Glenn Diesen interviews retired Royal Navy Commodore Steve Jermy on NATO's military unreadiness for war with Russia
Glenn Diesen speaks with Steve Jermy, a retired Royal Navy Commodore, about the strategic risks of European leaders escalating toward war with Russia.
Summary
Glenn Diesen hosts Steve Jermy, a retired Royal Navy Commodore who commanded warships in the Fifth Destroyer Squadron and Britain's Fleet Air Arm, and who also served as Strategy Director in the British Embassy in Afghanistan. Jermy argues that European leaders are sleepwalking toward a war with Russia without having thought through its costs or consequences — and that Russia, viewing the conflict as existential and defensive, would not wait until 2030 to respond. He presents a detailed scenario in which Russia strikes European military-industrial facilities producing weapons used to attack Russian territory, triggering an Article 5 invocation that fails to produce collective action, leaving Britain, France, and Germany exposed and unable to defend against Russian air and missile attacks. Jermy contends that Europe's energy infrastructure is critically vulnerable, that NATO lacks adequate anti-submarine and missile defense capabilities, and that the likely outcome is a rapid European economic collapse forcing a negotiated peace. Diesen develops an extended historical argument — drawing on George Kennan's warnings, Angela Merkel's characterization of NATO membership offers as a declaration of war, the 2008 CIA director's prediction of civil war, and the sabotage of the Minsk agreements — to show that Western policy choices, not unprovoked Russian aggression, produced the current crisis, and that European discourse deliberately suppresses this context. Both Jermy and Diesen argue that the absence of any strategic thinking — no defined objectives, no theory of victory, no public debate — makes this trajectory especially dangerous, and that diplomacy remains the only rational alternative.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction and the premise of Jermy's article
Glenn Diesen: Welcome back to the program. We are joined today by retired Royal Navy Commodore Steve Jermy, who commanded warships in the Fifth Destroyer Squadron and Britain's Fleet Air Arm, and also held many positions such as Strategy Director in the British Embassy in Afghanistan. He has also recently opened his own Substack, and I have left a link in the description. Thank you — it's been a few months since you were on the program.
Steve Jermy: Good to be back, Glenn, and also good for us to meet in person in Tbilisi last month with so many colleagues from the alternative media. Great fun to meet in person.
Glenn Diesen: As I said before we started recording, one gets used to all these digital conferences and interviews, and it's very different to meet in person. Great to see you again. I did want to talk to you today about this article you recently published — which I'll also put in the description — about NATO heading towards war with Russia, with the title "The Coming War with Russia." The premise essentially is that what we're seeing now is European leaders making a lot of comments about preparing for war with Russia, even setting dates or stating intent. They're also developing the capabilities. And if you're sitting in Moscow doing a threat assessment, you look at the intentions and capabilities, and a clear threat begins to emerge. So I wanted to unpack your argument, because it doesn't really seem as if the Europeans are ready for a war with Russia.
Steve Jermy: I don't think they are, Glenn. The reason I wrote the article is that I don't think they have really thought through the potential costs and consequences of such a war. What they're essentially thinking is that Russia will sit quietly as they prepare for war, and then in 2030 they'll be ready to go — but that before that, they can provide as many missiles, cruise missiles, and drones to attack into Russia with no reaction from Russia. Both of those things go completely against what is being said and heard in Russia. Indeed, Putin recently said — I think it was to new graduates in the police and armed forces — that Europeans were preparing for a war and that Russia would prepare as well.
What the European elites — the leaders — don't seem to understand is that as far as Russia is concerned, this is a defensive war. They are in a defensive posture, and everything they are doing is to protect themselves from what they see as NATO expansion getting closer and closer to their borders, about which they've argued for years and years. So it shouldn't be a surprise to us. But the Europeans seem to see it as something of colonial ambition. I can't think why Russia would want to take over Europe.
More fundamentally, what the European leaders also haven't done is think through what that war would actually be like. The first thing is that there is no guarantee — indeed quite the opposite — that the Russians would wait until 2030. I think it's much more likely that they would respond early. I have a strong suspicion, although I can't prove it, that one of the reasons the Russians went into the Donbas in 2022 was that the General Staff had argued that actually the longer they left it, the more damaging it would be, because of the greater forces they would have to face. I suspect that was part of Putin's calculation, and I think the same calculation would transpire now.
