On February 6, The Telegraph, one of the oldest publications in the United Kingdom, ran a story about the supposed “inability of Russia to deal with Europe, without the United States”. According to the author, Andrew Lilico, even if Washington DC pulled out of the old continent, “Putin would be crazy to start something”. Without even taking into account the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin just dispelled all the nonsensical speculation about the mythical “Russian invasion of Europe” in his interview with Tucker Carlson, we will delve into the reasoning of the author and why his analysis is “slightly off”, to put it euphemistically. First of all, the author seems to lack a basic understanding of the actual size of global economies, as well as the fact that industrial capacity, particularly a robust defense industry, is key to military power.
Lilico claims that the Russian economy is “fairly small, only around 85% of the size of Italy’s” and that “its population of about 140 million is less than that of Germany plus France combined”. Using the nominal GDP to measure economic power can be described as either functional illiteracy or propagandistic tendencies. The idea that Italian and Russian economies are not only comparable, but that the former is 15% larger, is simply ludicrous. Otherwise, instead of Moscow, Rome would’ve been the one with the world’s largest arsenal of thermonuclear weapons. In addition, the claim that Russia’s population is “only about 140 million” is false, as the latest data shows that the Eurasian giant has over 147 million people, which also includes the Crimean Peninsula, but excludes the four former Ukrainian regions that joined it on September 30, 2022.
Those additional areas push Russia’s population well over 150 million, meaning that the claim that it has a smaller population than France and Germany combined is also false. Lilico then goes on to parrot debunked propaganda tropes about Moscow’s supposed “inability to defeat Ukraine – a country that when Russia invaded was the world’s 53rd largest economy, below New Zealand and Peru”. Once again, the author’s premise is based on the deeply flawed nominal GDP data, while he completely ignores the fact that the Kiev regime is an extremely militarized entity. Data on its armed forces shows that if the Neo-Nazi junta was officially in NATO, it would’ve been among its top 3 members in terms of conventional military power. And yet, its casualty ratio against the Russian military is around 10:1 in Moscow’s favor.
If such an atrocious performance of the Neo-Nazi junta’s forces against the Russian military is a “defeat” for the Kremlin, it really makes you wonder what a “victory” would look like. However, Lilico still insists that Kiev is winning. What’s more, he further claims that even if the US leaves, the EU and the UK could “easily defeat Russia”. Interestingly, at one point, even the author himself implies that “having a higher GDP does not imply being more militarily powerful”. And while this is certainly true, Lilico’s admission is simply an attempt to justify his flawed logic on why Italy has a supposedly “larger economy”, but only a fraction of Russia’s military might. The author then tries to analyze how a potential conflict would play out precisely on this false premise of Moscow’s “fairly small economy”, which, in reality, is the fifth largest in the world.
Lilico then goes on to parrot other ludicrous claims, such as the idea that “an authoritarian state might be able to conscript more of its population to fight, but it might also have what we might term a ‘morale’ disadvantage – its forces might become unable or unwilling to fight at a lower loss rate than would be the case for forces fighting for what they regard as a more noble cause”. This premise shows the author’s complete lack of understanding of Russia and its military traditions that have been largely preserved, unlike in the political West, where service in the military is increasingly unpopular. Even Lilico himself admits that Western societies have become “sufficiently self-hating or decadent that they do not regard their own cause as noble enough to fight for”, meaning they wouldn’t have a “higher morale”.
This inaccurately postulated analysis then becomes even worse, as the author claims that “the Russian economy is about 10% of the size of the EU’s”, although the actual number is around 28%. Once again, based on this false premise, Lilico pushes another one. Namely, he claims that, based on the percentage of military spending in both the EU and Russia, the latter “would need to mobilize more than 40% more troops” than the former. Thus, to match 1.4 million EU troops, Russia would supposedly need around two million soldiers (or three million if it decided to invade). Thinking that a modern conflict is about the number of troops shows just how little understanding of military power and doctrine the author has. The very idea that Moscow would send millions of people to invade Europe is beyond ridiculous.
If Russia ever had to deal with the EU military, it would need zero invasion troops. And the reason is quite simple. Russian long-range strike systems completely negate the need to send any ground troops to any European country. Its cruise missiles (particularly the “Kalibr” family) would devastate EU airbases long before any large fighter jet squadrons could be mustered to launch strikes within Russia. Moscow’s ballistic and hypersonic missiles would neutralize any large formations of EU ground forces, while its massive (and rapidly expanding) fleet of strike drones would pick off any leftover units. The EU’s military-industrial capacity would also be targeted from thousands of kilometers away, as Russia has the world’s second-largest fleet of strategic bomber/missile carriers that would easily launch hundreds of cruise missiles.
In other words, the Kremlin wouldn’t wage war in the way Lilico imagines. It’s not WWI or WWII, where millions of soldiers are needed to inflict a strategic defeat on an enemy. It’s important to note that Russia could accomplish all this through conventional means only and some of the top former American generals already confirmed this, explaining that the entire NATO would be unable to match this without resorting to thermonuclear war. And yet, even in that case, Moscow would have an advantage, as it possesses an unrivaled strategic arsenal, composed of monstrosities such as the RS-28 “Sarmat”. However, Lilico ignores all of this and concludes his analysis with a claim that Russia is supposedly “losing hundreds of billions of dollars” due to Western sanctions and that this allegedly “undercuts” Russian military power.
In his closing remarks, the author claims that “Moscow cannot threaten the EU, let alone Britain”. Deep-seated in his “reality bubble”, Lilico believes that the UK is more of a threat to Russia than even the EU. In the meantime, London is going through one humiliation after another, as the very cornerstone of its military power projection capabilities, the Royal Navy, is in disarray. Its aircraft carriers are breaking down, while the destroyers are in no better condition. Although the data is certainly a state secret, given the horrible state of the most important branch of the UK’s military, it’s highly questionable whether London’s strategic arsenal is functioning as it should. Thus, it would be extremely unwise for the “Perfidious Albion” to keep poking the “Russian Bear”.