule of Law. Latin America/Caribbean Report No. 62. Brussels: ICG.

Katz, Jonathan M. 2013. The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Malone, David M., and Adam Day. 2020. “Taking Measure of the UN’s Legacy at Seventy-Five.” Ethics & International Affairs 34 (3): 285–295.

United Nations. 2016. “Secretary-General’s Remarks to the General Assembly on a New Approach to Cholera in Haiti.” UN Doc. A/71/620, 1 December. New York: United Nations.

United Nations Security Council. 2023. Resolution 2699 (2023) on Haiti. UN Doc. S/RES/2699, 2 October.

Weiss, Thomas G. 2013. Global Governance: Why? What? Whither? Cambridge: Polity Press.

Symbolic representation of US memories

The Strategic Cost of Selective Memory: America’s Curated History and Its Global Fallout

By

On April 4, 2025

In Strategy

In international affairs, collective memory isn’t just about remembrance, it is strategy. Building on Maurice Halbwachs’ foundational insight that memory operates within ‘social frameworks’ rather than being purely individual, states don’t merely remember; they perform memory. They weaponise it, sanitise it – engaging in what scholars analysing the commemoration of conflict call the ‘politics of memory’ – or altogether reinvent it in service of national mythologies. Nowhere is this more visible than in the United States, where curated memory masquerades as identity and policy follows suit like a loyal retriever chasing a dream of exceptionalism.

American memory is less a reflection of truth and more a product of selective mythmaking, a process operating, as recent work suggests, between individual cognition and broader social systems. Slavery becomes a tragic prelude to civil rights triumphalism; Vietnam is rebranded as a “lesson” rather than a quagmire; Iraq fades into a haze of “intelligence failures” rather than strategic hubris – precisely the kind of state-managed remembrance of war that historians like Jay Winter have examined. The result is not forgetfulness, but an active process of narrative laundering – a continual reframing that turns moral ambiguity into digestible fables of resilience and heroism.

This curated memory has profound consequences on the global stage. For one, it erodes credibility. When the U.S. invokes democracy, freedom, or human rights in its foreign policy, other nations, particularly those in the Global South, hear the echoes of hypocrisy. How can a country that selectively remembers its own imperial past credibly critique the actions of others? The inability to reconcile with its own historical misdeeds, from colonial genocide to CIA-sponsored coups, prevents the kind of sustained engagement with inherited trauma that theorists like Marianne Hirsch describe through the concept of ‘postmemory’ – rendering its moral posture performative at best, disingenuous at worst.

Secondly, America’s self-mythologising fuels dangerous policy cycles. By continually framing itself as a liberator rather than an empire in denial, the U.S. is caught in a loop of interventionist déjà vu. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya – each was framed through a narrative lens of moral imperative, conveniently edited for domestic consumption. The strategic amnesia of past failures enables new ones, while domestic audiences, pacified by a curated history, fail to ask the right questions until it’s too late.

Finally, selective remembrance alienates allies and emboldens adversaries. Nations with long historical memories (Russia, China, Iran) perceive American forgetfulness as both weakness and opportunity. They understand that the U.S. forgets what it cannot afford to confront. In contrast, these states actively curate their own histories to justify assertive policies, turning memory into statecraft. The battlefield, then, is not just diplomatic or military – it’s mnemonic. A clash of memory regimes.

Collective memory, when manipulated, becomes a liability. It blinds policymakers to patterns. It masks structural failings. It builds castles of credibility on foundations of denial. And eventually, it collapses under the weight of its own revisionism.

If America seeks to reclaim its influence on the global stage, it must confront its past not as mythology, but as memory: flawed, complex, and deserving of honest reckoning. Until then, its strategic future will remain tethered to the convenient lies it tells itself and the inconvenient truths the rest of the world refuses to forget.

Bibliography

Ashplant, T. G., Graham Dawson, and Michael Roper, eds. Commemorating War: The Politics of Memory. London: Routledge, 2000.

Halbwachs, Maurice. Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire. Paris: Félix Alcan, 1925.

Hirsch, Marianne. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture After the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012.  

Orianne, Jean-François, and Francis Eustache. “Collective Memory: Between Individual Systems of Consciousness and Social Systems.” Frontiers in Psychology 14 (2023).  

Winter, Jay. Remembering War: The Great War Between Memory and History in the 20th Century. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.  

Insurgency vs. Terrorism: What’s the Difference?

