![](https://unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/UnHerd-Michael-Burleigh-150x150.jpg)
Over the past ten days, tales of the Russian threat have gone into overdrive, temporarily eclipsing analogous scaremongering about the Chinese. Only some of this hails from the usual hawkish commentators, in newspapers which unselfconsciously rake in hundreds of thousands from Russian ‘advertorials’.
The Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Nick Carter, started it off by highlighting the Russian threat in a speech at Rusi on 22 January. Echoing the US’s new National Defence Strategy policy document to the letter, Carter identified Russia as “the most complex and capable state-based threat to our country since the end of the Cold War”. The British land army, habituated to fighting counter-insurgency wars in dusty places, needs to be “recapitalised”, he said, to repulse a modern nation state, which by blurring the boundaries of war and peace, has substantially redefined warfare in an era of inter-state competition.
Gen Carter was more convincing on Russian capabilities than on Russian intentions, for which one requires a less technocratic mindset and a greater sense of how the Russians regard themselves and us. The newspapers, too, concentrated on the “threat” Carter outlined and all the technical stuff about hardware, rather than coolly assessing how Russia views the world, its resources, and how their strategy relates to the domestic regime Putin has constructed.
A few days after Carter’s speech, our newish Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson then upped the ante when he warned that the Russians could “cause thousands and thousands and thousands of deaths” if they cut the seven electricity and gas interconnectors linking the UK to the Continent.
![](https://unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/GettyImages-911688418.jpg)
The General’s speech could of course be viewed in the context of special pleading by the Army in the run up to tough choices about defence budgets – or even his bid to be the next chief of defence staff. And Williamson’s alarmist remarks coincided with his decision to go public about an office tryst in 2004 when he was a lowly manager at a Scarborough fireplace surround manufacturer. But Russia, is not a useful bogeyman for no reason.
And then, at the weekend, the Russians were back in the news again. Ben Wallace, the security minister, announced the introduction of Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs) which would force corrupt foreign oligarchs to reveal the source of the luxury lifestyles they enjoy in Britain. It is a rather embarrassing coincidence that they’ve been a problem since the 1990s, but only in the wake of a BBC1 drama, McMafia, about Russian bankers, organised crime, and money-laundering, has anything actually been done. So much for cool assessments.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
Subscribe