The Skripal Poisoning, a case study
What the UK did, what it could have done instead
This post follows on from my earlier post Scottish Defence Policy II: nation and army comparisons, in which I compared the British army with those of 3 other nations and concluded it would be both larger and more capable if it was geared towards homeland defence rather than expeditionary warfare.
Here I'm going to take a look at the Skripal poisoning, what happened, how the UK government responded to it, and how they could have responded to it if their armed forces and foreign policy were optimal. I originallly wrote this late last year, but thought now would be a good time to post it, as the rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine mean that a lot of the lessons would apply there too.
The Skripal poisoning
Colonel Sergei Skripal was an agent of Russian military intelligence (the GRU) in the 1990s. While working at the Russian embassy in Madrid, he was recruited by British intelligence as a double agent.
In 2004 the Russians caught Skripal and imprisoned him. In 2010, as part of a spy exchange, he was freed, pardoned, and went to live in Britain.
On 4 March 2018 GRU operatives poisoned him and his daughter Yulia (a Russian citizen who lives in Russian and was visiting him), using a Novichok nerve agent. They were rushed to hospital and eventually recovered.
The UK government's response
It was immediately apparent that the attempted assassination was the work of Russia, because:
No-one else wanted Sergei Skripal dead.
Novichok agents are Russian designed and only a few countries other than Russia have them.
Using exotic poisons for assassination (such as polonium) is very much a Russian modus operandi. It's Putin's way of saying "we did this, and everyone else must fall in line, or we'll do it to you too".
Furthermore it's very likely that the go-ahead for this operation came from Putin himself because it was such a high profile act of state terrorism.
Britain and 28 other allied countries talked it over, and then expelled over 150 Russian diplomats between them. The countries shown in green on the map expelled Russian diplomats:
Lots of strongly-worded statements condemning Russia were made, which were water off a duck's back and did not bother Putin one little bit.
More seriously, Russian individuals associated with the attack were personally sanctioned, being banned from visiting the EU and their assets there seized. That's a start but it's not much given that the average GRU operative doesn't have much assets in the EU to start with, and there are plenty of other nice places to go on holiday to.
So all in all the level of response did not inflict enough pain on Putin or on those close to him. Thus the response did not do much to deter Putin from similar acts in future.
Optimal UK defence and foreign policy configuration
I'll start by pointing out that foreign policy strategy and military strategy are like two people with a leg tied together in a three-legged race: they have to be going in the same direction, or they will get nowhere. So when considering military responses we also have to think of foreign policy responses; they should ideally form a cohesive whole that acts to reach the same goal.
In the case of the Skripal poisoning the goal should be to hurt the Putin regime enough that they don't commit further terrorist attacks against Britain, and so that other actors also believe the costs of such acts outweigh the advantages.
So what should the UK response have been? Most of what I'll detail isn't something that could be done immediately following the Skripal attack, but would have already had to be long term defense and foreign policy configuration (by which I mean things like what military forces the UK has, what allies and partnerships the UK has, and what plans the UK has to use these assets in a crisis).
Firstly the UK shouldn't have left the EU. It hadn't in 2018 but was in the process of doing so. In an earlier article I explained why size matters in geopolitics:
Advantages of being part of a larger unit
A larger unit has a larger internal market, which helps its economy: it can have larger production runs of goods and can manufacture a wider range of goods itself.
A larger unit typically has more resources: money, people, raw materials.
A larger unit has more presence on the world stage, since other countries have to care about its opinion. For example, if the USA boycotted Chinese goods, China would care very much. But if Andorra boycotted Chinese goods, China would hardly notice.
A larger unit is typically able to get better terms in trade negotiations, partly because it can use the implied threat of not buying the other party's goods.
A larger unit has big advantages in a war: in protracted conflicts between great powers, the one with the most resources usually wins. This is true of cold wars as well as hot wars.
A larger unit has more resources for big capital-intensive projects such as satellite navigation, chip fabs, AI research, etc.
Because of all these advantages a larger unit isn't going to get pushed around so much by other powers. This is important because we are moving out of a period of US hegemony, towards a multipolar world, a world which is essentially an anarchy because there is no global policeman. (And when the USA was a global policeman, it was, like all great powers, more interested in its own selfish interests than the world's).
Britain should also have configured its armed forces towards homeland defence as this gives them more capability when fighting against Russia. (Some people have countered that while a homeland defence army would be effective for Britain if Britain was fighting Russia in Britain, it would be less effective if Britain was fighting Russia in Poland which is where actual fighting is more likely to take place. To these people I'd reply that the territory between Britain and Poland is all controlled by NATO countries, has some of the best road and railway networks anywhere in the world, and that transport infrastructure would all be used in the event of a war with Russia).
