Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 17 February 2025. © Richard Kemp

After warning European Nato members to stop freeloading on the US, President Trump has contemptuously sidelined Europe from immediate negotiations with Russia over ending the Ukraine war. Whether anything will come of this we don’t yet know. Putin told Trump he is interested in peace but that means nothing and Russia has been stepping up the tempo of its operations on Ukrainian territory in recent weeks.

Although the US special envoy for Ukraine, General Keith Kellogg, has said Russia will have to make territorial concessions and give undertakings against future aggression in Europe, any settlement is likely to end with a frozen conflict roughly along current front lines, with Russia in possession of around 20 per cent of Ukrainian sovereign territory.

Sir Keir Starmer and President Emmanuel Macron seem to be contemplating taking the lead on a non-Nato peacekeeping force to police the approximately 800 mile ceasefire lines if the fighting ends. The Nato Secretary General as well as other military experts have estimated a force of up to 100,000 would be needed. Germany seems unlikely to send troops to Ukraine, fearful of an all-out war with Russia, and Poland has ruled out participation.

So the job would fall mostly to Britain and France. France’s foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot has said ‘Who will bring the guarantees? It will be the Europeans’. Meanwhile at around the same time, Macron dismissed the idea of a ‘huge force’ to patrol the buffer zone as ‘far-fetched’.

Starmer says he will consider putting British boots on the ground. But how can an army of now fewer than 75,000 regular troops sustain a sizeable force on rotation for a protracted period?

Let’s not forget as well: without an immediate increase in the defence budget, there will have to be further cuts to UK forces this year. Since taking office Starmer has repeatedly equivocated on any increase in both size and time-scale and his Chancellor has pretty much ruled it out. Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 13 February 2025. © Richard Kemp

The chances of Ukraine pushing Russia back out of its territory are now zero. If that were ever possible it would have required far greater support from the US and Europe much earlier in the war.

Instead a self-deterring West, led by the vacillating former President Joe Biden, failed to provide Kyiv with sufficient arms or the freedom to use them to greatest effect. That was only too obvious when Ukraine launched its failed counteroffensive in 2023. The American defence industry could have generated a lot more munitions, but a sleep-walking Europe, which had lulled itself into believing it had seen the end of war, pretty much exhausted its supplies and lacked the political will to rapidly expand its industrial capacity. Terrified of the economic harm that a proper sanctions regime could also have inflicted on itself, the West’s efforts to damage Russia financially were only ever half-hearted at best.

Meanwhile Ukraine, fighting bravely and hard, while dramatically increasing its own armaments industry, has severely depleted its own manpower resources with heavy casualties leading to a critical shortage of troops. Only now, under US pressure, is Zelensky planning to enlist 18-24 year olds, and even that will be on a voluntary basis.

In this dire situation about the only way to avoid a never-ending war would be to get American and European boots on the ground to fight the Russians. Self-evidently that is not going to happen. Therefore President Zelensky has been contemplating the prospect of temporarily ceding occupied Ukrainian land to Russia as the price he must pay to end the current fighting in which Putin’s forces are slowly but steadily gaining ground. Polling shows around 50 per cent of Ukrainians are currently willing to go along with that.

Enter President Trump, who also wants to broker a peace deal with Moscow. Since taking office he has threatened Putin with greater sanctions to encourage the Russian dictator to come to the table. Given the increasingly difficult state of the Russian economy, Putin has already signalled a willingness to negotiate, though he will undoubtedly play hardball. Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 4 February 2025. © Richard Kemp

As international car makers like Mercedes, Nissan and Volkswagen pulled out of Russia, President Putin told top businessmen and officials to drive a Lada instead. It looks like he has now given the same orders to his armed forces fighting in Ukraine. According to American journalist David Axe: ‘the Russian military is normalising assaults in civilian cars’. There are many videos on the internet showing Ladas attacking Ukrainian positions, some with military markings and anti-drone grills fitted.

I remember in the Balkan wars how the opposing military factions pressed civilian vehicles into combat and of course Toyota pickups have long been the preferred battle wagons for jihadists across the Middle East and Africa. But why Russia, with the second most powerful armed forces in the world? Oryx, the Dutch open-source analysis website, estimates Putin’s forces have lost more than 15,000 armoured vehicles and heavy combat equipment since the invasion began.

