Showdown at Munich

President Trump has pointed out that the European Emperor has no military clothes. He acting entirely in the interest of the United States. What's the big deal?

The European component of NATO got two wakeup calls last week. Typically it’s seeking to shoot the messenger rather than confront reality, but then since the end of the Cold war NATO has declined from a serious military organisation to a talking shop with a diminishing military capability. Soldiers deal with reality – if they don’t they die. Politicians generally obfuscate in the hope of retaining power.

The first shock was President Trump having a conversation with President Putin about Ukraine. No one from NATO was invited or even consulted and nor was President Zelensky. Bruised egos abounded. No one asked what their participation would have added? Without the support of the United States Ukraine would fold in weeks, if not hours. The other NATO members combined have sent less military kit than the US . It’s not just less, the next biggest donor (Germany) sent less than 20% of the US contribution. If you don’t pay the ante you don’t get a seat at the table.

It’s the same story with financial assistance, as the link shows, but hard military power is what counts if you wish to impose a peace. Zelensky has none, nor does he have any finance. His inspiring rhetoric of three years ago didn’t translate into battlefield success. It’s devastated parts of Eastern Ukraine, damaged much infrastructure, imposed huge casualties and almost 7 million of its people have left, of whom some 250,000 came to the UK. The country’s national debt is close to 95% of GDP. Ukraine exists entirely at the whim of the United States and President Trump doesn’t see why the American taxpayer should fund it. Neither do many of those taxpayers. Zelensky will end up having to choose between the peace he is given or fighting the war without US military and financial support. That’s pragmatism, not appeasement.

Those among the chattering classes who are describing that as a sell out to Putin have clearly spent so long in their ivory towers that they didn’t notice that President Obama shifted US focus to the Pacific and China in 2011, long before the “Little Green Men” seized Crimea and the eastern Donets in 2014. Between 2011 and 2014 UK defence spending was cut by almost 6% in nominal terms. With inflation averaging 2.7% a year in the same period that’s about an inflation adjusted 10% cut, all while the British Army was fighting (and losing) in Afghanistan. Germany, once a lynchpin of NATO, cut its military spending by 14% in 2014-15, the year after Russia annexed Crimea and the Donbass. If the European bit of NATO won’t step up why should the Americans?

With the US focus on China and Asia it’s easy to overlook the role of Russia. A friendly Russia, as many hoped we would have when the Cold War ended, would act as a brake on China. They share a 2,600 mile border. Currently western economic sanctions have given China and Russia shared interests, leaving China free to expand its influence and activity in the Pacific Rim (and beyond). In the 1940s and 1950s the western nightmare was a unified communist block from the Elbe to the Pacific.

Nowadays Russian isn’t communist and the Chinese version is more pragmatic. However today’s China is now technologically and economically far in advance of where the Great Leap Forward left it. It is, at best, a competitor to the United States. A wise President, or at least one wiser than Jo Biden, would ensure that China’s neighbour was a friend of the west, not a major supplier of cheap oil and gas and purchaser of any weaponry available.

To a pragmatic dealmaker like President Trump the United States is better served by having a viable relationship with Russia than it is supporting a failing proxy war to placate a few Europeans, who lack the muscle and willpower to do anything significant themselves. Europe can’t even muster the credible forces necessary to enforce a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine.

The ceasefire line would be about 1,500 miles long. That’s ten times as long as the border between North and South Korea. That border comprises a strip of land about 3 miles deep in which there are no troops. This buffer zone (known as the Demilitarised Zone or DMZ) works, although there are incidents and some 800 North and South Korean troops have been killed there, as have 50 or so American ones. If a similar zone would be established between Russian and Ukrainian forces, peace discussions could begin.

Of course any Ukrainian DMZ would need monitoring by neutral forces sufficient to identify and prevent penetrations by either side. Lots of them, and with lots of hardware. In Korea the US keeps a powerful armoured division close to the DMZ, 20,000 troops, plus air bases and carrier battlegroups nearby. Similar force levels to secure an established DMZ in Ukraine need about 10 armoured divisions.

President Trump has said the US won’t supply them, so where are they to come from? Across European NATO, Poland has four, but then it has a border with Russia and is unlikely to spare any for Ukraine. The UK barely has one (and it’s not ready to deploy). The French have a weak one. The Swedes have a couple of armoured brigades (a brigade is about one third of a division). The Dutch have none, although there is a joint Dutch / German Armoured brigade. The Italians have two armoured brigades and five mechanised brigades, the Spanish have four armoured brigades.

You get the picture. The cupboard is bare and the Europeans will struggle to field sufficient force, let along keep them in position. Of course, first the ceasefire must be produced. If that required a neutral armed force the length of the contact line former Deputy Commander of NATO in Afghanistan Lt Gen Jonothon Riley reckons the manpower bill comes out at something like 200,000 soldiers, about 40 brigades. Who am I to disagree?

In this context Starmer’s willingness to offer security guarantees and out troops on the ground if necessary seems a bit like hubristic cant. How many troops, where, with what fit, doing what and for how long.? The reality of the British Army’s lack of capability and the reasons behind it are explained lucidly here. The heads of the Army spent Friday treating the PM to a bit of a reality check on Friday, listing the tools that they need to stand a chance in a future war. However the army’s problems lie much deeper than that, starting with its inability to retain trained soldiers.

Writing a cheque for new technology alone doesn’t instantly enhance combat power. Soldiers require training, systems need integrating and stockpiles need building. That takes time and of course assumes that the cheque doesn’t bounce. Unfortunately, as Starmer well knows, HM Treasury is strapped for cash which is why he is reluctant to share quite when spending on defence will actually increase to the necessary levels. In the absence of economic growth and with borrowing maxed out maintaining our armed forces means cutting something else. Until President Trump dropped his bombshell, or rather stated the obvious, the government’s hope was that the Robertson Defence review would reshuffle the deckchairs on the military titanic, buy a few new weapons and (most important) generate some photo ops and sound bites. Kicking the military can down the road for 20 years that has got us here. The government machine under a variety of political leaders has simply left the Realm and British Interests undefended.

All the above was more or less known and more or less obscured by the usual collusion of Whitehall, Westminster, the BBC and a cowed an idle press corps. Then came the JD Vance speech. One sentence summed up all the root problems of many European NATO members, particularly the British:

“If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.”

He went on:

"You cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail, whether that’s the leader of the opposition, a humble Christian praying in her own home, or a journalist trying to report the news.”

And that’s the real, awful truth of how this government operates. With their economic policies already in tatters and their support in freefall the last thing they will want to see is a ballot box. Sending an unprepared, ill-equipped and undertrained Tommy (or Thomasina) Atkins into harm’s way in Ukraine won’t win this Labour government any more votes than invading Iraq did for the last Labour governments. Nor will it make much difference for Ukraine. It’s simply displacement activity to obfuscate clear analysis and inconvenient realities.

Zelensky and his fellow Ukrainians have found out the hard way that Westminster, the Bundestag, the Élysée and (above all) Brussels are very long on words, very short on capability and money. The former occupant of the White House liked writing cheques and was susceptible to the influence of the likes of Boris Johnson. Biden is gone and Zelensky’s war is over (bar quite a lot of shouting).

If NATO can’t provide sufficient troops for the peacekeeping force (even if President Putin would accept them) perhaps India can. It has a strength of some 1.2 million soldiers (almost 20 times the size of the British one). Those are organised into some 14 Corps (a Corps is two or more divisions) which are well equipped. That’s a chunky force that is up to the job.

What would India ask? My guess would be a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Plus some costs….