Europe needs to talk to Russia

The cold war teaches us that deterrence requires more than just stronger armed forces

The writer is a senior adviser to SC Strategy and former Chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee

1983 was a dangerous year. Soviet leaders thought President Ronald Reagan's fiery anti-communist rhetoric might mean a willingness to go to war. In September, they detected what looked like a US ballistic missile attack. Fortunately, a Soviet officer decided that it was probably a system error and forestalled a nuclear counterstrike. That November, the Soviets interpreted the annual Nato war gaming exercise Able Archer as preparation for an attack on their country. We cannot say exactly how close we came to nuclear war, but it was too close for comfort.

More than four decades later, the spectre of war between Russia and the west has resurfaced. Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte says we need to be ready for a Russian attack within the next five years. Equally, Russia is convinced that Nato members are combatants in Ukraine.

Europe's response has been threefold -- to support Ukraine, increase defence spending in an effort to remedy years of under-investment, and increase resilience against "grey zone" attacks.

Yet these necessary steps will not sufficiently reduce the small, but not negligible, risk of a mutually catastrophic war with Russia. Increased defence spending may help to deter Russian adventurism. But deterrence is more than just stronger armed forces. European members of Nato need to devote as much effort to avoiding war as they do to preparing for it.

Many of the guardrails that existed during the cold war are now defunct. Arms control agreements are virtually absent. Mutual understanding of deterrence theory has evaporated. Escalation management processes are weak. Load-bearing channels of military or civilian communications with Russia are few and unproductive.

This means a higher risk that the two sides misread each other's intentions. International relations students learn about what is called a security paradox, in which two adversaries each take steps to strengthen their defences but in ways the other interprets as aggressive and needing a reciprocal response. The result can be an escalatory cycle that neither side ultimately wants. As in 1983, there may be less risk of a deliberate conflict than of misjudgments or accidents at a time of high tension.

That risk becomes greater if politicians use bellicose language -- this is too easily interpreted as a drumbeat towards conflict. It may be sensible for Nato to have plans to overcome Russian air defences around the exclave of Kaliningrad. But it is not sensible when an EU foreign minister says so publicly and then claims his remarks were not meant for Russian ears.

There are no easy solutions. In recent years, dialogue with Russia has been unproductive and coloured by Vladimir Putin's obsession with what he perceives to be the injustices of history. We underestimate at our peril Russian leaders' belief that Nato expansion threatens their security. They do not accept that Nato is simply a defensive alliance.

Nevertheless, European countries should use as many channels as possible to talk to Russia, both to explain how we see European security and to explore possibilities for reducing misperceptions. This requires greater unity of purpose than European countries have so far shown. The continent's leaders should identify representatives who can be the chief message bearers in this effort at dialogue -- without excluding others from engaging with Russia.

Our countries could also do more to sharpen strategic thinking beyond Nato HQ. If we must be ready for war with Russia, Europe's leaders need to have thought through how escalation management and crisis response would actually work.

Improved strategic understanding would also help to align and sharpen messaging. Successful deterrence needs effective military capability but also careful signalling of the consequences of aggression with the right blend of clarity and ambiguity. That is even more important when US messaging is so inconsistent.

In 1983, Margaret Thatcher devoted a whole day to a seminar with experts to help her understand the Soviet Union -- how it worked, what its leaders believed, its strengths and weaknesses. Our leaders could do worse than to repeat the exercise. She was rightly convinced that the west was in a systemic confrontation with the Soviets. But she believed isolating them would be a mistake, and wanted us to be ready for the moment when change came. A year later she hosted Mikhail Gorbachev on his landmark visit.