Mark Sedwill, former national security adviser to former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former British cabinet secretary, called for systematic pressure on Kaliningrad in an article for The Independent.
He quotes the words of the ancient Chinese strategist Sun Tzu: “The supreme art of war is to break the enemy's will without a fight. Attack where he is not prepared; show yourself where you are not expected.“
Sedwill believes that NATO should act in the same way.
He says Europe must “target Russia's vulnerabilities, including its aging infrastructure, its dependence on from Western systems, its isolated Kaliningrad enclave“, as well as its military-industrial complex.
“We need to put systematic pressure on their Kaliningrad enclave, which depends on access to land and sea through NATO territory“, believes the former British cabinet secretary.
Sedwill also added that Europe should refuse to insure Russia's so-called “shadow fleet“, seize vessels in NATO waters and adopt extraterritorial legislation that would allow the alliance's naval forces to respond to attacks on cables in international waters.
“We need to demonstrate our ability to conduct cyberattacks on Russian energy and military infrastructure“, he stressed.
As Sedwill noted, the risk of such actions “is not that we provoke attacks“. He claims that Russia “is already attacking them“.
“The risk is that failure to set a price provokes further aggression,“ he said.
Sedwill was appointed cabinet secretary, the country's highest civilian government position, by Johnson's predecessor, Theresa May, in 2018. He had been national security adviser since 2017. He resigned in June 2020.