The thing that's most striking is that the E3 — Germany, Britain, and France — are speaking loudly about the provision of weapons to strike deep into Russia. The idea that the Russians are going to sit back and just let that happen is clearly wrong. The Russians have said explicitly that they have not taken off the table — which means it is on the table — responses that target certain European facilities.
Jermy's war scenario: Russian strikes, Article 5, and European isolation
Steve Jermy: The premise I have is that this war starts sooner than the Europeans plan, because the Russians decide that in the face of European bellicosity they need to act now to deter future attacks against them. The way I started the article was to suggest that Russia does indeed decide to strike the production facilities in Europe — in particular in Germany, France, and Britain — where the drones and cruise missiles are being developed and then sent to Ukraine to attack Russia.
My next guess — and it is only a guess, a scenario rather than a forecast — is that the Europeans invoke Article 5. They then realize that Article 5 doesn't commit people to collective action; it commits them to do whatever they think is best. I suspect that some nations will not want to go to war with Russia. They will provide warm words but no military support. I think that's particularly likely to be the case with the United States — not least because they are now suffering from a defeat in Iran and have depleted stocks. So although they may have pivoted at the G7 towards supporting attacks against Russia, I suspect they'll now look at this and say they're not so sure this is a good idea. The last thing Americans will want is to send soldiers to fight and die in Europe against Russia.
Suddenly the E3 will find they're on their own. My next guess is that the E3 then decide to respond nevertheless with air attacks against Russia, and find that they suffer from exactly the same problems the Americans found in their attacks against Iran — that there are very effective air defense systems in place, well-practiced, the S-400 and S-500, which take down most of the offensive missiles and also extract a heavy toll on our aircraft.
In parallel, because the Russians see that we're attacking them, they decide to take the gloves off and go after our energy infrastructure in exactly the same way they have done in Ukraine. On the back end of the consequences of self-defeating sanctions on Russia, which have closed off our oil and gas supplies, and now under the pressure of the Strait of Hormuz reductions in supply, Europe suddenly finds itself in an energy crisis which quickly becomes an economic crisis. The only thing we'd be able to do at that stage is sue for peace, because there are no other offensive options that would work.
That's the nub of the argument, Glenn — and as I say, it is a scenario rather than a forecast. The purpose of the scenario is to make people realize what the costs and consequences of a war with Russia could be. There's lots of talk in Western and European capitals about being ready for war, but very few people have thought it through. Had this been thought through and broadcast to the European people, I think people would be much more worried than they currently are.
I'd be curious about your view, Glenn, on whether European people would be ready for war with Russia along the lines I've sketched out.
The illusion of escalation control
Glenn Diesen: That's a good question. Part of the problem we have now — in the unipolar moment, the liberal hegemon over the past 30 years — is that war took on a very different meaning. Wars are something fought in other places, not on our own soil. It's something you see on TV screens. You can perhaps complain about some collateral damage, but it's not the war that the generations before us experienced.
The wars of the past 30 years also gave NATO complete escalation control. We could decide when the war begins. You saw the war against Iraq — the US could position all its troops surrounding Iraq, essentially shape the battlefield exactly the way they wanted, because they knew Iraq wouldn't dare attack them before they chose to start the war. The Americans decide when to start the war, they decide what is allowed, they isolate the target so the war doesn't spread in an uncontrolled way, and if they want to end it, they decide when it ends as well.
What I liked about your comparison to Iran is that it shows we're entering a very new era. When the war began, the Americans were saying, "They're not supposed to strike our bases in the region — that wasn't part of the rules. Also, you can't attack allied states or punish them by striking airports or energy facilities. Also, you can't strike or close down the Strait of Hormuz, and it's assumed now that the war is over, you have to reopen it" — as if they get to decide. This is the illusion of escalation control, and I've said many times that this is what's going to bring us into war, because of the assumption that one can control the situation.
Once those missiles from European states begin to enter Russia and Russia decides to retaliate with conventional weapons, no one will have any escalation control anymore. It's going to spin out of control immediately.
I also want to ask how you see this war being fought, because the Russians have been fairly restrained and very systematic — gradual fighting along the front lines, trying to bleed out the adversary. I often get the impression that the European leaders assume they would join a war with Russia by sending troops and fighters into Ukraine, and the war would still be in Ukraine and in Russia. The assumption seems to be that there won't be war on European territory. I just don't think people understand what this war would actually look like. I think the Russians would treat the Ukrainians much better than they would treat Western Europeans if we got more involved. How do you see the war being fought?
