Donald Trump has thrown a hand grenade into the room with his embryo ‘peace plan’ to bring an end to the three year-old Russo-Ukraine war.
His unilateral declarations that Ukraine has little chance of recovering its territory taken illegally by Russia in 2014 and after the 2022 invasion, and that Kyiv has no chance of joining NATO in the future, smack of a man desperate to make a splash on the international stage with no regard for the wider implications.
His thoughts were reinforced by his unqualified, unaccomplished, and unintelligent acolyte Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who seems keen to demonstrate early on that he is far from the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Trump has once again deployed his usual bombast and bluster and now, unsurprisingly, wiser and more measured elements in his administration are rowing back on his pronouncements. ‘Of course’, they are now saying, ‘President Zelensky will be involved in any peace negotiations’.
Phew! Thank goodness they cleared that one up! For his part, Zelensky quite rightly declared that if Ukraine wasn’t involved then it wouldn’t accept the imposition of any settlement agreed between Trump and Putin.
US Vice President J D Vance didn’t help matters much when he spoke at the Munich Security Conference this weekend. Rather than expand on how the USA would bring about peace in Ukraine, he chose to lambast European states on disinformation, migration, and free speech. This went down like a bucket of cold sick.
We do need to acknowledge, however, that these are the early days of the new, immature, and inexperienced US administration, which appears to be staffed by likewise immature and inexperienced politicians like Vance and Hegseth, but we shouldn’t be surprised by the underlying message.
The USA wants Europe to adopt a greater share of the defence burden, a constant theme during Trump’s first term in office. And yet when now it has been explicitly stated European politicians seem to be truly shocked. Why? It has plain and obvious for all to see for years.
It is not yet clear how Europe will respond to what might be seen as the USA withdrawing into isolationism once again. But in the sphere of military defence it’s obvious that European states have to up their game and can no longer presume that the USA will ride to the rescue in times of trouble.
This applies to Britain as much as it does to anyone else. Informed commentators have rung warnings for years now that the decline of the UK’s armed forces needs to be arrested and then reversed. Just the other day General Lord Dannatt, former head of the British army, went on record to say that if asked to contribute land forces to a European security force that might follow any peace settlement in Ukraine, Britain wouldn’t be up to the job.
Similar warnings have been issued by others with regard to the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.
And yet Sir Keir Starmer’s government continues to dilly-dally and pussy-foot around the clear need to increase Britain’s defence budget, stating that it will rise to 2.5% of GDP when economic circumstances allow. Let’s be quite clear here; that’s not enough, and barely sufficient to some of the more glaring gaps in military capabilities. The UK needs a greater and firm commitment now, not years hence.
The Labour party’s position seems to be that defence is not a spending priority when compared to the demands of the NHS, housing, economic development, and, Heaven help us, the green agenda. But all of these will be for nothing if we can’t defend the nation and its interests against the very real risks and threats that we now face.
We need to remind ourselves of Leon Trotsky’s truism that “you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you”. Time for Starmer’s administration to re-assess its spending priorities and build up Britain’s armed forces before it is too late.
Lt Col Stuart Crawford is a defence analyst and former army officer. Sign up for his podcasts and newsletters at www.DefenceReview.uk
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