He looked around the table. This was clearly not what the majority of ambassadors wanted to hear.

He continued. “I have, of course, discussed this with SACEUR in Washington and his view is unequivocal. This is the gravest situation that has faced NATO in recent years. SACEUR and I believe that we are closer to war than at any stage in its history. Some might say, ‘What about the Cuban missile crisis?’ My response would be that, even at the height of that crisis, Soviet Politburo decisions were colored by memories of their twenty-six million war-dead from the Great Patriotic War. There is a new generation in the Kremlin who have not learned these lessons the hard way. We are now up against an adversary which integrates nuclear weapons into every aspect of its war-fighting doctrine and is prepared to use them. Any miscalculation could lead to an outbreak of fighting between NATO forces and the Russians. And because Russia will be able to concentrate stronger conventional forces than NATO, that increases the risk that once Russia has defeated us in the Baltic states, the President will resort to what he calls ‘nuclear de-escalation.’”

McKinlay stopped for a moment, conscious of the confusion on the faces of some ambassadors. “Ladies and gentlemen, you’re right. There’s a nasty paradox here. What the Russians call nuclear de-escalation, we call nuclear blackmail. It’s no more than the President saying to us, ‘Try and retake the Baltic states and I’ll nuke you.’ We stop and he calls it de-escalation.

“So, to avoid getting to this, we must deter any aggression in the first place and that means demonstrating strength and resolve in the Baltic states. You will recall that we already have the Standing NATO Mine Countermeasures Group operating in the Baltic and it will be in Riga shortly for a long-planned port visit; that is fortunate timing. However, we need to demonstrate NATO’s absolute commitment to collective defense by the immediate deployment of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force to the three Baltic states. That deployment should be followed by the sea, land and air components of the NATO Response Force. Meanwhile, ACTORD—for the uninitiated among you and in NATO acronyms, ‘Activation Order’—should be declared by SACEUR in order to initiate the deployment of NATO headquarters and forces. You should be aware that this will also release the necessary NATO common funding to pay for the deployment.