How Russia would actually fight a war with NATO
Steve Jermy: I think you're right that there's a general assumption the war could be contained in Ukraine, and I think that's a very dangerous assumption because I don't believe it.
I introduced the article by talking about a scholar whose work you and I both know very well — General Carl von Clausewitz, war's greatest philosopher. What he says is that the most important judgment a statesman and a military man must make is the nature of the war. The Europeans — and indeed the Americans — have completely misunderstood the nature of this war. They don't understand that for Russia this is viewed as existential. It's only recently that Kaja Kallas said that we must seek to break up Russia. So what are the Russians to think when the European Union's foreign policy chief says that? As far as Russia is concerned, this is existential — Russia is fighting for its survival.
The way the war would be fought, I think, is that the Russians would not seek any offensive operation other than those they're undertaking in Ukraine. They would continue to seek to secure those parts of Ukraine, but otherwise sit back behind their lines, knowing that all they have to do — pretty much like the Iranians — is to defeat any attacks. That's pretty much what they did in the first year of the war when they did a strategic withdrawal, then sat behind the Surovikin line while they mobilized and industrialized. Behind that line they conducted what I call attrition defense — whatever the Ukrainians threw at them, they destroyed. They destroyed not one but two army groups.
So I suspect this will not be a question of Russian tanks roaring westward, because there's no desire for them to do so. Rather, it's the Russians seeking to defend themselves. I'm sure there will be a reinforced Surovikin line running from the Black Sea all the way up to the border with Norway and Finland. The way they would prosecute it is the same way the Iranians have prosecuted their war against the US and Israel.
What we will quickly find is the same thing the Americans have found — that land bases are vulnerable. We know the Americans have largely withdrawn from the Gulf because they can't defend their land bases. In Europe, we have very limited defense against ballistic missiles and no defense whatsoever against hypersonic missiles. So we're essentially naked.
Although I talked in the article about a ramping up, I suspect the Russians might escalate in a way that suits them — not necessarily destroying all of our energy infrastructure immediately in response to Western air attacks, but doing it in an escalated way, all the time saying: if you keep going, this is what we will do, and we can take out the whole of your energy infrastructure. Having worked in the energy industry for the last fifteen years, I can tell you Europe won't survive that. No industrial nation can. We're already seeing it in small scale in Germany, but the consequences would be profound.
I also talked in the article about the possibility of the Russians announcing a blockade, which they're quite capable of doing because we don't have the anti-submarine warfare forces to defend against Russian submarines. Even the threat of a blockade would probably turn the shipping companies and insurance companies off from delivering fuels and refined products to our nations. The only two countries somewhat more immune than others would be Norway — no one is fully independent for oil and gas — and to a lesser extent the UK, which gets about 47 or 48% of its oil and gas from the North Sea. But imagine what it's like when the lorries stop running, when the tractors which rely critically on diesel stop farming, when the fishing vessels which rely critically on diesel stop fishing. It doesn't take long to get into a perilous economic situation.
At that stage I would expect us to sue for peace, and I would expect the Americans to be doing everything they can to talk to both sides and bring this to a close. But even after peace is declared, if the war plays out in this way, the consequences for Europe would be profound.
The only open question — and it's a really important one — is what the British and the French do with their nuclear deterrents. That's a binary decision. Either one or both can use those deterrents, but that's suicidal. That's the end of Britain and the end of France and probably the end of a lot of Europe. Is Prime Minister Burnham or President Macron going to take suicidal action? It's not beyond comprehension given the irrational actions we've seen from Europeans so far, but it's a very scary thing. More likely, I would think, is that they will sue for peace — but still have to pick up the consequences of the war afterward, which could play out over years.
So the war, if it doesn't escalate to a nuclear situation, will be fairly quick, because the Europeans are unable to defend themselves against attacks on their military facilities on the European mainland. That's where I would expect Russia's focus to be — military facilities, industrial facilities that support the military, and any related facilities.
The failure to understand Russia's defensive posture
Glenn Diesen: I think it's important what you said earlier — that for the Russians this is a defensive war. They've been warning since the 1990s that you can't simply re-divide the continent and then gradually remove those dividing lines and move NATO military infrastructure closer and closer to their borders. The problem is that within acceptable analysis in Europe, you're not allowed to say that the Russians see this as a defensive war, because then you're seen as justifying the invasion.
