{"id":369990,"date":"2025-08-24T15:05:26","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T15:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/369990\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T15:05:26","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T15:05:26","slug":"europes-peace-through-weakness-hypocrisy-in-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/369990\/","title":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s \u2018Peace Through Weakness\u2019 Hypocrisy in Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Europe\u2019s vision for ending the war in Ukraine might fairly be summed up<\/a> as \u201cpeace through strength.\u201d The question now is whether that\u2019s anything more than a mere vision.<\/p>\n

For years, Europe has deemed Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine to be an existential threat to European security. To that end, it has provided Ukraine with military assistance and foreign aid in hopes of transforming its neighboring state into a hardened country capable of defending itself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But that transformation was always a long-term goal. And the Trump administration\u2019s acceleration of the timeline<\/a> for a peace deal with Russia means that it\u2019s crunch time for Europe: Is it ready to personally provide the strength to secure the necessary peace? Will the Europeans part with their cautious approach and provide troops to Ukraine as a security guarantee, even at the risk of losing personnel and facing political ire at home?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is the core question,\u201d said Rafael Loss, a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEuropeans don\u2019t want to die for Ukraine,\u201d G\u00e9rard Araud, a former French ambassador to Washington, told me over the phone, summing up the sentiment\u00a0expressed\u00a0by several other diplomats and experts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe man on the street considers Ukraine a faraway place and believes Europe has already paid enough,\u201d Araud added. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t want to get physically involved. Tomorrow, if Ukraine was defeated and Kyiv was taken, Europeans will say: \u2018oh, too bad, too bad,\u2019 but then resume their lives as normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the onset of the war, Europe\u2019s policy has been far too reticent, far too scared of how the Russian president might respond, and far too selfish even as Ukrainians form the first line of defense for the whole continent.<\/p>\n

Over the past three years, Europe has imposed economic sanctions, drastically reduced purchases of Russian energy, and aided Ukraine by providing defense equipment. It has come up with several programs\u2014ranging from temporary protection for Ukrainian refugees to recovery funds and duty-free trade regimes to billions in arms and training.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But European leaders have often been accused of engaging half-heartedly\u2014refusing to provide critical weapons such as Taurus missiles<\/a>, doing little to discourage third-party circumvention of sanctions, and refusing to touch the principle of nearly 200 billion euros worth of Russian cash lying in a Belgian bank, which many have argued could be put toward aid for the embattled nation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And they still intend to do more of the same. Last week, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky landed in Brussels to meet up with allies and board a plane to Washington,\u00a0 European Union leaders announced their determination to keep up the economic pressure and issue their 19th anti-Russia sanctions package early next month. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the allies will help Ukraine become a \u201csteel porcupine<\/a>\u201d in reference to building up the country\u2019s defense industry complex.<\/p>\n

The clue to the effectiveness of this approach perhaps lies in the number of the sanctions package. There is no reason to believe that another round of punitive economic measures could discourage Russia from occupying even more Ukrainian land. Strengthening Ukraine\u2019s domestic arms industry would help with longer-term containment, but it could take years and is insufficient to compel Moscow to end the war in the short term.<\/p>\n

Experts who spoke with Foreign Policy believe that if Europe wants to effectively contain Russia, deploying troops in Ukraine has become a necessary safeguard.<\/p>\n

At the White House on Aug. 18, some of the Europeans seem to have<\/a> whispered in U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s ears that they would be willing to deploy troops in Ukraine, but at home those plans are still firming up, with a hushed debate continuing on exactly what kind of troops, how many, and specifically from which nations they could potentially be deployed, and under what kind of U.S. backstop provisions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen it comes to security, they\u2019re willing to put people on the ground,\u201d Trump\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Fox News, referring to Europeans as he ruled out participation of American soldiers in any such force on the ground. \u201cWe\u2019re willing to help them with things, especially, probably, if you talk about by air, because no one has the kind of stuff we have, really, they don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

There has been a flurry of meetings since the return of the entourage of European leaders from Washington, with a goal of deciding the future of Europeans security guarantees to Ukraine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

France and the United Kingdom have been at the forefront of what\u2019s called the \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d\u2014a grouping of 30-plus countries that will participate in monitoring any future peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, with only a handful considering potential troop deployment. The idea remains riddled with challenges, and none of the giants feel strong enough to go in before the Kremlin signs a cease-fire. Most expect some form of U.S. involvement.<\/p>\n

