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- Feb 16, 2016
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Keir Starmer’s plan for European force in Ukraine is evaporating
Years of underspending on defence has left Europe with forces that are incapable of deploying abroad in strength for protracted periods
Keir Starmer’s plan for European force in Ukraine is evaporating
Years of underspending on defence has left Europe with forces that are incapable of deploying abroad in strength for protracted periods
www.thetimes.com
There is a tendency these days to conflate successful diplomacy with garnering favourable headlines. Negotiating powder is rarely kept dry. Keeping an opponent guessing about one’s intentions and capabilities is secondary to issuing punchy soundbites that play well with the media. Politicians, feeling the hand of history on their shoulder, fall victim to grandiosity — until grim reality taps them on the other one. This is now happening to Sir Keir Starmer as he watches his vaunted “coalition of the willing” for a muscular European peacekeeping force in Ukraine evaporate.
As reported in this newspaper, appeals from Britain and France for other European countries to contribute to a substantial “reassurance” force in a postwar Ukraine are falling on stony ground. Leading Nato powers like Italy, Spain and Poland have offered zero soldiers and it is likely that the plan will be ditched in favour of a mere training mission. All a far cry from early March when, in the febrile atmosphere created by Donald Trump’s seeming abandonment of Ukraine, the talk was of Europe going it alone with a force possibly in the region of 60,000 combat-ready ground troops.
The infeasibility of this proposal was rapidly identified by everyone, including this newspaper. Years of underspending on defence has saddled Europe with forces that, though sometimes impressive on paper, lack essential assets and are incapable of deploying abroad in strength for protracted periods. Britain itself, together with France, the continent’s primary military power, would be hard put to field more than a single brigade of some 6,000 soldiers in Ukraine for an extended period. Given a similar French contribution, it would make even a modified proposal of 30,000 peacekeepers difficult to fulfil. This was obvious, yet in a burst of hubris, Sir Keir, encouraged by President Macron, promised to deploy a meaningful force for “as long as it takes”.
~Snip~
This embarrassing lesson in Europe’s inability to function as an independent military power on its own doorstep will dismay those who believe it must become one, given the uncertainty over the US commitment to Nato. But it is not only a rapid increase in capability that is needed. Europe cannot for ever tolerate 30-odd separate foreign and defence policies during a crisis. Ad hoc coalitions will not do. And neither will soundbite diplomacy.
Commentary:
Once more President Trump is right and correct. Europe has too long depended upon America for it's security...
Now is cannot muster a 30,000 peace keeping force much less defend itself against a Russian attack.
Notably Europeans financial contributions to the war in Ukraine have been far less than ours and is also backed by Russian assets that the Euros control. In addition, they do not choose to send their young men to a meat grinder unwinnable war.
For nearly three years we heard Biden publicly stated that a “minor incursion” might be okay. Addition, Kamala gave a speech in Ukraine almost immediately before the invasion hinting that Ukraine might be admitted to NATO. That was Russia’s line in the sand after it had been promised that Ukraine would never be in NATO.
Putin does not fear Starmer, Macron, or Europe for that matter. They are paper tigers. But he does fear the political and trade sanctions Trump can can impose upon him for the rest of his presidential tenure and perhaps beyond.
