THE RUSSIAN WIDOW stood at the podium―bold, beautiful and brave in bereavement. Her husband, 47-year-old Alexei Navalny, a relentless opponent of President Vladimir Putin, lay dead in a freezing Siberian gulag. Instead of comforting her traumatised children in Moscow, she chose to speak to western leaders and generals attending the Munich Security Conference, the “Davos of Defence”. They gave a standing ovation before and after her impactful speech. Trembling with grief and fury, she said “I want Putin, his entourage, to know they will pay for what they have done. That day will come very soon.”
The curse of widows and orphans come true, so it is said. But geopolitics is such that Yulia’s wishes, however fervent, are unlikely to materialise anytime soon. Western leaders quickly blamed Putin for Navalny’s untimely death―many of Putin’s other opponents met untimely deaths, poisoned or “falling off” buildings. But piling more punishment on Putin is arguably pointless. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the west had imposed sanctions―spanning 18,000 measures―frozen assets worth $300 billion and amputated Russia from the global financial system. The west’s tool box of sanctions is emptying, but Russia’s war machine grinds on.
Oil at $80 a barrel fuels Putin’s war in Ukraine. This protracted war favours Russia, which has commandeered its heavy industry into domestic weapons production. Russia enjoys economic independence and manpower, the shortage of which is Ukraine’s big challenge. With over six million Ukrainians fleeing the country and nearly four million internal refugees, 25 per cent of Ukraine’s population is displaced. Russian occupation hampers Ukraine’s grain and steel exports. It also delays, if not aborts, Ukraine’s accession into NATO and the European Union.
Ukrainian stockpiles of artillery, aircraft and missiles have dwindled because of the west’s war fatigue and the Republicans thwarting the $60 billion aid to Ukraine in the US Congress. “The world has got rougher,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, a staunch Ukraine supporter. Though wars rage in Gaza and Yemen, she meant Russia and the scary spectre of the United States as an undependable ally, more so if Donald Trump is re-elected president.
Trump’s bombast from a recent election rally shook Europe. He said he would “encourage Russia to do whatever the hell they want” with NATO members who fail to spend 2 per cent of their GDP on defence. He has neither retracted nor apologised for shredding a foundational principle of NATO: the US must protect a NATO ally from attack.
In his first term as president, Trump had threatened to withdraw from NATO. He has now brazenly invited an attack on an ally. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned that Trump’s comments undermined “all our security, including that of the US”. President Joe Biden called it dumb, shameful, dangerous and un-American. Critics, however, would argue that it is rather American to let down partners.
British journalist Alec Russell warned that Europeans would have to start planning for war without America. Von der Leyen announced Europe’s plans to do just that: “subsidise our own defence sector”. The world now confronts the birth of a second military-industrial complex (MIC), as if the one in the US has not done enough global damage. To build the MIC, the same emergency taxpayer model deployed to manufacture Covid vaccines will be used. Some European countries may oppose the plan, but defence manufacturers like France and Germany will push for it. So will east European NATO members who fear neighbouring Russia.
Last year, military experts mocked Russia’s decrepit war weaponry. Now there is a drumbeat of competitive scaremongering about an imminent “Russian attack” on a NATO country. It mimics the American MIC’s pressure tactics to invest more in defence. Said Andrew Cockburn, who authored a book on the American war machine, “It is no coincidence that we are now suddenly hearing about what terrible threats Russia and the Chinese hypersonic missiles are. They whip up fake threats.”
Citizens dislike diversion of government spending on health care, education and pensions into defence. After the Cold War ended, global defence expenditure fell. The funds earmarked for defence were spent on welfare, laying the foundation for Europe’s superb quality of life. But as taxpayers’ money is needed for developing the MIC, people need to feel the fear.
Real or perceived, threats enable governments to spend money on defence, as in Japan and Germany. Faced with a rising China threat, the “pacifist” Japanese government announced a five-year plan to increase defence expenditures by 60 per cent. Germany pledged an extra 5 per cent of its GDP to modernise its forces. Currently, Germany is the world’s worst-performing big economy and weak growth has pushed Germany, Japan and the UK into “technical recession”. Still, Germany, Britain and France are now in the forefront of weaponising Ukraine’s military.
Trump’s anti-NATO bluster is serious, but not catastrophic. Of 31 NATO countries, 18 will meet the 2 per cent defence expenditure target this year. Trump may be reelected, but the US has already signed agreements with Arctic-Nordic-Baltic countries, securing access to 35 military bases close to Russia’s border.
Northern Europe is the springboard for any confrontation between NATO and Russia. With its nuclear arsenal, the US remains Europe’s ultimate security guarantor. But the recent arrangements anticipate a future where north European countries assume greater responsibility for their own defence, enabling the US to shift its focus on containing China’s rise.
Announcing her decision to seek a second term from Munich, Von der Leyen said she would consolidate and fortify the EU’s defence industry. Business is big. Navalny’s doomed life ended, so did the applause for his grieving widow. Delegates returned to 21st century realpolitik: war is back! Half a century of peace that brought immense prosperity flickers like a blip in history.