Axe says that, while Russian industry was unable to come anywhere near replacing an annual loss rate of 6,000 combat vehicles, until recent months it was able to make up the shortfall by fielding aged equipment from Cold War long-term storage parks. The state of those vehicles can only be imagined. I recall seeing rusting tanks and infantry fighting vehicles at Russian bases in East Germany at the height of the Cold War – and they were supposed to be ready to roll across the inner German border at a few hours’ notice. In any case, stocks of what remain of them now appear to be running low, hence the apparently common use of Lada assaults.

Imagine how it must feel for a young Russian soldier driving into the teeth of Ukrainian artillery, anti-tank missiles, drone swarms and land-mines jammed inside a family car. Not to mention rifles and machine guns that would have no problem tearing through the Lada’s paper-thin steel shell. I took part in the invasion of Iraq in 1991 in a Challenger tank. Despite being encased in state-of-the-art Chobham armour, we felt far from invulnerable, although we had air supremacy and our Challengers seriously outgunned the Iraqis’ obsolete Russian tanks. Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 27 January 2025. © Richard Kemp

Sir Keir Starmer’s promise to increase defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP without specifying any timeframe was clearly an attempt to neutralise Rishi Sunak’s pledge of an increase by 2030. It was naked electoral politics rather than any genuine desire to ramp-up our defences. Even if there is any increase at all, the prospects of matching the Conservatives’ undertaking are extremely low. That would require building towards an additional annual spend of £87 billion during the run-up to the 2029 election. With the current prospects for economic growth, the cash would have to be raised by higher taxation, increased borrowing or by transfer from other budgets such as the NHS, welfare, climate change or overseas aid.

That is not in Labour’s creed. The party simply does not care about defending the realm. The nuclear issue is telling. Starmer’s apparent support for Britain’s deterrent is undermined by divisions in the cabinet. One quarter of his cabinet ministers voted to scrap Trident on ideological grounds in 2016. They include his deputy Angela Rayner and Foreign Secretary David Lammy, either of whom might have to make a nuclear call if he becomes incapacitated.

Look also at Labour’s consistent opposition even to the feeble Tory efforts to stop illegal immigration. Then on taking office, Starmer immediately cancelled Sunak’s deal with Rwanda. That was far from adequate, but at least intended to deter, an effect proven vital for halting illegal immigration by Australia and also now under serious consideration by other European countries. Starmer’s solution – ‘smash the gangs’ – is a punchy slogan but slogans don’t secure borders.

Then there is Labour’s eye-watering plan to pay huge sums to Mauritius to take over the Chagos Islands, home to the important US-UK airbase and harbour at Diego Garcia. With Trump about to walk over the threshold of the White House, Starmer managed to combine political ineptitude with strategic illiteracy. It is hard to think of any unforced geopolitical move made in recent years by any UK government to equal that blunder, undermining Western security while handing the advantage to a rampant China. As well as Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 15 January 2025. © Richard Kemp

Joe Biden’s hurried push for a ceasefire in Gaza before he leaves the White House is a fitting epitaph for his four years of foreign policy disasters. Under his vision, the proposed ceasefire would likely play into Hamas’s hands and disadvantage Israel. But does he really care if it does?

The President’s main interest seems to be his own legacy, and he must think a ceasefire in Gaza would be a success he could brag about. It’s like his disastrous retreat from Afghanistan timed precisely to show how he ended the war on the 20th anniversary of its beginning.

It didn’t quite work out that way, instead consigning the country back into the hands of a brutally repressive Taliban regime, which is again fast becoming a base for international jihadists to threaten the world. Biden’s desertion of America’s long-term ally also flashed a green light to Vladimir Putin, telling him he could invade Ukraine knowing that the administration would not stand up to him. So it has proven, and we now seem to be on the verge of a ceasefire on Russian terms thanks to Biden’s refusal to give Kyiv the tools it needed to repel the invaders.

Biden will of course take whatever credit he can from a ceasefire in Gaza. But if Hamas does go along with the latest deal, it will be down more to the spectre of Donald Trump who has promised ‘all hell will break loose’ if the hostages are not released before he enters the White House. Indeed Trump’s looming presence has been made flesh by the involvement in negotiations of his designated Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.