Since the time of the French Revolution, public opinion has been a factor in geopolitics, and the UK should have maximised its ability to get its message out to other countries. While the BBC and BBC world service exist (which is good), they could be done better, Britain should have websites in all the EU languages with as much content on them as possible. For example, the BBC's entire back catalogue could be put up, with subtitling/dubbing in all the relevant languages (at least for the most popular programmes). This purpose of this is to maximise the number of people in these countries going to the BBC's websites. The reason to have non-news content up is to get people to look at the websites, which can then be used to deliver information putting out the UK government's view (which in this case would be that Europeans should band together to stop Putin from committing acts of aggression).
(Obviously the same could and should also be done for non-EU languages where the UK wants to exert soft power).
Also it makes sense for the UK to get its message out as widely as possible using social media. If there existed major social media platforms under UK control, this would be easier, so maybe such platforms should be created?
What could/should the UK have done?
Now we've described what an optimal foreign policy and military configuration would look like, we can now answer the question: what should the UK response to the Skripal poisoning have been?
In the optimal defence and foreign policy configuration that I've described above, Britain would be better placed to persuade its allies to do what it wanted. This is because:
(1) a Britain still in the EU would have more influence within that organisation (and also within NATO, as most countries that are in one are in the other).
(2) a Britain with larger armed forces would be making a stronger contribution to NATO, thus other NATO allies would take more notice of what it wanted.
(3) a Britain with better media and social media abilities to get its message heard would have more influence over the populations of countries, and through them governments.
Because of all these, Britain would be well placed to persuading its allies to taking measures against Russia, alongside measures the UK might take.
Military measures
In this section I describe some things the UK could do on its own.
As I explained in the previous article, the UK could increase training of reservists as a signal in times of tension:
a homeland defence army would be mostly reservists [...] the UK could use increased training [of reservists] as a signal to a foreign power that it is annoyed with it
The UK could also announce that Russian aircraft and ships violating its airspace and territorial waters are liable to be destroyed without warning.
Ukraine has been in a frozen conflict with Russia since Russia seized Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014. So Britain could give military aid to Ukraine in the form of weapons, money, intelligence, and possibly aircraft and troops.
The UK could also urge NATO countries to deploy more troops on the border with Russia.
An intriguing possibility would be if Putin were killed. He makes about 20 foreign trips a year and it might be possible to assassinate him, for example using a sniper rifle, drone, or anti-tank weapon. It would be best if it was not obvious Britain did it, so it might be possible to make it look like someone else did, e.g.:
the Americans, because President Trump is known for being a loose cannon
the Ukrainians, because Ukraine is at war with Russia
the Chinese, as part of a Chinese plot to make it look like the Americans did it, in order to start a conflict between USA and Russia (which China would win by staying neutral)
Ideally, it would be best to create lots of false trails implicating as many other parties as possible. By the time the dust has settled, the Russians will be far to busy on deciding the succession to do anything about Britain, even if they do think the UK did it. At the same time, it is useful to the UK to be widely suspected of carrying out the execution, as this would give the UK a lot more credibility if it got into a serious dispute with another country in future.
Assassinating Putin would be a highly unconventional and somewhat high-risk tactic. If Putin was removed, however, that might make way for an improvement in relations between Russia and the West.
Economic measures
The UK could seize UK-held assets of Russian oligarchs. Since the oligarch class are one of Putin's power bases, this would weaken him. The UK could encourage other countries to do the same.
The UK could urge the EU and USA to impose trade sanctions on Russia, the heavier the better.
Cultural measures
Russia hosted the 2018 football World Cup from June 14 to July 15, just over 3 months after the Skripal poisoning.
If it was possible to take the World Cup away from Russia, then doing so would have been a major embarrassment to Putin. Holding an alternative tournament would have been a tight schedule, but doable. What the UK could have done was to hold an alternative "World Festival of Football" timed to coincide with Russia's World Cup, got all the big footballing countries to attend the alternative tournament instead. The alternative tournament could have been held in stadiums in the UK and in other European countries that wanted to help host it. It could have invited the national teams from all the countries in the world, including the ones that didn't make it to the final of the World Cup.
Football is a very popular sport -- the world cup final attracted an audience of 1.12 billion people -- and most football fans would've wanted to see their own national team playing. So an alternative tournament inviting all the national teams would have been popular with football fans. If the UK was able to use media and social media to promote its alternative tournament, these fans might well have been able to persuade their national governments to send their teams to the alternative tournament.
France won the world cup (see picture below of their team celebrating), and they and the other 3 semi-finalists (England, Croatia, and Belgium) were all countries that expelled Russian diplomats over the Skripal poisoning.
Thus their alignment was pro-West and anti-Russia, and so they would have been likely to have attended Britain's alternative tournament instead of Putin's one, had one existed. If the alternative tournament attracted most of the top national teams then it would have got more prestige than Putin's tournament, which would have been a major embarrassment for the Putin regime.
Summary
For the UK, an optimal military and foreign policy configuration would look like this:
a military geared towards homeland defence
being a member of the EU and NATO
having an enhanced ability to use media and social media to affect public opinion around the world
If the UK did have such a military and foreign policy configuration, then in times of heightened tension, such the Skripal poisoning, which I've used as an example, it would be better able to get what it wants (deterring countries from attacking it, and punishing/weakening countries that do attack it).