By

On April 4, 2025

In Strategy

I’ve created a video on the difference between the definitions of insurgency and terrorism. While both involve violence and political motivations, I explore why understanding their key differences is essential. The video includes historical examples and the blurred lines between these two concepts, which should help in shedding light on the political implications behind the labels we use.

Please do feel free to reach out and discuss anything in the video, or leave a comment if you would prefer.

Strategic Chessboard

The Unfolding Strategic Environment: Reconciling Enduring Principles with Revolutionary Change

By

On March 29, 2025

In Strategy

The contemporary strategic environment presents a paradox. On one hand, the fundamental nature of war as a political instrument, driven by human factors and subject to friction and uncertainty, appears timeless. Carl von Clausewitz’s assertion that war serves political objectives remains a crucial anchor, forcing strategists to connect means with ends, even amidst technological fascination. Similarly, Sun Tzu’s principles regarding deception, intelligence, and achieving advantage with minimal direct confrontation resonate strongly in an era increasingly defined by non-traditional operations and persistent competition below the threshold of open warfare.

Yet, the character of conflict is undergoing a profound transformation. Technological disruption, particularly in the digital domain, is eroding traditional military advantages, intensifying “grey zone” activities, empowering non-state actors, and blurring the very definitions of war and peace. This necessitates a critical re-examination of established strategic paradigms and a forward-looking approach to national security. The challenge for policymakers and strategists lies in reconciling the enduring nature of war with its rapidly evolving character.

From Deterrence by Punishment to Deterrence by Resilience?

The Cold War’s strategic stability, largely built upon the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), faces fundamental challenges in the digital age. While nuclear deterrence created a precarious balance, its logic struggles to adapt to threats operating outside its established framework. Cyberspace and information warfare lack the clear attribution mechanisms and proportional response options that underpin traditional deterrence by punishment. As Thomas Rid notes, establishing credibility and effective retaliation in these domains is problematic. Jeffrey Knopf’s work on “Fourth Wave” deterrence highlights how emerging threats disrupt existing models.

Furthermore, the strategic landscape is no longer solely dominated by states. Powerful technology firms, transnational terrorist organisations, and ideologically driven groups operate with increasing autonomy and influence, complicating deterrence calculations built on state-centric assumptions. The conflict in Ukraine provides stark examples, where companies like SpaceX have deployed capabilities, such as Starlink, that significantly impact battlefield communications and information warfare dynamics, challenging the state’s traditional monopoly on such strategic assets. This diffusion of power necessitates a broader conception of deterrence, moving beyond punishment towards denial, resilience, deception, and proactive information operations. Security may increasingly depend on the ability to withstand, adapt, and operate effectively within a contested information environment, rather than solely on the threat of overwhelming retaliation.

The Digital Revolution and the Transformation of Conflict Logic

The digital revolution represents more than just the introduction of new tools; it signifies a potential “change of consciousness” in warfare, as Christopher Coker suggests. Conflict becomes less geographically bounded and more psychological, abstract, and continuous, eroding distinctions between wartime and peacetime. Cyber operations, AI-enabled decision-making, and sophisticated disinformation campaigns are not merely adjuncts to traditional military power; they are becoming central components of strategic competition. China’s “Three Warfares” doctrine integrating psychological operations, public opinion manipulation, and legal maneuvering, which exemplifies how state actors are weaponising the information domain to achieve strategic aims.

This shift challenges classical strategic concepts. How is escalation controlled when cyberattacks lack clear attribution? How is victory defined when conflict plays out continuously in the non-physical domain? The Ukraine conflict serves as a real-world laboratory, demonstrating the strategic significance of cyber defenses, AI-driven targeting, and narrative warfare alongside conventional operations. It highlights how eroding conventional advantages forces a rethink of the very currency of power. Non-state actors, like ISIS, have also adeptly exploited the digital realm for recruitment, propaganda, and operational coordination, demonstrating the asymmetric advantages offered by this environment.

Systemic Fragility, Strategic Agility, and Redefined Victory

The deep integration of technology across society creates unprecedented efficiencies but also introduces systemic fragility. Interconnectedness means that disruptions, whether from cyberattacks, pandemics, financial crises, or supply chain breakdowns, can cascade rapidly with significant security implications. Consequently, building national resilience – encompassing robust cybersecurity, hardened infrastructure, diversified supply chains, and societal preparedness – becomes a core strategic imperative.

