In the run-up to the next NATO meeting , security experts are considering new strategic approaches for their countries and the alliance, which should lead to a NATO 2030 strategy and new cohesion. While the largest think tank in Germany, the German Society for Foreign Policy/Deutsche Gesellschaft für Außenpolitik (DGAP), has already published a strategy paper with 10 recommendations for action for a new German federal government, a new think tank has now been founded in Brexit-Global Britain, the Council on Geostrategy which wants to restore Britain’s supposed leadership role in the world.

„Mission Statement

The United Kingdom played a vital role in the Enlightenment, pioneered the Industrial Revolution, and nurtured many of the geopolitical foundations of the modern world. Our country is at its best when it is bold and confident.

However, over the past decade, Britain has turned inward. We have not done enough to confront the revisionist impulses of large authoritarian powers, which now menace the international order. And we have failed to sufficiently tame the environmental crisis, which now threatens to undermine our way of life.

For these reasons, the Council on Geostrategy has mobilised to strengthen Britain and re-assert our leadership in an increasingly uncertain and dangerous world.

We promote robust new ideas to enhance our country’s unity and resilience, bolster our industrial and technological base, and boost our discursive, diplomatic and military power – especially our naval reach.

We advocate realistic geostrategies – in the Euro-Atlantic, the Indo-Pacific, and the Polar regions – to uphold a free and open international order, in league with our allies and partners.

And by exploring the causes and consequences of environmental degradation, we provide responsible new solutions to render our economy more prosperous and sustainable and spread green technologies around the world.

The Council, a non-profit organisation, pursues its mission through a rigorous, independent and policy-driven research and events programme. We engage with parliamentarians in Westminster; officials in Whitehall; foreign diplomats and policymakers; and businesses, the press, experts, and the general public – both nationally and internationally.

We welcome those who support our mission, as well as those who wish to find out more about it.„

The new think tank of Global Britain Council.for Geostrategy in Westminster wants to show how the Anglo-Saxons in the form of US General Hodges and General Mitchell imagine NATO and the US-European division of labor, with Hodges speking of a kinetic conflict and war with China in the next 5 years and thinks that the Germans, French and Europeans should be the „European pillar, but not the European pillow“ so that Russia does not take advantage of the Sino-American war.

Airland Battle seems gone as Western communication and air superiority and thereby the freedom of movement were gone. The new slogan is “active deterrence” with “integration of all domains” and “forward deployment”. Reference is also made to the new strategy paper of the Ministry of Defense (MoD ) and the Strategic Security Review. This does not mean the deployment of the British Army to solve the gasoline crisis as a result of Brexit in the UK. A nation that is not even able to organize its own gasoline supply , speaks of integration of all domains and wants to be a Global Britain with active deterrence worldwide. Maybe the forward deployment and active deterrence is needed at British gasoline stations and in Scotland to save the British submarine bases and oil fields after the next referendum or if riots in Northern Ireland occur..

However, it is not enough to use catch phrases as “global” or “smart” or “souvereignty” , “new cohesion”and other labels on a new suppopsed strategy, if the realities don´t fit to the slogans and narratives. Especially if Ben Hodges says that it is also a question of narratives , but thinks there could be one narrative, while General MItchell thinks each country has to formulate its own narrative. The reality is, that both are right and wrong in their own way. There won´t be the old narrative of globalization, freedom, human rights, etc. for all or a spliited narrative for each nation will also have no effect and lead to no new cohesion. That is binary thinking: The West should have a minimal consensus of a narrative, but not that dogmatic that it leaves no space for other interpretations and local adaptions. And the most powerful narrative and hard core of the opponents like China and Russia is not spreading some fake news, but the real hypocracy of Western double standards and the own history of support for human right violations, Islamism, .globalization, neoliberalism,, wars of aggression, etc. which made the populism and neoautotarism and neototalirism in Russia and China , but aslo with Trumpismand his international followers possible. Maybe the West for the sake of its own new narrative should say: Yes, we did a lot of bullshit, caused a lot of pain,had the wrong political and economic reality but we want to learn the lessons of neoliberalism, 9 11 and the time after that and make it better this time . Everybody is invited to team up with us against other nations who want to copy our own mistakes in a even more brutal form. Maybe the new narrative is: The West due to its hybris at the time of globalization fever made an imperial overstretch which brought suffering to the wolrd, we apologize for it and want to learn from it and prevent that the next imperial overstretch is that of a Chinese or Russian hybris that will harm most parts of the world.

