London
CNN
–
How did things get so bad and so fast?
European leaders and officials have been blinded to the incredible collapse in American support for Ukraine last week. It is still hard to understand why US President Donald Trump is relying heavily on Ukrainian leader Volodimia Zelensky, parrots the Vitrix misinformation he heard from the Kremlin.
The continental leaders were not part of Russia’s talks this week. They do not know when the US will present the proposed peace agreement to Kiev or threaten the threat of returning to the conflict. And they don’t know what will happen next.
“How this was delivered – after the blow, it’s a real shock,” said Armida Van Rij, senior researcher at Chatham, a London-based think tank and head of the European programme and head of the European programme. I did,” he said. house.
European politicians work through grief. The desperate summit in Paris sparked a raft of Hawkish’s new ideas aimed at assemble the contours of new reality that are uncertain.
Still, important capitals are drifting towards their purposes. Peacekeeping forces, hiked defense spending and new military aid are all proposed, but never in the chorus. The intention of European scatter plots formed half of the stunning split screen this week. On the other side, the US and Russia suddenly became uncomfortable, throwing Ukrainian demands and territory off the negotiation table.
The emergence of leaders may help, some experts say: the way Europe is surrounded by universal intentions and a bridge between Kiev and Washington can be built. The ancestors of the British Kiel and the French Emmanuel Macron are the most obvious candidates, both of whom will visit DC next week.
However, Europe is not known for its unity of defense. All major leaders have election or financial headaches at home. Plus, there’s the annoying question of when and how difficult it is to push Trump back. The government knows that it may destroy that relationship and reach the hands of Moscow.
And the questions persist. “We don’t want to destroy relations with the US,” British defense analyst Nicholas Drummond told CNN. “But what do you do when your nearest allies go to bed with your worst enemy?”
Europe had expected that Trump would not be more interested in the fight for Ukrainian sovereignty than his previous Biden administration, but it was suddenly, clear, unprepared for a bitter split.
The sight of a sitting US president condemning enemy invasions against his besieged allies was phenomenal, eliciting unified condemnation from European leaders. On an emotional and practical level, Europe was fired.
But that shouldn’t be the case. For months, Trump and his inner circle deliberately speculated about the beginning and hypothetical end of the war in Ukraine, and showed indifferent interest in Kiev’s sovereignty, showing that an unpleasant change in policy would come. .
From the moment Trump’s election victory, Van Rige said: But that’s not really happening. Instead, this was waiting to act with genuine urgency.
There are two futures. One wins a peace agreement, the other does not exist. But either of them may need European leadership. The Trump administration has made it clear that its priorities lie on the Indo-Pacific and its own borders.
The selection of the British Prime Minister was the first important move to the European government behind a common goal, and announced a significant change in policy this week.
Western officials said on Wednesday that such forces will have fewer troops of less than 30,000, with a focus on “secure,” ensuring key Ukrainian infrastructure and instilling trust in the province. He said he would work.
Officials said the effort was led by the UK and France. Paris first attacked the boots on the ground last year, but was violently rejected by Europe. However, Priority made clear that America’s “backstop” was important. Officials said such backstops will likely focus on the Air Force and will be ruled by NATO countries like Poland and Romania.
Priorities and Macron are expected to market Trump with these plans in Washington next week.
But there are many unanswered questions – if a NATO soldier is attacked by Russians in Ukrainian non-nat soils, for example, what level of response would it draw?
And the priorities that oversee the squealing troops that have been decreasing in size since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will also require buy-in from Europe. “The British forces are suffering from the cumulative effects of 40 years of decline,” Drummond said.
“It would be very difficult for the military in our current situation,” he said, adding that the government has stepped up to 2.3% of GDP beyond planned hikes but has pushed it beyond the military spending set. I have recognized the Labour Party’s MP. It will be 2.5% over the next few years. “My feeling is that we can handle, but that’s a desperate need to invest in the modern battlefield,” the lawmaker told CNN.
Putting your boots on the ground is not a universally popular idea. Importantly, Poland boasts the largest military in Europe and is an important player in Ukraine, but is reluctant, fearing it will make its own borders more vulnerable.
If an informal small European leadership group comes into shape, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tass will likely expect him to be involved. He will come to the table with an unpleasant truth about the amount they are directing towards defense for large countries like Britain, France and Germany.
And Germany lined up for particularly strict dress down. An inconvenient timing election on Sunday could embarrass the next government for weeks. Probably the next prime minister, Friedrich Merz, used last week’s Munich Security Conference to set the position of Hawkish in Ukraine.
However, Germany’s military spending stands at just 1.5%. Meltz says it needs to be raised, but he avoids a firm commitment. The Russian war already limits German voices in Europe on defense issues. Berlin spent decades of close economic ties with Moscow despite Polish protests. Meltz struggles to get it back.
In any case, there is a clear possibility that a peace agreement agreed by the US and Russia has been rejected by Zelensky, or that Putin will not agree to the peacekeeping forces. If Ukraine is to maintain a difficult war without an end date, European support will become essential.
It means more than just words. Europe also needs to close the military aid gap.
Western officials said this week that Kiev likely received enough military supplies to last until summer.
“Before taking office, Biden got a lot of kits, and the kits are still in there,” he said. But losing America’s contribution would be a major blow. Officials said there is a “quality difference” between American supplies and Europe.
Organizing the part of the decades-long breakup of security relations with the United States is a painful and complicated task. But Europe realized this week that it might be necessary.
“The US is away from 70 years of cooperation,” another UK lawmaker told CNN this week. “It remains an important pillar of NATO and we hope that this will exist throughout time. But we need to have a clear eye for the enemy and its allies.”