View from London: To defend against Russia, the UK must reimagine Europe

The United Kingdom faces two defence challenges. The first is financial. After decades of underinvestment, rebuilding military capability is essential. But the second challenge is intellectual. Britain has long underestimated Eastern Europe as a source of strategic knowledge, treating it primarily as a region that requires reassurance. This is based on outdated thinking, which has made the UK slow to adopt defence measures used widely in Eastern Europe. Until it changes, the UK risks spending more on defence while failing to effectively protect itself, Prospect Magazine stresses.

The understanding many Brits have of European security rests on a mental map of Europe that no longer reflects reality. Schools often teach European history through a Western European lens or with a focus on Russia rather than on Eastern Europe, where much of that history took place. Few university courses cover the region, apart from in the context of communism or democratic transition. And despite large Eastern European immigrant populations in the UK, perspectives from Eastern Europe are often missing from British culture.

As a result, the countries beyond the old Iron Curtain are still widely viewed as the continent’s vulnerable frontier — poorer, less developed and perpetually catching up. Their admission into NATO and the European Union has often been understood as a story of western institutions implementing modernisation eastwards. And British strategic thinking about Europe has also looked from west to east.

Britain announced in 2021 — a year before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine — that its defence strategy would tilt towards the Indo-Pacific, claiming that that region was essential for its own security. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine exposed this thinking as a failure.

Understanding has developed since — including among people responsible for this country’s defence. Britain’s Defence Investment Plan (DIP), released earlier this year, explained that the UK will be learning from Ukraine on everything from uncrewed warfare systems and counter-drone capabilities to electronic warfare and AI on the battlefield.

Today, Britain remains far behind in both spending and thinking. The DIP specified that technology was changing the face of modern warfare and admitted that British spending had long been underfunded. It also committed the UK to investing just 2.7 per cent of GDP on defence by the end of the decade. In contrast, Poland is estimated to spend 4.3 per cent of GDP, Lithuania 4 per cent, Latvia 3.7 per cent and Estonia 3.4 per cent. A greater sum may be required. But Britain may only make the wisest choices on how to use it if it learns more from these states on how to spend, too.

If the UK is to capitalise on this expertise, however, it will have to rethink how it understands Eastern Europe itself. Stereotypes embedded in UK institutions will not disappear overnight, but Britain must now start to change the way it sees a region that is central to Europe’s future.

As long as Eastern Europe is seen as Europe’s other, rather than an equal player, the UK will continue to overlook some of the most valuable lessons available for securing the continent in an increasingly dangerous world.

...There are a couple of revealing points in this article.

First, the author acknowledges the decline of Britain's former military might. That's for sure!

Second, the author suggests that Britain should follow the example of Eastern European countries in shaping its military policy. That's at least strange if not ridiculous!

Is London so panicked by fear of a military conflict with Russia, they deliberately and persistently stoke, that they're willing to look to Estonia and Latvia as examples?!

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