However for such a narrative it is not enough to offer apoplogies and protection, but it much more important that you offer soemthing like the Chinese New Silkoroad or new free trade agreements-common global goods. As the latter is not possible at the moment due to US neo protectionism and nobody wants the old free trade agreements anymore neither in the USA or Europe as it was a material loss fot most parts of the middle and working class in the name of global freedom and neoliberalism and created Trumpism and Sanderism , while China is manyfold in all directions and free trade agreements , the new narrative is also about offering global common goods from infrastructure to vaccanization which the Biden administration already realizises in some parts. China is acting by its United Front, its declaratiion of new free trade agreemnets and that after the RCEP it wants to become another free trade nation within the TPP successor, builds its military muscle and pushes its New Silkroad and vacanization programs. Beyond the free trade agreements, Biden already reacted. The main question will be if the US and the West can mobilize financial resources for a Western New Silkroad in Eurasia and Africa.and overcome the ideology that this contires are all „shithioles“ and that the USA and Europe should only invest in itself.

However: The Minsk Process in Ukraine is also discussed in the context of the Council on Geostrategy. Now Global Britain wants to get involved in the Minsk process or declare it to have failed in order to start new talks. The Moscow Times reports:

“Are the Minsk II Peace Accords Worth Preserving?

It is time to recognize that the Minsk process has run its course — and may if anything be blocking any more meaningful dialogue. 

By Mark Galeotti

Updated: June 2, 2021

Is a peace plan that seems to be going nowhere better than no peace plan at all? Is it more dangerous to face grim facts or to pretend to believe comforting fictions? When applied to the Minsk peace process over the Donbass conflict, these seemingly philosophical quandaries have a weekly toll in blood and treasure.

The Minsk peace process is hardly looking in good shape. 

Just as it is often said that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, so too this is no longer anchored in Minsk — as Kiev has said that it cannot trust Lukashenko to be an honest broker — nor has it ensured peace, nor can it really be said to be ‘“processing.”

To be sure, it had its day and its moment. Two of them, in fact. They were, to be blunt, never likely to be the basis for any lasting resolution of the conflict, just a way of forestalling escalation (above all, Russian escalation).

The first Minsk Protocol of 2014 and then the 2015 Minsk II package led to short-lived and patchy ceasefires and above all managed to forestall Russian escalations that could have triggered full-scale war. They also brought some small-scale remedies, from prisoner exchanges to monitoring by the Organisation for Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

That was more than six years ago, though. In many ways it says it all that the OSCE’s role is essentially to provide as complete as possible a daily list of breaches of the ceasefire, of crossing points over the line of contact arbitrarily closed, of tanks and heavy weapons spotted close to the frontline, in contravention of the deal. Much of this has to be gathered by remote monitoring and by drone — when the drones aren’t jammed by Russian electronic warfare systems.

Let it go

Last week, the Council on Geostrategy, a new thinktank devoted to exploring the prospects for a global Britain in a post-Brexit era, published a piece in which I advanced a deliberately provocative suggestion, that we ought to recognize that:

„The trouble is that Minsk is not only dead, it is a rotting corpse slumped over the conference table. It is not only failing to bring peace to the Donbass, it prevents potential new negotiations, or even an honest conversation about the conflict.“

It is not that I want to see a resumption of full-scale hostilities: quite the opposite. Rather, I do not believe it is a moribund, six-year old document that constrains any of the sides in this toxic conflict. 

Instead of the inchoate collection of militias of 2014-15, Ukraine now has increasingly confident 250,000-strong armed forces. 

The rebel forces could not prevail against them; frankly, they could not even in the early years of the war, which was why Moscow had periodically to send in its regulars to prevent a government victory. At the same time, Russia can still defeat Ukraine on the battlefield, but only if it is prepared to show its hand openly and throw in the scale of forces needed – and also accept the substantial losses this would mean. This is a balance of terror.

