Empty words on Ukraine spell doom for Nato
We are promising forces we do not have, to enforce a ceasefire that does not exist, under a plan that has yet to be drawn up, endorsed by a superpower that is no longer our ally, to deter an adversary that has far greater willpower than we do. Apart from that, Britain’s defences are in great shape.
That is the upshot of this week’s joint declaration by Britain, France and other countries launching a multinational force that will be supposedly deployed in a postceasefire Ukraine. It came as Donald Trump reiterated his desire to seize Greenland from Denmark, by force if necessary. The world order is melting faster than the Arctic ice and our rulers have yet to realise it.
Who does Sir Keir Starmer think he is kidding? Ukraine is two and a half times bigger than the old West Germany, where during the Cold War Britain had 50,000 soldiers, alongside 300,000 Americans, plus 200,000 French, all backed up with ample reserves and air power, as well as West Germany’s army. Even that felt on the skinny side against the might of the Warsaw Pact: we would have had to resort to nuclear weapons within days of a real war.
Now the British Army has at best 25,000 combat-capable troops — to do everything. We are struggling to keep even 1,000 of them deployed as a tripwire in Estonia. We have almost no air defences for them, or for the home front. Our munitions and spare parts stockpiles (top secret information here: just google it) would run out within days of a real war. Our hollowed-out armed forces lack enablers: the boring-butexpensive transport, engineering, maintenance, construction and other capabilities necessary to keep a deployed force effective. Our Nato allies are exasperated with our foot-dragging, especially when it is accompanied by chest-beating bombast.
And if we do scrape together a ragtag force to spend a few months in Ukraine, what are the rules of engagement? What happens if a Russian drone hits our troops? How many must it kill or injure before we shoot back? If so, against whom and with what? What happens if Ukrainians fight back against a Russian raid? Do we join them? What if Russia stages a provocation (such as the fake attack on Vladimir Putin’s palace) and then retaliates? None of this is clear. We are piling what is left of our credibility on to a bonfire and handing Putin the matches.
Nato had credibility in opposing Warsaw Pact. That is lacking now
What could perhaps work is a small Anglo-French force backed by a convincing US security guarantee.
That was the approach we took in West Berlin, a militarily indefensible, symbolically vital bastion of western freedom deep inside communist East Germany. But this worked because American presidents from JFK to Ronald Reagan made it clear that any Soviet attack on the former German capital would trigger war.
Nato’s greatest asset in the confrontation with the militarily superior Warsaw Pact forces was not its military clout but its credibility.
That is lacking now. Though two US envoys were present at the Paris launch of the joint declaration, they spoke only of vague “security protocols”. There is no sign of the US putting Putin under pressure to agree to the proposed (and still vague) ceasefire deal, let alone taking on any risk when it comes to enforcing it.
Under Trump, the US has become a predator not an ally. Pressuring Denmark over Greenland is the death knell for Nato: for hawks in the White House, shedding European allies and associated entanglements is a bonus not a minus. Without US brains in planning and intelligence, muscle (stockpiles and enablers), and the political will to fight, Nato is an empty shell, like the villages that Prince Potemkin erected to impress Catherine the Great. In this new might-is-right world, Trump and Putin play by the same rules. They will not stop until someone stops them. They both need trophies abroad to distract opinion from their failures at home.
European Nato allies will bleat in protest but none is currently capable of deterring either Russia or the US.
We have spent 35 years paring back our defences. Britain’s threadbare nuclear deterrent is utterly dependent on US goodwill for the regular servicing of the Trident missiles that deliver the warheads.
Trump can end that agreement with a stroke of his black felt-tip pen.
Britain can no more have a real stand-off with the US than a dog can row with its master.
Yet this could be a time to put Putin on the back foot. He has just lost yet another ally in Nicolás Maduro; the regime in Tehran is wobbling; his grip on the Caucasus is slipping. A united, confident European coalition could be waging effective political warfare inside Russia, working on economic, social and geographical stress fractures.
Putin is willing to take risks and act while we dither and pretend
Instead it is Putin who is playing divide and rule with us. He is willing to take risks. We are not. He is willing to impose sacrifices on his people. We are not. He acts. We dither and pretend. As Julian Lindley-French of the Alphen Group, a network of security bigwigs, points out, “Until Britain, France and Germany start properly investing in hard military power rather than talking about it then the théâtre d’absurde that has been and is European defence will continue.”
The final scenes in this drama are fast approaching. But they will be bleak and humiliating, not absurd.
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