Great Britain Breaks West’s Final Red Line, but They Need to Quickly Address a Critical Gap in Their Security Shield

Now is the best time to get on with it

I don’t understand British politics. I’ve started watching them closely, and hopefully, in a few years, I’ll have a decent understanding.

One of the biggest factors that still confounds me is the Kremlin has successfully hijacked conservative movements around the world, morphing them into right-wing nativist factions. Nativism, isolationism, and anti-immigration sentiments form the core pillars of these movements globally. To some extent, this influence has affected Great Britain as well, evident in events like Brexit, the leadership of Liz Truss, and various other instances. The list of such occurrences is slowly growing longer.

But somewhere, there is this continuity within the British political class when it comes to thwarting the Kremlin’s imperial ambitions. They have so far resisted fully succumbing to the nativist trap.

PM David Cameron initiated Operation Orbital immediately after Putin’s invasion of Crimea. Before Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, this program trained over 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers, significantly contributing to the development of a well-trained Ukrainian army.

PM Boris Johnson wasted no time in sending essential weapons that Ukraine needed at the start of the war. Throughout the first year, Britain was the second-largest donor of military and economic aid for Ukraine.

PM Rishi Sunak took things to a completely different level. Without his actions, Ukraine would be in a vastly different state.

As you can see, the British efforts to protect the democratic world only improved over time. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak also made an extremely important decision to extend Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin’s post until autumn 2025.

Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, who has held the position since November 2021 and was due to retire in November 2024.

It’s not a simple matter of continuity by extending his tenure. Admiral Sir Tony Radakin played a significant role in Ukraine marginalising the Russian Black Sea Fleet. His presence at the top of the military ladder in the United Kingdom will be of immense help to Ukraine. These seemingly small details matter greatly.

Yesterday, former British Prime Minister and current Foreign Secretary David Cameron was in Kyiv. He did something totally unexpected. He blessed Ukraine to use British weapons as they see fit.

No restrictions.

Britain has already made its stance very clear on this issue. However, having someone of Cameron’s stature publicly say this means a lot.

“Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine, you can quite understand why Ukraine feels the need to make sure it’s defending itself,” Lord Cameron said.

Russia was quick to name this an escalation.

“This is a direct escalation of tension around the Ukrainian conflict, which would potentially pose a threat to European security,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov

Russians will lose this war, and they are likely to blame Great Britain for it. In my opinion, they should indeed solely blame Great Britain for making an unholy mess of every opportunity they had to defeat Ukraine.

I am proud of Great Britain’s efforts to stand up to aggression and deliver justice. However, there is one glaring and gaping hole in Britain’s response to the Russian invasion. While this may not seem significant compared to the lack of effort from other allies, it is a critical oversight when compared to Britain’s own efforts to thwart Putin’s imperial ambitions.

In my opinion, this represents a significant mistake.

Great Britain does not possess a vast portfolio of long-range missiles, and the same holds true for Europe as a whole. The lack of air-defense and long-range missiles represents significant gaps in Europe’s defense, rendering them highly dependent on American power to safeguard against threats.

NATO’s primary focus is on ballistic missile defense (BMD) to safeguard its member states from attacks by external nations. While member states maintain their own long-range missile arsenals under national control, NATO operates a Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) system. This system integrates early warning radars and missile interceptors from various member states and is designed to defend all of NATO’s European territory from ballistic missile threats.

The entire world now knows that NATO’s air-defense capability largely relies on American-made Patriot air-defense systems. While the French-made SAMP-T and the German-made IRIS-T are highly sophisticated systems, they lack sufficient production capacity to enable Europe to independently secure its air-defense.

Despite the Kremlin and its trolls peddling propaganda about NATO being a threat, a simple comparison between NATO and Russia on the missile and air-defense front reveals which party historically holds the aggressive stance.

NATO, due to its defensive posture, has not invested in offensive capabilities and instead relies on strong defense underpinned by American air-defense systems. The attack capability remains under national control, and none of the member nations, including Great Britain, have heavily invested in this area.

The one decent solution they all have is the long range air-to-surface missiles.

• Great Britain’s Storm Shadow.
• France’s SCALP.
• Germany’s Taurus.

These are weapons that can be launched from fighter jets, and Europe possesses plenty of air power. If necessary, they can go after the agressor using their own air-power. However, to accomplish this, they also require a robust production base capable of producing those long-range missiles.

But all three major players, France, Great Britain, and Germany, had halted production of these missiles. I observed this situation persist for nearly two years, wondering when they would awaken and fix this gap. It is crucial to reactivate these production lines for their own safety, and in doing so, they could also aid Ukraine.

Germany still hasn’t shown signs of awakening. It’s unlikely they will, especially because if the Scholz administration in Germany increases Taurus missile production, it would intensify pressure to provide them to Ukraine. Thus, I suspect the administration will employ various tactics to keep production very close to zero. Then they can keep citing insufficient supply, to refuse delivery to Ukraine.

Great Britain and France are indicating their readiness to take action. However, I’m uncertain if they have already initiated the process.

According to a report by The Times, UK Minister of Defense, Grant Shapps “wants defence companies such as MBDA to be put on what he describes as a war footing”.

MBDA is the company that manufactures Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles. Shapps didn’t explicitly confirm the reactivation of the Storm Shadow production line.

It’s entirely possible that they are already taking action and have chosen to keep the production reactivation under wraps. If so, it would be a positive development. However, if this isn’t the case, then Great Britain would be making a significant mistake, as this action needs to be undertaken as swiftly as possible.

Britain must place a substantial order for Storm Shadow missiles and ramp up production capacity accordingly. After that gets done, they should consider placing an even larger order with Eurosam, the consortium formed by Thales Group and MBDA, which manufactures the SAMP-T (France) air-defense system.

Britain and Europe must double down on their air-defense capabilities and long-range deterrence efforts. Despite extensive searching, I couldn’t find a single surface-to-surface missile produced by Europe.

How many surface to surface missiles does the Kremlin build: Iskander, Kalibr, and a few more.

Europe and Britain indeed boast strong air attack and naval capabilities. However, their long-range missile deterrence, without considering the United States’ involvement, is abysmal, to say the least. The same story applies to air defense. They rely entirely on US-made Patriot systems to safeguard their skies. It’s alarming that Spain, despite being so far away from potential Russian aggression, refuses to send even one of its four Patriot systems to Ukraine.

They are scared of sending the Patriots to Ukraine because they understand that replacing these systems would be time-consuming, and there’s no comparable alternative available for immediate deployment.

The reliance on the United States for long-range deterrence is a significant vulnerability, as it turns Europe into a target for the entire nativist political machine. The nativist assumption is that breaking America away from Europe would facilitate the fragmentation of the European Union.

It’s the age-old strategy: dismantle alliances piece by piece. By weakening major alliances like NATO, the aim is to destabilize the European Union incrementally. This plays directly into Russia’s interests. Meanwhile, billionaire oligarchs hungry for tax breaks and increased wealth are more than willing to thrive in a world dominated by oligarchy.

That lifestyle might benefit them, but it certainly won’t benefit us or our children.

So, my dear Britain and France, please get on with it and place that order.

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