Europe is making a lot of noise, and promising a great deal, predicated only after a peace deal is reached and agreed to by Ukraine and Russia, which is no way is going to include concessions for European troops on the ground or a No Fly Zone in the airspace above whatever Trump isn’t ceeding to Russia immediately. As far as I can tell it’s all just talk, and completely unworkable, and won’t ever happen as long as Donald Trump is President of The United States. This is called betting on the come, or in car sales “the assumed close”.
The only thing that secures Ukraines ability to remain a soverign nation at all are European troops on the ground inside Ukraine fighting Russia until it gives up. That’s it. That’s the whole show. Everything other than that is only talk, as Ukraine slides ever further into dissasembly.
The UK also said that it’d send a “peacekeeping” force – I use the quotes here, because that’s the phrase they used, though it wouldn’t really fit the technical definition of a peacekeeping mission – but only if the US backstopped it…but the US has already said that it won’t backstop European forces in Ukraine, so it’s kind of not much of a commitment. I was watching a video on YouTube of someone hammering a British defense official…maybe John Healey? about that point. He kind of kept sidestepping the question.
And I’ve seen a lot of discussion in European news and discussion that seems to be less about Ukraine – a near-term concern – and more about how this impacts Europe on a much-longer-timeframe, like talking about reinvigorating defense industry, which doesn’t make me incredibly hopeful that the top priority here is Ukraine.
John Mearsheimer had some recent video that was completely dismissive of Europe, said that the UK and France are definitely not going to send any forces into Ukraine. He’s always been pretty negative on Ukraine, but it was another datapoint.
Michel Kofman said recently that Europe does have the ability to draw a line in Ukraine. I think that the real question is political will. This would require decisive movement in a limited time window.
Europe is making a lot of noise, and promising a great deal, predicated only after a peace deal is reached and agreed to by Ukraine and Russia, which is no way is going to include concessions for European troops on the ground or a No Fly Zone in the airspace above whatever Trump isn’t ceeding to Russia immediately. As far as I can tell it’s all just talk, and completely unworkable, and won’t ever happen as long as Donald Trump is President of The United States. This is called betting on the come, or in car sales “the assumed close”.
The only thing that secures Ukraines ability to remain a soverign nation at all are European troops on the ground inside Ukraine fighting Russia until it gives up. That’s it. That’s the whole show. Everything other than that is only talk, as Ukraine slides ever further into dissasembly.
The UK also said that it’d send a “peacekeeping” force – I use the quotes here, because that’s the phrase they used, though it wouldn’t really fit the technical definition of a peacekeeping mission – but only if the US backstopped it…but the US has already said that it won’t backstop European forces in Ukraine, so it’s kind of not much of a commitment. I was watching a video on YouTube of someone hammering a British defense official…maybe John Healey? about that point. He kind of kept sidestepping the question.
And I’ve seen a lot of discussion in European news and discussion that seems to be less about Ukraine – a near-term concern – and more about how this impacts Europe on a much-longer-timeframe, like talking about reinvigorating defense industry, which doesn’t make me incredibly hopeful that the top priority here is Ukraine.
John Mearsheimer had some recent video that was completely dismissive of Europe, said that the UK and France are definitely not going to send any forces into Ukraine. He’s always been pretty negative on Ukraine, but it was another datapoint.
Michel Kofman said recently that Europe does have the ability to draw a line in Ukraine. I think that the real question is political will. This would require decisive movement in a limited time window.