Outsourcing Retaliation Is Not Speculation—It Is Strategy
- john raymond
- Sep 2
- 2 min read
Michael Weiss is right. His remark that European intelligence services will one day outsource retaliation against Russia to Ukraine is not wild speculation. It may have been offered as an ad-hoc observation, but it captures a structural truth I have been emphasizing for some time: the moral and operational center of the West has shifted from Washington to Kyiv.
Ukraine today is more than a frontline state. It is the executor of Western security, the custodian of moral legitimacy, and the workshop of twenty-first century operational security.
This is why I have argued that NATO and EU countries must deliberately operationalize their partnership with Kyiv—channeling resources, intelligence, and authorities into Ukrainian hands not simply to defend Ukraine, but to defend Europe itself.
My executive summary on this path outlines how the EU can prosecute an effective campaign against Russia without tripping over the red lines of formal declarations of war and nuclear reprisal.
Weiss’s formulation points to the inevitable compromise between deterrence and escalation. Direct European retaliation against Moscow risks invoking the framework of Mutually Assured Destruction. But retaliation through Ukraine is different: it is deniable, proportional, and shielded by Kyiv’s already declared war footing.
In practical terms, this means that when Russia attempts to assassinate European leaders by jamming navigation systems or strikes NATO infrastructure through proxies, Ukraine becomes the executor of justice on Europe’s behalf.
This arrangement is not a betrayal of NATO’s purpose. It is its evolution. The alliance has always depended on both credibility and restraint—credibility to ensure aggression is punished, restraint to avoid uncontrolled escalation.
In Ukraine, Europe has found the perfect instrument: a partner with the legitimacy, willpower, and operational ingenuity to hit back at Russia where it hurts, without dragging the continent into open nuclear confrontation.
The narrative inversion from Moscow and Trump will predictably cast such acts as “reckless provocations.” But the truth is that Europe has no other path.
To do nothing is to invite further attacks on its leaders, its infrastructure, and its populations. To act directly risks nuclear escalation.
The solution—outsource retaliation to Ukraine—has already been taking shape. Weiss is right to say the time will come. I argue it has already arrived. And that was before this latest provocation.
Make no mistake, Ukraine is not just defending its own freedom. It is carrying the sword for the wider West.
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