But this is the problem — because in Europe, having committed to the narrative that this was unprovoked and came out of nowhere, the only answer to why Russia decided to go to war is imperialism: they just want territory. And this shapes what we expect from a war with Russia. If we believe Russia just woke up one day wanting new territory, then a war with Russia means that will be the objective — the Russians for some reason really want to rule over Poland or Germany. But this is what the Europeans imagine a war being, which is why the Dutch did exercises on how to set up POW camps for Russian soldiers they would capture in Europe. I was a bit amazed — why would the Russians enter Europe? What why would they? This is not an imperial war for territory.
What the Russians want is to restore their deterrence — for the Europeans to back off, stop launching drones and missiles into Russia, stop doing it through Ukraine. The purpose of the Russian war would be to restore deterrence and to strike Europe before Europe is ready to strike Russia. None of this requires any Russian boots on the ground in any EU country. All it means is bombing out critical infrastructure across the European continent, creating as much pain as possible, and targeting the military-industrial facilities. But this should be obvious — and it's only obvious if you recognize that the Russians see this as an existential threat. We can't even plan for a proper war because we don't allow the analysis.
Strategic failure and the absence of clear objectives
Steve Jermy: I completely agree, Glenn. I think this points to a failure of strategic thinking. I will often quote General André Beaufre, a French general who wrote a book in 1956 on strategy. He said — I'll paraphrase — "In war, the loser deserves to lose, because his defeat will be a consequence of failures of thinking either before or during the war." We have a very good track record in the West, and in Europe especially, of failures of thinking. We've got Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, now Ukraine, and Iran — all, I would say, defeats because of failures of thinking before the war. If we had done the thinking properly, I think it's likely that with one possible exception, we would have entered none of those wars, because we would have realized they were unwinnable.
At the moment, the Europeans in particular are supporting Ukraine according to a political narrative they've constructed for themselves, whereas the Russians are fighting the war according to a military strategy — and, surprise, surprise, the Russians are winning.
The political narrative is that these strikes into Russia are working, Russia is now weak, the Russian economy is failing. There's no evidence for that, but that's what the narrative is. You get into this circular, cult-like thinking. I can best describe the way the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, the EU, and NATO seem to be operating — and to a lesser extent the White House. I think Trump can go either way. I suspect Vance, Hegseth, and Rubio will be thinking along the lines of reinforcing Europe and supporting this war. But those who are thinking properly strategically will surely come to the same conclusions as us, because they're strategically obvious.
I think the open question is how it now plays out, and I think it will play out according to three timelines. The first is how quickly the E3 weapons will be provided to Ukraine — these are not insignificant weapons. I'm talking about British weapons with warheads of 250 kilograms. That's a significant warhead, and the sort of warhead the Russians will be prepared to take action to prevent being fired into Russia. The second question is how long before the White House realizes that, notwithstanding what Trump has been told at the G7, the Russians aren't losing, the Russian economy isn't failing, and any effort he puts into supporting this war is likely to lead to another defeat. I suspect that will make him want to step back, especially as he's running into the midterms on the back of a first defeat. The third is how long before Putin — who can no doubt see the economic consequences of the self-defeating sanctions the EU has placed on Russia, and now the accelerating problems in our energy networks because of the Strait of Hormuz — how long before the Europeans tip into a significant severe recession, and at that stage say they can't afford this war and need to find a way out.
Somewhere within those three timelines, I think, we'll find the answer to how the war will play out strategically.
US involvement and the question of escalation control
Glenn Diesen: It's hard to imagine how this will play out. With so many variables, it would spiral out of control so quickly. But if you look at the capabilities, I don't think the Europeans would do very well at all. I'm also suspecting that the Russians, while they don't have the same rhetoric of threatening dates for war, are already making preparations. The Oreshnik, for example — I assume it's already going to mass production, and not primarily aimed at the Ukrainians. I think it's for the possibility of a war with NATO. They've seen this over four-plus years of gradual incrementalism from NATO — longer-range missiles, more powerful weapons, slowly removing restraints. They know what's coming, so I think they're already preparing.
Many assume that if there's a fight, the Americans would rush back in and we'd return to the glory days of the Cold War, joined at the hip again. But I suspect the Europeans are no longer the center of the world, and if you don't have a seat at the table, you might be on the menu. If a war breaks out, what would the Americans do? I keep thinking they might treat the Europeans the way we've treated the Ukrainians — yes, you go fight the Russians, we'll send you the weapons, that's how we stand by you. The Europeans would become the new Ukrainians, proxies bleeding themselves white and weakening an adversary. But this time the Americans might be even more apprehensive because it can very quickly spiral into a nuclear exchange.
