Recently in Budapest, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio made an unusually pointed observation. “Usually when you’re trying to end wars, the international community applauds you,” he said. 

“This is one of the few wars I’ve ever seen where some people in the international community condemn you for trying to help end a war.”

The remark was widely read as a response to the atmosphere that followed the Munich Security Conference, where efforts to halt the war in Ukraine had unexpectedly become a source of political friction among Western elites.

February 2026 in Munich marked the convergence of two dynamics: Washington’s push for “European responsibility” and London’s determination to secure its role in a reconfigured security architecture. 

The United States is pressing for de-escalation and burden-sharing; Western Europe, irritated and resistant, is moving in the opposite direction. 

Under pressure from the Trump administration’s emerging foreign-policy line, the Munich conference became less a forum for debate than a display of Britain’s ambition to act as architect and custodian of Western Europe’s “old regime” defence policy.

Speaking in Munich, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer offered what amounted to a strategic thesis: “Hard power is the currency of the age.” This was not rhetorical flourish. It reflected a broad consensus within the British establishment – across the military, intelligence services, bureaucracy, and the financial structures of the City of London – about the country’s long-term security course.

Starmer’s emphasis was clear: Britain must prepare for armed conflict.

The language of “hard power” carries a specific operational meaning. In official Western rhetoric, terms like “disinformation,” “cyberattacks,” and “sabotage” are presented as unavoidable features of modern conflict. 

In practice, this means sustained interference in societies’ cognitive environments, attacks on critical infrastructure, disruption of logistics chains, and pressure on energy, transport, financial, and communications systems. 

Competition has shifted into a realm where formal declarations of war are no longer required.

This was openly acknowledged by MI6 chief Blaise Metreweli, who described today’s confrontation as taking place “in the space between peace and war,” adding that “the front line is everywhere.” The grey zone, in other words, has become the main battlefield.

Britain’s 2025 military strategy codifies this approach. It embraces permanent hybrid confrontation and introduces the concept of a “defence dividend,” treating military spending not as a burden but as a driver of industrial policy.

Ukraine remains the key hub in this system, but the network extends far beyond it into the north, the Baltic, the Caucasus, Africa, the Arctic, and other vulnerable regions.

For Britain, a prolonged conflict offers a way to exhaust Russia while waiting out the US political cycle, hoping to cement its role as Western Europe’s central security coordinator. The divergence between London’s strategy and Washington’s current priorities creates space for ad hoc coalitions and maneuvering among those invested in permanent tension.

For Russia, this presents a challenge that demands a clear understanding of Britain’s strategic mechanics. London is conducting a multidimensional campaign on land, at sea, underwater, in cyberspace, and in the realm of perception. Any effective response must be equally multi-dimensional and focused on exposing the internal contradictions of a network that is neither eternal nor invulnerable.

*Oleg Yanovsky is a lecturer in the Department of Political Theory at MGIMO, member of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy. This is the abridged version of the original text.