“If Europe starts a war, we are ready right now”. – President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, December 2025
Phase 3?
December 5th. Let me translate President Putin’s Russianness. “As soon as I can declare victory in Ukraine, I will begin my next phase of bite-sized imperialism against you weak and decadent Europeans”. Putin went on to suggest that ‘Europe’ whomsoever that might be, has chosen the side of war. Talk about projection. The only person who has chosen the side of war, murder, rape and systemic theft of people and property is Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. The idea of ‘Europe’ starting a war with Russia is about as mad as the much-lamented Blackadder’s suggestion that “Field Marshal Haig is about to make another gargantuan effort to move his drinks cabinet six inches closer to Berlin”.
And yet for all the madness of Putin’s rant we Europeans MUST take him at his word. Since 2014 he (and it is him) has been engaged in bite-sized imperialism. First, he took Crimea with his infamous Little Green Men, who European leaders in their acquiescing appeasement bent over backwards to pretend were not Russian. That is until they were. Second, in 2022 Putin tried to wipe Ukraine off the European map but when that failed, he settled for seizing much of Donetsk and Lugansk whilst trying to cut Ukrainians off from the Black Sea. Next?
Nazis and Fascists?
You see there will be a next. Forget all the current Trumpian efforts to secure ‘peace’ in Ukraine. There is nothing Trump can give to Putin that would be anything more than a temporary pause in Putin’s grand strategy of destruction, devastation and subjugation. Putin is already at war with Europeans precisely because he has chosen war as politics by violent means and because he sees himself as the embodiment of the Great Patriotic War. He and his clique can only stay in power given the devastation they have wrought on Russia and Russians by pointing to the West and shouting “Nazis and Fascists”. If he stops then the whole ghastly cost of this grotesquely anachronistic piece of Russian Realpolitik will become apparent and Russians will take their revenge.
The reason the war has gone so long is manifold. First, the unbelievable heroism of the Ukrainian people. Second, because of the innate and mutilating incompetence of the Russian way of war. There is a third reason – Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk are not important enough to Europeans or anyone else outside Ukraine to go to war with Russia over.
That is the tragic paradox of THIS moment. If Putin accepted Trump’s 28 Point Takeaway, he would get exactly what he wants – the chance to declare victory in phase 2 of his Grand Plan. It would also afford him the chance to rebuild all elements of his subversive, coercive and destructive instruments of power before launching phase 3 of bite sized imperialism – the seizing of ‘strategic depth’ much of Northern Europe from North Cape to Belarus and the returning of Bulgaria and Romania into little more than corrupt client states.
Bite-sized imperialism!
Bite-sized imperialism is the seizing of other people’s territory and then stopping. The aim is to force the enemy (us) to choose war to rescue what has been taken. Russia then murders, rapes and seizes the people it has conquered whilst threatening those it has not with annihilation and devastation.
What passes for Western strategy thus far has been to talk loudly, give generously but never really apply a big stick. For Europe that means waiting until it is polite to agree Crimea, Donetsk and Lugansk are Russian before hopefully rebuilding rump Ukraine and vainly hoping Putin will be satisfied. He won’t. He can’t. The real struggle is yet to begin and that will be over NATO territory. It will take a decade or so but at some point, if unchecked Russia will invade Northern Norway, the Finmark, Eastern Finland and the Baltic States…and then stop. Bite-sized imperialism.
Deterrence by denial now!
Therefore, it is vital that NATO Europeans finally stand up a military force that can deter by denial not rescue (it is called denial by punishment but that is nonsense). If the Alliance is forced to rescue bits of NATO seized by Russia, then the Alliance has failed. First, it is highly unlikely NATO would. Second, and given the Russian way of war, there would not be much left to rescue.
This week, Wes Streeting, the British Secretary of State for Health, suggested that Putin was engaged in the “same old sabre rattling”. Stick to your health-caring, Mr Streeting. Strategic genius you ain’t. The history of Russian sabre rattling, particularly Putin’s sabre-rattling, is that sooner or later it turns into sabre-using. Streeting is the perfect example of why it does – another European leader in denial because he would rather spend money on “our National Health Service” than ‘their (and our) defence’. Wouldn’t we all, Mr Streeting. Streeting is the epitome of modern appeasement.