And just to add — I think this is one of the most dangerous things of all. We're talking about a war with Russia, but usually you'd have a strategy: what does victory look like, how is it achieved? We have none of this. If you're fighting the world's largest nuclear power, which considers itself to be in a fight for its existence, what does defeating it entail? What exactly do you want to achieve? It's quite wild that this is not even a topic for discussion. It's just emotional sloganeering.
Steve Jermy: This is a strategy subject close to my heart — I'm preparing the second edition of Strategy for Action. As you say, there is no evidence anywhere of any strategic thinking. What are the objectives? At the moment, the implicit objectives of the actions the Europeans are taking — escalation through more weapons to Ukraine, supported by the United States — seem to be to bring the Russians back to the negotiating table. But the Russians have already made clear, now that Aklasa has failed and all the other peace initiatives from which they were excluded were dead on arrival, that they can only achieve their objectives in Ukraine militarily.
I thought it was interesting that Putin has also talked about Novorossiya, which doesn't surprise me — it's something I've been speculating about for about a year as a possible ultimate Russian objective. But with unclear objectives and no obvious route to achieve them, I can't think of a single plausible strategy that would allow us to achieve our objectives, whatever they are. Militarily, the Europeans don't have the power to achieve what they're seeking.
Coming back to the United States — although initially there will be those who say support the Europeans, they will be very worried about the risks of nuclear escalation, and rightly so. I don't think the Russians would be the first to pull the trigger. The worry would be that France or Britain decides to do so. I think that's unlikely, but the consequences were it to happen would be profound.
So the American position might initially be to say, "Yes, please be the new Ukrainians, go fight Russia." But after a bit, when they see the destruction being wrought on the European economy and the breakdown of European society, I think they would have rapid second thoughts. A lot of people in the United States — possibly apart from the neocons — would be horrified at seeing what was happening to Europe.
One of the things that also strikes me is that people will often say, "Well, of course the Russians wouldn't do this — we've passed all their red lines and they've just ignored them." I simply don't agree with that. They had two critical red lines stated repeatedly to us for the past twenty years: if NATO expands into Georgia and/or Ukraine, we will respond. And in both cases, when there was a threat of NATO expanding first into Georgia and then into Ukraine, the Russians responded. So don't for one moment think the Russians wouldn't respond a third time — I think they would.
The case for diplomacy and public debate
Steve Jermy: This brings up the alternative pathway — diplomacy. It's clear to me that NATO, even with America on board, is not the omnipotent force so many people think. If NATO couldn't defeat the Taliban, why do we think it could defeat Russia?
The piece of the jigsaw that's missing is diplomacy. Can we not get back to it? I'm not saying it would be easy, but surely in the light of these plausible risks to Europe and to Europeans, ought the Europeans not to be the ones starting to think about talking to Russia, as opposed to waiting for the United States? Is this not something the E3 could do? Is this not something the European Union could do, difficult though it would be?
There's no sense of this at the moment, but there should be. One of the key things we should be doing — we the people, because it's we the people who'll be asked to fight this war and bear its consequences — is having a national debate about this. Any debate is closed off because it's seen as supporting Russia or being a Putin supporter, rather than as having a critical debate about something which is strategically, and has the potential to be existentially, dangerous to Europeans. We don't want to destroy European society. So why can we not at least talk about a plan B — starting to talk to the Russians about what they want, and exploring the possibility of an alternative strategic architecture in Europe?
Surely we should be inviting our leaders to explain why they won't have discussions with Russia, and asking whether we the people are happy to go to war with Russia. Because I suspect the vast majority of people in Europe won't be happy. Over to you, Glenn — what do you think from your part of Europe?
Glenn Diesen: I find it shocking as well that they are taking us to war with Russia with no discussion, no debate. But let me go back to what you said about Russia not upholding red lines. I think Russia escalates differently than NATO. NATO does slow salami tactics, incrementalism — we're only going to do short-range missiles, only defensive; okay, we're going to do long-range but with limitations, you can't strike into Russian territory; and then slowly those restraints are removed. Over four years we went from F-16s being described as World War III to discussing how to take out Russian airbases and attack their nuclear deterrent. That's how we escalate.
The Russians do it differently. You mentioned Georgia in 2008 — they warned against it. But in 2014, when the Russians annexed Crimea in response to the coup, Putin made an analogy in his speech: you can only push a spring so far back before it jumps forward. That's essentially how their escalation works. From 2014 to 2022 — eight years — they were essentially saying: implement the Minsk agreement, let's put an end to this, let's normalize relations. They saw the Minsk agreement being sabotaged, and instead NATO countries buying time and building up a large Ukrainian proxy army. By 2022, they went in.
