With warnings made about what Portugal should do about sending troops to Ukraine, the admiral also asks for special attention to the military situation in the Azores
Many people still wore masks in public when Henrique Gouveia e Melo went from vice admiral to admiral, also leading the Navy’s General Staff.
And it was with the vaccination campaign underway that, just two months after the admiral took over as leader of one of the branches of the Armed Forces, Vladimir Putin decided to order the invasion of Ukraine.
Four years later, the man who was a figure in the last Presidential elections came to CNN Portugal to give his vision about a changing world.
For Gouveia and Melo there are two quick conclusions to be drawn, one political and one operational, the latter simpler. The war quickly turned into a scenario with “unmanned systems that began to dominate the battle space and deny the battle space.”
The admiral naturally talks about drones, which have become the main weapon on both sides, making the battle “asymmetric”.
On the political level, Gouveia e Melo remembers that we arrived here after the Treaty of Westphalia signed in 1648, when States began to be considered sovereign within their borders, accepting each other as equals in an international logic.
The Yalta conference, which took place months before the end of the Second World War, confirmed this, for almost a century later Vladimir Putin tore apart the logic of International Law.
“These rules are being questioned, it is the great political consequence”, points out the admiral, noting that there is no longer equality between States, with the rule of force now reigning, instead of the rule of law.
And if Russia is still confined to Ukraine, where Gouveia e Melo sees a genuine “quagmire” for the Kremlin, there is always the chance that ambitions will turn more towards the West.
“We don’t know if Russia will divert its military machine to another area, naturally it will be the Baltics, which interferes with NATO, and then we could have a medium-large scale conflict”, he reiterates, remembering that countries like China may feel legitimized to make territorial decisions based on this war.
If this scenario comes to pass, nuclear powers will be in confrontation, even if the United States decides to stay apart. Although they have far fewer bombs, France and the United Kingdom also have nuclear weapons.
Furthermore, and according to Gouveia and Melo, who do not see Europe as an “international player” due to the lack of a “coherent foreign policy”, the nuclear deterrence of these two countries together could be enough to dissuade Russia.
“Russia will take Europe seriously. A prolonged conflict between the European Union and the Russian Federation, the Russian Federation has everything it needs to lose this conflict, unless it reverts to a nuclear war, but that is unthinkable, because the nuclear warheads that France and the United Kingdom have are sufficient. It is not necessary to have a thousand nuclear warheads, 200 or 300 are enough to destroy the entire territory”, he emphasizes.
Now, according to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), France has 290 nuclear warheads and the United Kingdom has 225. Much less than the 5,459 of Russia, the country with the most bombs, but enough, according to Gouveia and Melo, to deter the enemy.
Noting that Europe may have woken up late, the admiral predicts that the greatest danger lies in the next three years. This is the period that coincides with Donald Trump in the White House and Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.
“Europe is rearming, but for five, six years from now”, notes Gouveia e Melo, suggesting that until then there is a defenseless Europe, which is why it is necessary to “trap Russia in Ukraine”.
Looking ahead, Gouveia e Melo maintains the idea that care must be taken when sending European troops to Ukraine. The admiral even asks that Portugal not be “so naive and willful” to do so, highlighting the greater importance of placing forces in Greenland, which will send a message in relation to the Azores.
“One day we may need to put forces in the Azores to dilute the temptation of an administration that thinks it can change international rules”, he warned, noting, however, that there are many advisors of Portuguese origins in Donald Trump’s circle, which “protects us a bit”.
