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Back War with Russia Save as PDF
Chapters (60)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Foreword
  4. Preface
  5. Prologue
  6. PART ONE
  7. Kharkiv, Ukraine
  8. The President’s weekly defense and foreign policy meeting, The Kremlin, Moscow
  9. Comprehensive Crisis Operations Management Center (CCOMC), Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), Belgium
  10. Briefing Room, Boryspill Air Force Base, Ukraine
  11. The Kremlin, Moscow
  12. Washington, D.C.
  13. Residence of DSACEUR La Belle Alliance, Erbisoeul, Belgium
  14. North Atlantic Council Conference Room, NATO Headquarters, Brussels
  15. Banks of River Daugava, Riga, Latvia
  16. Ādaži Training Camp, Latvia
  17. Riga, Latvia
  18. National Defense Control Center, Moscow
  19. Ādaži Training Camp, Latvia
  20. NATO Headquarters, Brussels
  21. National Armed Forces Joint HQ, Riga, Latvia
  22. Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), Mons, Belgium
  23. Central European Time 1600 hours, Eastern Standard Time, The White House, Washington, D.C.
  24. Lielvārde Air Base, Latvia
  25. Lielvārde Air Base, Latvia
  26. Camp David, Catoctin Mountains, Maryland
  27. British Embassy, 5, J.Alunana Street, Riga, Latvia
  28. The Russell Arms, Butler’s Cross, Buckinghamshire
  29. HMS Queen Elizabeth Middle Slip Jetty, HM Naval Base, Portsmouth
  30. National Defense Control Center, Moscow
  31. Comprehensive Crisis Operations Management Center (CCOMC) SHAPE headquarters, Mons, Belgium
  32. Somewhere in the forest, Gauja National Park, Latvia
  33. 10 Downing Street, Whitehall, London
  34. HMS Queen Elizabeth in the Baltic Sea
  35. Control Room, Kilo Class submarine Krasnokamensk, Baltic Sea
  36. PART TWO
  37. Prime Minister’s Office, House of Commons, London
  38. The Presidential Dacha Barvikha, Odintsovsky District of Moscow Oblast
  39. The White House, Washington, D.C.
  40. NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium
  41. Gauja National Park Forest, Latvia
  42. PART THREE
  43. “The Tank,” Pentagon, Washington, D.C.
  44. North Atlantic Council NATO Headquarters, Brussels
  45. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Cheltenham, England
  46. GCHQ, Cheltenham, England
  47. Forest south of Pravdinsk, Kaliningrad, Russia
  48. Headquarters, Kaliningrad Special Region, Kaliningrad
  49. The President’s Office, The Kremlin, Moscow
  50. Forest south of Pravdinsk, Kaliningrad, Russia
  51. Comprehensive Crisis Operations Management Center (CCOMC) SHAPE headquarters, Mons, Belgium
  52. Command Bunker, Iskander Missile Battery Pravdinsk, Kaliningrad
  53. Over Wroclaw, Poland
  54. Forest north of Pravdinsk Iskander Battery, Kaliningrad
  55. 25,000 feet above Kaliningrad
  56. Close to the Pravdinsk Iskander Battery, Kaliningrad
  57. Epilogue
  58. Glossary
  59. Acknowledgments
  60. Notes

At that time I was a four-star British General and the Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe (DSACEUR), deputy to NATO’s American Strategic Commander (SACEUR), himself double-hatted as commander of America’s European Command. We followed in illustrious footseps: General Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first SACEUR with Field Marshal Montgomery the first DSACEUR. Based at NATO’s strategic headquarters (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe or SHAPE in the NATO vernacular) situated just north of Mons in Belgium, I was an experienced NATO man having previously commanded NATO’s Allied Rapid Reaction Corps.

I had been in post as DSACEUR for three years and I confess that, along with my senior military colleagues, I accepted the received wisdom that, despite the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008, NATO should aim to foster a strategic partnership with Russia. I visited Moscow on several occasions to build relationships with the senior Russian military leadership and happily welcomed General Valeri Gerasimov, now Chief of the Russian General Staff and Commander of Russian Armed Forces, into my home.

However, the invasion of Crimea, Russia’s support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, its invasion of that country, and Putin’s self-proclaimed intention in March 2014 of reuniting ethnic Russian speakers under the banner of Mother Russia, has changed my view of Russia’s intentions fundamentally. Russia is now our strategic adversary and has set itself on a collision course with the West. It has built up, and is enhancing, its military capability. It has thrown away the rulebook on which the post–Cold War security settlement of Europe was based. The Russian president has started a dynamic that can only be halted if the West wakes up to the real possibility of war and takes urgent action.

This book is that wake-up call—before it is too late.

Back in March 2014, there was a sense of incredulity among us western military leaders when it became increasingly clear that the “annexation” of Crimea was no less than a Russian invasion. Put bluntly and in context, this was the first attempt to change the boundaries of Europe by force since Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.