Not least for the people on both sides of the line of contact, and especially in the pseudo-states. Subject to arbitrary local thug-states, deprived of their Ukrainian social benefits, facing economic hardship and rising levels of coronavirus, their lives have been left hostage to an illusory — delusory — peace process that simply isn’t going anywhere.

The problem is that neither side will give way on a fundamental point. Moscow argues that Kiev must grant the rebels special status now that elections have been held. Kiev denounces these elections as shams, and says it needs first to have its authority to the regions restored. Neither will or can give ground.

My suggestion was thus that it was time to recognize that the Minsk process had run its course — and may if anything be blocking any more meaningful dialogue. 

Ukraine, Russia and the pseudo-states cannot be the ones to say this first, lest they lay themselves open to being denounced as warmongers and dealbreakers. 

Besides, both Germany and France injudiciously threw their weight behind Minsk II and still stand as its bankrupt guarantors. If they are not willing to start this conversation, I suggested, maybe it could be the U.K.?

Better than nothing?

The responses, both public and private, were interesting. Some sought, predictably enough, to paint one side or the other as the villains of the peace. This may be satisfying, but it is exactly the kind of zero-sum politics that perpetuates the current volatile status quo. Others sought to salvage the reputations of Paris or Berlin, which is another problem, as both countries are unwilling to admit they may have done long-term harm in the name of short-term good.

A more thoughtful line of argument was best exemplified by Russian scholar Sergei Utkin of the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), who felt it was a “surprisingly adventurous and potentially disastrous proposal.” In an exchange we held on Twitter, he argued that

„If negotiations fail in an ongoing conflict, arms speak (and they can do it much louder than at the current imperfect ceasefire). Keeping things at the negotiations table is important even if no progress is achieved in years — a balance, albeit shaky, is valuable.“

This is a perfectly defensible and honorable position. 

To do away with a peace process when there is nothing ready to take its place is a scary move. Yet it also rests ultimately on the assumption that it is Minsk II, not the day-by-day realities on the ground, that prevents escalation. As the fears over spring’s build-up of Russian forces demonstrate, it is hard to take that guarantee as read.

The trouble is that the status quo is too bearable for all the players. 

Kiev has little real incentive to reintegrate a restive and now war-ravaged badlands. Moscow is having to subsidize the Donbass, but better that than acknowledge defeat and lose what little traction it may have on Ukraine. 

The warlords of the pseudo-states can enrich themselves and avoid trial. And while the West may get an occasional scare, such as during the spring’s Russian build-up of forces, it can generally reassure itself with the antiseptic language of ‘frozen conflicts’ and unresolved disputes.’

It is arguably rather less tolerable on the ground. Ordinary Ukrainians in the pseudo-states face unemployment, hardship, and vicious crackdowns when they try to protest or unionize. Water supplies are becoming contaminated and whole industries dying, all of which also poses massive challenges for any future reintegration. As Brian Milakovsky has recently argued in Krytyka,

„The time has passed when we could leave the resolution of economic and infrastructure issues to be naturally resolved when the elusive comprehensive political settlement is negotiated in Minsk, or any other platform.“

I would note, after all, that all the voices I heard from inside the Donbass, as well as many in both Kiev and Moscow, admitted Minsk was both unworkable and unrepairable. 

Ukrainian president Zelenskyy has called for movement, arguing that “we can change the Minsk format, adjust it. Or we can use some other format,” but there seems little scope for the former, as the disagreement is nor about format but goals and political will.

Instead, something needs to be done to break the logjam. Dispensing with the tired mantra that “Minsk is the only deal on the table” and instead clearing the table. There is no reason why prisoner exchanges, family reunion rights, OSCE monitoring and the rest cannot be maintained outside a single, overarching document. And maybe, this would provide the incentive and opportunity for something new.

But this is one of those cases where the tolerable is the enemy of the better. What may work in Moscow, Paris and Berlin may not work so well in Kiev — and be positively oppressive in Donetsk and Luhansk, Perevalsk and Ilovaisk.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/06/01/are-the-minsk-ii-peace-accords-worth-preserving-a74069