Alongside resilience, strategic agility is paramount. The accelerating pace of technological and geopolitical change means that strategies and institutions must be capable of rapid adaptation. The failure of European powers to adapt their doctrines to the realities of industrialised warfare before World War I, as chronicled by Barbara Tuchman, serves as a potent warning against strategic rigidity. Fostering agility requires institutional cultures that embrace learning and experimentation, empower decentralised action, and anticipate change.

This evolving landscape also forces a re-evaluation of “victory”. As warfare expands beyond purely military considerations to encompass cyber, economic, and informational domains, success becomes more ambiguous. Robert Mandel’s distinction between “war-winning” (tactical success) and “peace-winning” (achieving sustainable political outcomes) is increasingly pertinent. Future conflicts, likely to be protracted and involve multiple actors with divergent goals, may necessitate strategies focused on achieving iterative, adaptable political objectives rather than decisive military triumphs.

Adapting Strategy for an Unfolding Future

While some argue that classical, state-centric models of war are obsolete, discarding the foundational insights of strategists like Clausewitz and Sun Tzu would be premature. As Lawrence Freedman emphasises, war remains shaped by human agency and political motives, regardless of technology. The core task is not replacement but adaptation: applying enduring principles to navigate the complexities of the contemporary environment.

Successfully navigating the future strategic environment requires a conceptual shift. Technological foresight, AI-driven analysis, and robust cyber capabilities are necessary but insufficient. The decisive factor may be institutional and cultural: the capacity for continuous learning, adaptation, and innovation. Strategy must become truly multidimensional, integrating all instruments of national power – diplomatic, informational, military, and economic – within a coherent framework that acknowledges both the timeless nature and the transforming character of conflict. The future belongs to those who can master this complex, dynamic interplay.

Bibliography

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  • Kaldor, Mary. New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012.
  • Kania, Elsa B. “The PLA’s Latest Strategic Thinking on the Three Warfares.” The Jamestown Foundation, August 22, 2016. https://jamestown.org/program/the-plas-latest-strategic-thinking-on-the-three-warfares/.
  • Knopf, Jeffrey W. The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics. Washington, D.C.: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 2002.
  • Layton, Peter. “Fighting artificial intelligence battles: Operational concepts for future ai-enabled wars.” Network 4, no. 20 (2021): 1-100.
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  • Rid, Thomas. Cyber War Will Not Take Place. London: Hurst, 2013.
  • Skove, Sam. “How Elon Musk’s Starlink Is Still Helping Ukraine’s Defenders.” Defense One, March 1, 2023. https://www.defenseone.com.
  • Sun Tzu. The Art of War. Newburyport: Dover Publications, Incorporated, 2002.
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  • Tuchman, Barbara W. The Guns of August. New York: Macmillan, 1962.
  • Van Creveld, Martin. Transformation of War. New York: Free Press, 1991.
  • Von Clausewitz, Carl. On War. Edited and translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret. Princeton: Princeton University Press,1 1984.
Chessboard with smoke floating over the pieces

How Grey Zone Warfare Exploits the West’s Risk Aversion

By

On March 16, 2025

In Strategy

Western democracies are caught in a strategic bind. Adversaries, skilled at operating in the murky “grey zone” between peace and open warfare, are exploiting a fundamental Western characteristic: risk aversion. Grey zone warfare blends cyberattacks, disinformation, economic coercion, and proxy warfare to achieve strategic goals without triggering a full-scale military response. The risk is not merely theoretical. One might argue that the resulting ambiguity produces a kind of strategic paralysis, one that leaves Western states unable or unwilling to respond decisively to threats that refuse the comfort of clear categorisation.

A 21st-Century Threat

Grey zone warfare encompasses more than just cyberattacks and disinformation. Think of cyberattacks that cripple infrastructure but stop short of causing mass casualties, disinformation campaigns that sow discord and erode trust in institutions, and the use of proxy forces to destabilise a region. Crucially, it also includes economic coercion. China’s Belt and Road Initiative, with its potential for creating debt traps and strategic dependencies, is a prime example. Russia’s use of energy supplies as a political weapon, particularly against European nations, is another. The key is plausible deniability and making it difficult for the target to definitively attribute actions. This in turn makes it more challenging for states to justify a strong response. The underlying ambition is to achieve strategic objectives, be it weakening an adversary, gaining leverage, or shaping policy outcomes, all while avoiding the threshold of open military conflict. We see this in China’s response to Lithuania’s engagement with Taiwan, where trade sanctions were used as a punitive measure. Similarly, the West’s reliance on Chinese rare earth minerals creates a vulnerability that can be exploited for political leverage.

