Perhaps there are no coincidences in the world of state security, but the near-simultaneous warnings from the new head of MI6, Blaise Metreweli, and separately from Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, chief of the defence staff, must certainly represent something of a pincer movement so far as their political chiefs are concerned.
The government is, of course, well aware of the multiple threats to the security of the UK and of what we used to call the West – including the kind of atrocity committed on Bondi Beach. But there is no harm at all in Ms Metreweli and Sir Richard stirring a complacent public to add to the pressure on ministers to react more decisively to the worsening situation, particularly in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, the prime minister has joined his German, French and Ukrainian counterparts, as well as Donald Trump’s two envoys, in Berlin, to see whether the latest peace plan can be meaningfully progressed without fatally undermining the future independence of Ukraine.
The common factor in all of these debates and developments is, of course, the imperialist ambitions of Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin. We have known of them for some considerable time – in fact, ever since the Kremlin started taking a proprietorial interest in Russia’s neighbours, such as Georgia, two decades ago.
Sir Keir Starmer charges that Russia seeks to “challenge, limit, divide and ultimately destroy Nato”. He is right about that – but, being diplomatic, he fails to mention President Trump’s own culpability in that tragedy.
The appropriate response to Russia, on multiple fronts, can be summed up in one word: deterrence. Or rather – since Mr Trump’s return to the White House – a lack of it.
Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, repeated in the starkest terms the reality of the Russian threat. Speaking a few days ago, he compared Moscow’s territorial ambitions to those of pre-war Nazi Germany. Specifically in the context of the present negotiations over the Donbas and other Ukrainian sovereign lands that are desired by President Putin, Mr Merz referred to the appeasement of 1938, and how the Western democracies of the time, Britain and France, coalesced in handing over the Sudetenland province of Czechoslovakia to Nazi control.
This is challenging territory for a German chancellor, but an essential lesson of history. For the Sudetenland was indeed “not enough” for Adolf Hitler, as Mr Merz says: within six months, Germany had dismembered and occupied the entire country – and within a year had invaded Poland, triggering a global conflagration.
This – alongside America’s assault on Nato and its democratic European allies – is, as Mr Merz concludes, why Europe needs to get serious about its own interests, and to take care of its own defence and its own freedom. If Czechoslovakia was shamefully betrayed at a notorious multi-power conference in Munich, then Ukraine cannot be abandoned at a summit this week in Berlin.
That Europe has not yet asserted itself is becoming a tragedy. Unless the European powers commit to its defence, Ukraine could in effect be abandoned to a US-Russian surrender deal, in the event that Trump’s America completes its transition from the role of staunch ally to Ukraine, via that of neutral broker, to being an active friend of the Kremlin.
But does Russia represent a threat to Western Europe? Or to Britain? We cannot yet predict the outcome of what might, in a sad echo, be termed a “quarrel in a far away country, between people of whom we know nothing”. But while we may have no wish for war with Russia, the same peaceful intentions are not in evidence on the other side – just ask the people of Salisbury.
Ms Metreweli talks of “assassination plots, sabotage, cyber attacks, and the manipulation of information by Russia and other hostile states” being so widespread that “the front line is everywhere”. As she describes things, “the export of chaos is a feature, not a bug, in the Russian approach to international engagement”.
It chimes well with what we know about Russian interference in the democratic process, as highlighted in the recent conviction of a Reform UK politician on bribery charges after he was paid to parrot Kremlin talking points in the European parliament. Russian spy vessels are busy mapping our vital underwater communications and power cables, and not out of idle curiosity.
Sir Richard is clear that Russia wants to attack a Nato country. Britain would be under a treaty obligation to go to the assistance of, say, Estonia or Finland, just as it aided Belgium in 1914, and Poland in 1939. It cannot exist in splendid isolation from what happens across the English Channel, any more than it ever could.
So Sir Richard is right to ask the country to “step up” to the threat. But can the UK, or even Europe as a whole, do so? If the political will is there – a big “if” – then Europe has the economic strength, industrial power and technological edge to stand up to the Kremlin, its vast manpower and its nuclear armoury.
However, the task is to make those potential advantages count, through closer political and military cooperation, and by modernising our armed forces. That, in turn, means learning the lessons from the first international conflict on European soil since the Second World War – as well as mastering new technologies, including AI. Ms Metreweli is right to advise that “we must be as comfortable with lines of code as we are with human sources, as fluent in Python as we are in multiple languages”.
Europe has every reason to fear Russia’s intentions, but no reason to allow itself to be intimidated by a country whose economy is the size of Italy’s – and one that has failed to defeat its smaller, weaker opponent in Ukraine. At a time of conflict, we must take our comfort where we can.
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