What is more, a temporary ceasefire in Gaza, if it does occur, may not turn out to be exactly what it seems to the man in the Oval Office for the next few days. In fact, it is likely to be one part of a wider strategy for the Middle East already agreed between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Trump. That plan will have several far-reaching elements but a primary objective is undoubtedly to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme, which represents an existential danger to Israel and threatens the Middle East and the world. It looks unlikely Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 2 January 2025. © Richard Kemp

As 2025 begins, pessimism about Ukraine’s fate hangs in the air and the stench of appeasement on the wind. I find myself confused as to why, for it should be clear that the conflict has so far been an ignominious failure for President Vladimir Putin.

Unable to achieve the objective of subjugating his far smaller neighbour, he has instead inflicted enormous suffering on his own country and devastated its economy while undermining Russian prestige and strategic influence around the world.

Lest we forget that what was planned as a three-day ‘special operation’ has turned into a three-year nightmare. Russia has made only limited territorial gains and has been incapable of capturing even the whole of Donetsk Oblast in the east. Last year’s grand offensive to establish a buffer zone at Kharkiv to protect Russian territory only seized a few kilometres along the border. Missile attacks aimed at plunging Ukraine into near-constant cold and darkness have clearly failed.

Meanwhile Putin has lost control of parts of Kursk Oblast to Ukrainian forces in the first invasion of Russian territory since the Second World War, failing to retake it despite enlisting North Korea as an ally in the conflict. Putin’s much-vaunted air defences have proven unable to halt Ukrainian strikes on airfields, oil depots and ammunition warehouses inside Russia. Even the capital, Moscow, has been penetrated by locally-produced Ukrainian explosive drones. The Russian navy has been humiliated, losing control of the Black Sea and unable to strangle Ukraine’s grain exports. Upwards of 15 of its ships have been sunk by sea drones with many more damaged and the remainder of the fleet forced to retreat from the Crimean peninsula and the shores of Ukraine.

The human toll from Putin’s sclerotic campaign has also been immense. Ukraine estimates that Russian forces sustained 427,000 casualties in 2024 alone. The Institute for the Study of War, a US think tank, assesses that during the same period Russia seized 4,168 square kilometres; that means each square kilometre captured has cost more than 100 casualties.

The financial outlay on those casualties, with 6 per cent of the entire federal budget promised to support the wounded and compensate Continue reading →

Article published in The Daily Telegraph, 19 December 2024. © Richard Kemp

Is Assad’s fall from power going to lead to the further dismemberment of Syria? What are the wider consequences for the Middle East?

First, it’s important to recognise the true dynamics behind this geopolitical shockwave.

Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei blames the US and Israel for overthrowing Bashar al-Assad. Indeed President Joe Biden has proudly taken credit for what happened in Syria. That’s great for his legacy perhaps, but far from the truth. In reality, Biden tried to obstruct Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decisive campaign against Iran and its proxies – especially Hezbollah – which was directly responsible for the fall of Assad.

Instead of the US, Israel’s ‘partner’ in ousting Assad was Turkey. Whether there was any coordination between the two we can only speculate, but it was president Racip Erdogan that unleashed Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which Turkey sponsors with Qatar, to spearhead the drive on Damascus.

The future of Syria is going to be influenced by Israel and Turkey beyond all other forces. The two countries are far from friends, but both have national security interests in Syria. Until Netanyahu ordered the shattering of Syria’s military hardware last week, the country had for decades represented the greatest direct conventional threat to Israel. Courtesy of Assad, Syria was also the principal supply route from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Unlike Netanyahu, Erdogan has broader designs on the Middle East, including, at least in his mind’s eye, the resurrection of the Ottoman caliphate. He has close ties with Qatar and Sunni jihadist groups in the region, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which themselves may now gravitate further towards Ankara as Iran descends: an increasing threat for Israel and many of the Arab countries as his regional power strengthens.

More immediately the 3.5 million Syrian refugees in Turkey are politically problematic for Erdogan and he wants them sent home.

But his highest priority is ending the idea of a Kurdish autonomous region in northern Syria, which he sees as a direct threat to Turkey Continue reading →