„The Wargame”, in real time
In dealing with Putin, „restraint” and „de-escalation” simply don’t work.
In an excellent, if terrifying, Sky News podcast „The Wargame”, you can follow a hypothetical Russian attack on the UK. The script is frighteningly realistic, with all imaginable paraphernalia: COBRA meetings, NATO consultations, frenetic phone calls between heads of state, missiles heading for Britain’s shores, gruesome reports on casualties in London. A scenario, which we are apparently closer to, as Wednesday’s events in eastern Poland chillingly indicated.
Interestingly, most actors in „The Wargame” are… former British cabinet members, intelligence chiefs and prominent analysts, with Ben Wallace (until recently UK Defence Secretary), playing the Prime Minister, and the Atlantic Council’s Elisabeth Braw assuming the role of NATO Secretary General.
The screenwriters have done their utmost to reflect the current state of affairs among Western allies and the deteriorating transatlantic relationship. At a certain point, after the first wave of Russian strikes, the fictitious British Foreign Secretary contacts the fictitious U.S. Secretary of State to feel out what Washington’s response would be. The outcome of this conversation couldn’t be more shocking for the top UK diplomat: the U.S. Secretary of State makes it abundantly clear, that there would be no reaction, strongly suggesting „restraint” and „de-escalation”. Because today „the U.S. President’s key priority is peace”.
Hopefully, after 19 Russian drones violated Poland’s airspace, causing damage on the ground, the actual president of the United States will finally understand that in dealing with Putin „restraint” and „de-escalation” don’t work.
By the way, „The Wargame” premiered last June, but the plot is set in the first week of October, 2025.
Just a month from now.
Author: Marek Magierowski is the Director of „The Strategy for Poland” program at the Freedom Institute in Warsaw, and a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. He previously served as Poland’s deputy foreign minister, as well as ambassador to the United States and to Israel.