Grey Zones as a Strategic Vulnerability

The West, particularly Europe and North America, has a deeply ingrained preference for diplomacy and de-escalation. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it stems from a genuine desire to avoid the horrors of large-scale war and maintain a stable global order. But this risk aversion, while understandable, has become a strategic vulnerability. Adversaries see this hesitation and tailor their actions accordingly. They operate just below the threshold of what would trigger a decisive military response, creating a constant dilemma for Western leaders: how to respond effectively without escalating the situation into a wider conflict?

Ukraine is a tragic textbook example of grey zone warfare in action. Russia’s strategy goes far beyond conventional military force. It includes crippling cyberattacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, a relentless barrage of disinformation aimed at undermining the Ukrainian government and sowing discord, and the backing of separatist movements to create internal instability. These actions are calculated to achieve Russia’s goals while staying below the threshold that would provoke a direct military intervention from NATO. The Western response, consisting primarily of sanctions and diplomatic pressure, reveals the core problem. While intended to punish Russia and deter further aggression, this relatively restrained approach has, perhaps, enabled Russia to continue its grey zone operations, demonstrating the difficulty of countering these tactics without risking a wider war. The continued, grinding conflict, and the incremental nature of Western support, highlight the limitations of a purely reactive, risk-averse strategy.

The Erosion of American Global Leadership and Europe’s Quest for Strategic Autonomy

One might observe that the erosion of American global leadership (accelerated, though not solely caused, by the Trump administration) has unsettled the transatlantic alliance in ways that are still playing out. Actions such as imposing tariffs on allies, questioning NATO’s relevance, and the perceived (and sometimes explicit) wavering of commitment to Article 5’s collective defence clause have created a climate of uncertainty. European nations are now grappling with a fundamental question: can they rely on the US security umbrella? This doubt isn’t just theoretical; it’s driving concrete policy changes.

This uncertainty has fuelled a push for European “strategic autonomy” and the ability to act independently in defence and foreign policy. Figures like French President Macron have long championed this idea, and it’s gaining traction across the continent. Even in the UK, traditionally a staunch US ally, Labour leader Keir Starmer has emphasised the need for increased defence spending and closer European security cooperation. Germany’s Zeitenwende, its historic shift towards rearmament, is a direct response to this new reality. These are not just rhetorical flourishes; they represent a fundamental rethinking of European security, driven by a perceived need to fill the void left by a less predictable and less engaged United States. The debate over a European army, or a more coordinated European defence force, is no longer fringe; it’s becoming mainstream.

Strategic Paralysis Under the Clausewitzian Lens

This brings us to the heart of the matter: strategic paralysis. The West, caught between a desire to avoid escalation and the need to respond effectively, often finds itself frozen. This is the sort of effect to which grey zone tactics aspire, though whether paralysis is a design or an emergent consequence remains open to debate. By fostering ambiguity, where traditional responses appear either disproportionate or politically fraught, adversaries create the very conditions in which Western decision-making risks becoming paralysed. The fear of “provoking” a larger conflict becomes a weapon in itself. As Clausewitz argued, war is an extension of politics. Grey zone conflict is simply an extension of war by subtler means, one designed to neutralise the West’s ability to make political decisions with clarity.

Looking at the situation, it could be suggested that Western states would do well to move beyond rhetorical condemnation or reactive sanctions. Addressing the breadth of grey zone threats requires not only the technical apparatus to respond, but also a reconsideration of what risks must be borne, and what forms of resilience truly matter. Societal awareness, for instance, is not a panacea, but a necessary condition for resisting disinformation and political interference.

If Western governments are to avoid strategic paralysis, their response cannot rely solely on traditional deterrence or diplomatic ritual. Perhaps the focus should shift toward nurturing resilience – not just through technological investment or alliance-building, but by cultivating an informed citizenry, capable of recognising manipulation in its many guises. The challenge is not merely technical, nor simply a matter of resolve either.

Concluding Reflections

Grey zone tactics have flourished amid Western risk aversion and a prevailing uncertainty over deterrence. It could be suggested that the greater risk, at times, lies in mistaking inertia for prudence. Whether Western policymakers can recalibrate their tolerance for ambiguity, and adapt to the subtler forms of coercion now in play, remains an open question – one on which the resilience of the international order may quietly depend. I would argue that it is not merely the West’s material strength, but the demonstration of resolve (and a measure of unpredictability) that will matter most. Whether Western states can move beyond a posture of predictable restraint, or whether caution will continue to invite opportunism, remains to be seen. In the end, the future of the international liberal order may depend less on declarations of intent than on the willingness to accept calculated risk. Whether the West can adapt to this new era of conflict remains the most pressing question.

