The essence of Keir Giles’ timely and excellent book Who will defend Europe? lies in his curt observation that, to deal with the global challenges facing it, “Europe needs a strategy rather than an inexhaustible supply of excuses.” it is not only Europe which should be thus chastised.
A senior consulting fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Programme, Giles is one of the UK’s most authoritative and incisive analysts of Russia, focusing particularly on the Russian military. He lays out soberly and comprehensively the self-imposed constraints that have prevented the EU and NATO from adjusting swiftly enough to the end of the post-post-
Cold War era and the return of strategic competition.