And then from the first day they tried to negotiate. Zelensky said the Russians contacted him to start negotiating the restoration of Ukraine's neutrality. Once they figured out that the US and UK sabotaged the Istanbul agreement and instead began pumping weapons into Ukraine and putting a boycott on diplomacy, they realized what this was. Then they annexed four oblasts. How is this not responding?
And now with the new involvement, Putin is talking about getting all of Novorossiya, which would include Nikolaev and Odessa, making Ukraine into a landlocked rump state. How is this not responding to escalation? In that interview you referred to, he also brought up Operation Barbarossa — why would Russia sit back and wait for the Europeans to get all their pieces in place and then strike when it's favorable to them? If you know you're going to be in a fight, make sure you throw the first punch. That's a danger with all this war talk against Russia.
I find it fascinating that there's no strategic thinking, no strategic context, even though we have all the data. In the 1990s, American ambassadors, intelligence chiefs, and military leaders all warned that expanding NATO would re-divide the continent. Clinton's own Secretary of Defense considered resigning because it was a stab in the back of the Russians. George Kennan said the same. Then in 2008, the CIA director warned it would trigger a civil war and Russia would reluctantly intervene. Angela Merkel called offering NATO membership to Ukraine a declaration of war. Then in 2014, we topple the government to pull it into NATO, and suddenly it's all unprovoked, it came out of nowhere, Russia is just an imperialist. It's very dishonest.
And I think this is a weakness in NATO — if you're going to get all these countries together and build consensus around fighting Russia, you have to capture the politicians and journalists in these narratives. Everyone has to repeat the slogans, otherwise you're pro-Russian or you're justifying the invasion.
Final thoughts: the alternative media, diplomacy, and the need for public debate
Steve Jermy: I think the alternative media is starting to make a difference. I routinely see comments — and I'm sure you're the same — where 90% say, "Thank goodness for the alternative media, it's the only place we get good information from."
I do think the risks I've talked about are real, and they're the ones we need to be able to discuss. I also think diplomacy is possible. You've got to be brave, but it's possible. Britain brought its war with the IRA to a close after 38 years through talking and diplomacy. To me, that's the most important way out of this.
Let's hope that listeners to this podcast can help spread the word — that the risks of escalation, especially in Europe, where we are escalating against an adversary against whom we cannot defend ourselves, are real. Let's hope we can have a proper public debate in Europe about the risks our leaders are taking us towards, and about whether we can get back on the road to diplomacy. Diplomacy is surely the answer.
Glenn Diesen: I agree. And it's not just our diplomats and politicians who have boycotted diplomacy — they're essentially pressuring the public to do the same. I notice academics as well. If you travel to Russia as an academic, there's pressure imposed on you, as if you are the one who has done something insane by refusing to talk to the other side.
I also notice a very strange development in the discourse around both the war on Russia and the war against Iran. If I say the Ukrainians are not winning, or that the Ukrainian counteroffensive is failing, or that invading Kursk is a horrible idea and they're going to take mass casualties — if you say Ukraine is not winning, then it's pro-Russian, you're cheering for Russia. Same with the Iran war. I said this isn't going to work because there's nothing the Americans can do to prevent the Iranians from striking their bases and shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, so the Iranians are going to win this. Oh, that's pro-Iranian. Apparently the only way you can be patriotic these days is to embrace delusion and pretend you're winning even if you're not.
I even saw an article referring to me in a newspaper here saying that I had claimed the world is multipolar — but that's what Putin wants people to think, because then Russia is a key center of power in the world, so we shouldn't give this gift to Russia, and we should stop saying the world is multipolar. This is the European mindset for me. We don't need to address reality — we'll socially construct our own reality. And somehow we're surprised when, not dealing with the world as it is but as you wish it was, there's no strategic thinking and eventually it's defeat. It should be predictable, but apparently not.
Steve Jermy: I'm not arguing for or against Russia. I'm arguing — and I'm sure you are as well — for clear strategic thinking, free speech, and public debate about the issues that matter. I thought that's what European values were about in the first place. If we can have clear strategic thinking, we have a chance of getting through this. But if we can't, and they keep taking us on the pathway to war, then I think we might get the war we didn't ask for sooner than we thought — because they couldn't be bothered to actually look at the nature of the war into which they were leading us.