Bibliography

American Military University. “Gray Zone Attacks by Russia Being Used to Undermine Ukraine.” AMU Edge, May 12, 2023. https://amuedge.com/gray-zone-attacks-by-russia-being-used-to-undermine-ukraine/.

Chivvis, Christopher S. Understanding Russian “Hybrid Warfare” and What Can Be Done About It. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2017. https://www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/CT468.html.

Gray, Colin S. Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare. London: Phoenix, 2005.

Military Strategy Magazine. “Deterring War Without Threatening War: Rehabilitating the West’s Risk-Averse Approach to Deterrence.” Military Strategy Magazine,1 April 2023. https://www.militarystrategymagazine.com/article/deterring-war-without-threatening-war-rehabilitating-the-wests-risk-averse-approach-to-deterrence/.

Onsolve. “Gray Zone Warfare: What Business Leaders Need to Know.” Onsolve Blog, March 2024. https://www.onsolve.com/blog/sra-gray-zone-warfare-business-leaders/.

Rid, Thomas. Cyber War Will Not Take Place. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2013.

The Wall Street Journal. “Trump Is Overturning the World Order That America Built.” WSJ, January 25, 2024. https://www.wsj.com/world/trump-is-overturning-the-world-order-that-america-built-10981637.

The New Yorker. “What’s Next for Ukraine?” The New Yorker, February 2024. https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/whats-next-for-ukraine.

Why Technology Alone Doesn’t Win Wars

By

On March 8, 2025

In Strategy

We often assume that the latest military technology will define the future of warfare. AI, cyber weapons, and autonomous drones are hailed as game-changers, just as tanks, aircraft, and nuclear weapons were in past eras. But history tells a different story, one where new technology is only as effective as the strategy, doctrine, and human adaptation behind it.

In this video, we explore David Edgerton’s critique of technological determinism, the idea that wars are shaped by cutting-edge innovation alone. From ancient weapons to modern cyber warfare, we show why old technologies persist, how armies adapt, and why war remains a contest of resilience, not just hardware.

The Real Lesson of Military Technology

The biggest mistake in war isn’t failing to develop new technology, it’s assuming that technology alone will guarantee victory. History proves that the best weapons don’t always win battles; those who adapt, integrate, and sustain their forces over time do.

What do you think? Are we overhyping AI and cyber warfare today, just as people once overhyped battleships or air power?

Europe's Leadership Vacuum in the Shadow of Russia and America

Europe’s Leadership Vacuum in the Shadow of Russia and America

By

On March 6, 2025

In Strategy

The concept of ‘strategic culture’ as critiqued in Hew Strachan’s “The Direction of War: Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective” emphasises continuity and a nation’s resistance to change, shaped historically and geographically. Strategic culture includes historical memory, institutional norms, core national values, and collective threat perceptions, all contributing to a nation’s strategic posture. This comprehensive framework is valuable when examining Europe’s contemporary security challenges, specifically the strategic vacuum highlighted by the ongoing war in Ukraine and America’s ongoing withdrawal from global leadership.

Europe’s Strategic Culture

European strategic culture, forged during the Cold War, assumed stability through American military and diplomatic leadership. Strachan argues convincingly that such cultural assumptions hinder strategic flexibility, creating vulnerabilities when geopolitical realities shift dramatically, as they have since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

NATO-centric thinking, predicated on the guarantee of American power projection, has revealed problematic inertia… European states, notably the UK and the EU members, have found themselves scrambling to define a coherent, autonomous response.

America’s Strategic Shift from Protector to Competitor

America’s strategic withdrawal from Europe, evidenced by Obama’s pivot to Asia, that accelerated by Trump V1.0’s transactional approach, Biden’s reticence and culminating with Trump 2.0’s recent dramatic geopolitical hand grenades. This reflects not merely a change in policy but a radical break from previous expectations. This withdrawal is a revolutionary, not evolutionary, shift in global strategy, shattering Europe’s assumption of guaranteed U.S. engagement.

Strategically, this creates immediate tensions:

  • The U.S. increasingly frames its engagement with Europe as transactional and conditional upon shared responsibilities, as demonstrated by U.S. ambivalence toward NATO under Trump and Biden’s conditional engagement in Ukraine.
  • Simultaneously, Russia’s aggression has starkly shown that the belief in a diminished threat from inter-state warfare, fashionable among policymakers since the Cold War’s end, is dangerously misplaced. Strachan’s scepticism about overly optimistic predictions of war’s obsolescence resonates strongly here, given recent events.

