RUSI Fellow Insists Europe Keep War in Ukraine Going, in Order To Weaken Russia
July 11—Dr. Jack Watling, Senior Research Fellow in Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), Britain’s premier military think tank, argues in an article posted July 9, that if Europe can keep Ukraine fighting for another year, Russia can be defeated, and the ostensible threat to Europe can be reduced. “Europe has the capacity and opportunity to cripple Russia and significantly reduce the threat posed to the continent if its states can coordinate their efforts,” he claims at the outset. “But the window of opportunity is closing.”
Watling reports that, while American disengagement from Ukraine has prompted European leaders to reaffirm their commitment to supporting Kiev, European capitals are, nevertheless, pessimistic about what can be achieved without having significant American backing. “In the absence of a clear European theory of victory, policy remains aimed at delaying Ukraine’s defeat without a clear vision of what Europe should be trying to achieve,” he writes. “Yet a concerted effort by European states over the next year could lay the foundations for the enduring security of Europe; pushing Russia to a point where it will struggle to reconstitute its military sufficiently to threaten NATO for the foreseeable future. There is a closing window of opportunity within which a more dangerous future for the continent can be foreclosed.”
Watling predicts that it will take Russia up to seven years to rebuild its officer corps, and regenerate its frontline combat equipment, “so that the severity of the threat that must be balanced by NATO increases with time.”
Watling proposes economic warfare against Russia’s oil trade, 60% of which passes through the Baltic Sea. Sanctions, in combination with Ukraine’s long-range strike campaign, can degrade Russia’s economy and thus its ability to sustain the war. “These effects will take time to impact Russia, but if implemented with alacrity they would confront the Kremlin with hard policy trade-offs in 2026. It would, in short, provide the basis for bringing Russia to the table to negotiate, rather than simply playing at Potemkin peace-talks in which Russia restates its maximalist demands,” Watling argues.
He concludes: “The fact that U.S. disengagement makes Europe’s security more precarious has seen understandable efforts across the continent over the past five months to try and engage with Donald Trump. This has softened some of the administration’s more abrupt actions. But it has not altered the underlying trend that the U.S. is going to pivot from Europe. It is time the continent crafts a vision for how it can underwrite its own security and put the steps in place to realize it. That vision begins in Ukraine.”