Britain can offer boots on the ground — but not for ever
It takes a special kind of creativity to look at Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine and conclude the real problem is that Kyiv hasn’t surrendered enough of its own country. Yet that is where the White House seems determined to drag us — towards a “peace plan” in which the victim is told to gift-wrap the spoils of war for the aggressor.
My own reaction to the 28-point plan was blunt: “sickening”. Sickening that, once again, the loudest voices pushing Ukraine to capitulate come from Donald Trump’s orbit. This is not deal-making; it is capitulation masquerading as diplomacy — the sort of swaggering short-termism that hands an invading dictator exactly what he couldn’t win by force.
The leaked 28-point US draft genuinely shocked the civilised world.
This was the USA, a country that has long fashioned itself as the defender of freedom, demanding that an invaded democracy cede territory not yet taken by Russia, accept limits on its armed forces, abandon efforts to pursue Russian war-crimes cases, and commit never to seek Nato membership.
After the outcry, a hurried “revised” version emerged, paired with a more palatable European counter-plan. And through it all Putin behaved exactly as you’d expect — like a neighbourhood racketeer demanding protection money, insisting no deal is possible unless Ukraine retreats from more of its own land, effectively rubber-stamping his annexations.
A peace deal may not crawl out of this diplomatic swamp anytime soon, but if one does, Britain will have hard choices to make. How should we respond? Even if we want to put boots on the ground, can we? Do we have the manpower, the kit, the resilience or the money — or would we simply be bluffing our way into a risk we can no longer credibly carry? Let me take each question in turn.
First: should the UK put boots on the ground? The honest answer is that it depends on whether there is a genuine peace to keep. I’ve long worried that Putin will treat any agreement not as a settlement but as a pitstop, a chance to rearm, regroup and prepare his next lunge westward. It’s exactly what happened after Crimea: he tested the West, met little resistance, and concluded he could swallow more of Ukraine at his leisure. So no, we cannot commit to deploying British troops without seeing the shape of a final deal.
If it is tilted towards Moscow, we should think very carefully before sending a single British soldier into the middle of a “peace” Putin has no intention of honouring.
Next: do we actually have the troops to put on the ground? The answer depends on scale. A large, prolonged deployment would seriously stretch us; a focused, coalition-led mission is entirely within reach. I know this because I’ve done it. When Nato called for UK forces in the Balkans in 2023, I ordered the deployment which was rapid, professional and carried real weight. And when I later presented medals to those returning troops, the pride on parade was a reminder of what Britain can still deliver when the mission is clear and the cause is just. So yes, supported by allies, and anchored in a genuine peace, Britain can deploy.
If we had the cash we could rebuild our army. We don’t
But the harder question is what any commitment would actually look like.
Are we talking about a defined, timelimited deployment or a standing presence on Europe’s new fault line? The current plan sounds far more like the latter, and in which case those warnings reportedly given privately by defence chiefs to the defence secretary recently take on a sharper edge. A longterm, high-readiness deployment cannot be done on goodwill and optimism alone. It demands people, equipment and predictable funding — not just press releases.
Which brings us to money. The government eagerly signed up to Nato’s new ambition for members to move towards spending 5 per cent of GDP on defence. This was a figure designed as much to impress Donald Trump as to deter Vladimir Putin. But where is that money now? Not a whisper of it in the budget. Not a line, not a hint, not even the pretence of a down payment. If the cash were genuinely starting to flow, we could begin rebuilding the long-term resilience — troops, equipment, munitions, logistics — required for Britain to help lead any European peacekeeping force in Ukraine. But since the fanfare of that announcement in June, what has actually happened? Nothing, based on Wednesday’s budget.
Ministers must understand that military objectives cannot be magicked out of thin air, which is why the silence around funding really matters. If a genuine peace plan emerges — one that asks Britain to contribute troops, perhaps for years — ministers will face an uncomfortable moment of truth. They will need to ask defence chiefs what is possible, not what would look good in a press release. And the answers may be far more candid than Westminster is used to hearing.
If a peace plan does finally land, but is little more than an artful attempt to dress up surrender to an invading autocrat as statesmanship, then ministers won’t be asking our armed forces to keep the peace — they’ll be asking them to stand guard over a political illusion. You can only disguise surrender as strategy until the moment someone in uniform is told to enforce it.
Arguments about money aside, we should all feel deeply uneasy about asking Britain’s brave men and women to defend a deal that has already fundamentally betrayed the borders of a European democracy. That would have the makings of a peacekeeping mission destined to not end well.
Sir Grant Shapps is the former secretary of state for defence
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