This combination reveals Europe’s strategic culture as critically unprepared for the harsh geopolitical realities of the 21st century.

Europe’s Strategic Awakening

Europe has not been entirely inactive. The EU’s Strategic Compass, adopted in 2022, and the UK’s Integrated Review Refresh in 2023 demonstrate genuine acknowledgment of new realities. These documents move beyond purely reactive policies and represent Europe’s incremental shift towards strategic autonomy:

  • Increased defence expenditure: Germany’s Zeitenwende is a prime example.
  • Increased EU defence coordination, exemplified by the European Peace Facility funding Ukraine’s defence.
  • Renewed commitment to territorial defence and enhanced military deployments in Eastern Europe.

Yet, despite these efforts, the doctrinal and strategic mindset change has been incomplete. European policies continue to implicitly rely on the assumption of sustained U.S. involvement, despite public and political statements affirming Europe’s need for self-sufficiency.

Russia and America as Mirrors

The actions of Russia and the retreat of America each independently expose the inadequacies of Europe’s current strategic posture:

Russia’s Actions: Highlighted Europe’s continuing strategic vulnerability, emphasising weaknesses in rapid military deployment, critical capability gaps (such as long-range precision munitions and air defence), and dependence on U.S. logistical, intelligence, and strategic capabilities.

America’s Pivot Away: Underscores that strategic autonomy isn’t merely desirable but imperative. Starting with Biden administration’s reluctance to escalate beyond certain lines in Ukraine and Washington’s growing Indo-Pacific focus expose a stark misalignment between European expectations and American strategy. The most recent signals from Trump are an unequivocal message to Europe: unless there is something in it for America, you are on your own.

The Limits of Integration and NATO

While deeper European integration and renewed commitment to NATO might appear sufficient, these solutions alone are inadequate. Integration without clear autonomous capabilities risks perpetual dependency, and NATO’s structure, inherently reliant on American leadership, cannot compensate for America’s strategic reorientation. As Strachan underscores, relying purely on continuity without adaptability is strategically naive.

From Reactive Culture to Proactive Realism

Europe’s security doctrine requires nuanced recalibration rather than wholesale abandonment. The gap is not merely military, it is doctrinal, conceptual, and philosophical. A robust European strategic doctrine should:

  1. Recognise NATO’s Limitations: Explicitly acknowledge NATO’s limitations without undermining its centrality to European defence.
  2. Embed Strategic Autonomy: Clearly outline Europe’s independent capabilities and strategic objectives, moving beyond rhetoric to practical operational frameworks. Europe must realistically assess scenarios in which it may need to act without guaranteed American backing.
  3. Rethink Strategic Culture: Move beyond traditional assumptions of continuity—what previously seemed unthinkable, such as large-scale inter-state conflict, must become integral to planning and preparedness again.

Engaging Broader Perspectives

Drawing briefly from constructivist insights, strategic culture is not immutable but socially constructed, implying that European nations have the agency to reshape it consciously. Additionally, realist thinkers like John Mearsheimer caution against complacency in alliance politics, reinforcing the need for independent European capabilities.

Rethinking Doctrine for Strategic Resilience

The UK’s Integrated Review and the EU’s Strategic Compass represent valuable first steps toward a more strategic and independent Europe. However, they still fall short of addressing the fundamental gap that Russia’s aggression and America’s strategic recalibration have exposed.

Addressing Europe’s leadership vacuum demands overcoming historical and cultural inertia. It requires strategic humility: recognising that the stability provided by Cold War-era assumptions no longer applies, that threats are tangible, and that peace through strength must be anchored not in external assurances, but in Europe’s credible, independently sustainable power.

Europe must confront this reality head-on, accepting change not merely rhetorically but operationally, doctrinally, and culturally. Only then will Europe secure genuine strategic autonomy, prepared not just for today’s threats but also for tomorrow’s inevitable uncertainties.

Bibliography

  • Strachan, Hew. The Direction of War: Contemporary Strategy in Historical Perspective. Cambridge University Press, 2013.
  • European Union. “Strategic Compass for Security and Defence.” 2022.
  • United Kingdom Government. “Integrated Review Refresh.” 2023.
  • Mearsheimer, John J. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. W. W. Norton & Company, 2001.
  • Smith, Rupert. The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World. Penguin, 2005.

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