Paris and London have maintained that an end to hostilities is a necessary condition, while French President Emmanuel Macron, who first proposed<\/a> the idea, said<\/a> European troops would be deployed only in \u201cstrategic locations\u201d in Ukraine, and not along the contact line with the Russians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since the meeting in the White House, only Estonia\u2019s premier has confirmed<\/a> that the Baltic nation was willing to \u201ccontribute with boots on the ground.\u201d Denmark<\/a> and Sweden<\/a> have expressed interest in the past, contingent on a cease-fire being reached, and the United Kingdom-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF)\u2014a non-NATO group of 10 countries that can be deployed in support of NATO\u2014may also be willing participants.<\/p>\n

Finland, a part of the JEF, is reluctant, however, and wants to keep its soldiers home instead to guard its 1,340 kilometer (835 mile) border with Russia. Even Poland, which could be next in line unless Russia\u2019s advances are halted effectively now, has so far refused to send armed troops to protect Ukrainians.<\/p>\n

Araud, the French diplomat, suggested that there is \u201cbad blood\u201d between the Poles and the Ukrainians.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEuropean history is very complicated. What is now western Ukraine was taken by the Soviets from Poland. Lviv was largely a Polish city before the Second World War, and [the] Polish far right claims these territories,\u201d Araud said. Russia is playing on these divides, he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even biggies such as Italy and Germany appear to be the more unwilling members of the coalition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea to send troops isn\u2019t well thought through. I don\u2019t think the German parliament would agree to it,\u201d said Andr\u00e9 H\u00e4rtel, a Brussels manager and Russia expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.<\/p>\n

Germany has repeatedly cited a shortage of soldiers and said it is already struggling to meet its existing NATO commitments. Becoming a soldier has no glorious connotations in Germany, where pacifism lingers and many are war averse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Germany\u2019s main objection to sending troops to a war zone is the absence of their American counterparts, who could provide a superior military force in case things get out of hand with Russians.<\/p>\n

Italy has suggested a NATO-like guarantee including the United States, but suggested that it should be one that doesn\u2019t require deployment inside Ukraine or makes allies party to the current fighting. The idea would be to offer a collective security clause that only kicks in if Russia invades again. \u201cThis would make it more acceptable to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,\u201d Giovanbattista Fazzolari, a cabinet undersecretary, reportedly\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0Italian media.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Julian Popov, a Bulgarian British politician and\u00a0a\u00a0senior fellow at Strategic Perspectives, said he was quite certain that European troops would not be deployed on the Ukrainian battlefield but added that it was not even required.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe nature of war, and the technology with which it is fought, is changing so much that it is no longer about sending tanks and planes and soldiers, but much more about high-end technologies,\u201d he said, pointing to how the use of drones have changed the battlefield in Ukraine<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUkraine\u00a0is fast becoming one of the leading producers of new generation defense technologies<\/a>. And I think there is interest in European companies and governments, and the U.S. as well, to financially\u00a0support\u00a0the production of Ukrainian weapons.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Stationing trainers in Ukraine as a reassurance force, especially if they are accompanied by U.S. contingent, would be a much easier sell for European governments, experts said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, deploying a couple of hundred or 1,000 soldiers is one thing; monitoring the contact line is another. That would require more than 100,000 soldiers, and no one in Europe has such a large number of soldiers to spare,\u201d H\u00e4rtel said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEven the French and the British have downsized their proposal\u2014instead of monitoring the cease-fire line, they now want the troops to be present in the Ukrainian backyard, somewhere simply to offer confidence to Ukrainians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Loss, the European Council on Foreign Relations fellow, added that Germany will participate in some manner. But instead of thousands of combat troops, Europeans were more at ease with sending trainers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is more likely that Europe\u2019s training mission\u2014from Germany, Poland, and elsewhere\u2014could move to Ukraine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Europeans may consider a bad deal\u2014one that ends the fighting in Ukraine but emboldens Russia to attack other Eastern European states\u2014to be worse than an end to the war. But it\u2019s increasingly clear that they have few ideas on how to achieve a good deal before Trump loses patience.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For better or for worse, Ukraine is turning into a front-line state for Europe, and its fate remains precarious. Though the Trump administration is reportedly considering continued support on intelligence sharing\u00a0and air cover, Washington\u2019s involvement remains suspect under a whimsical and moody president.\u00a0And yet Trump\u2019s standoffishness\u2014and Putin\u2019s disingenuousness\u2014are poor excuses for some of the biggest economies in the world to abdicate their own responsibilities when it counts the most.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Europe\u2019s vision for ending the war in Ukraine might fairly be summed up as \u201cpeace through strength.\u201d The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369991,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[7499,2000,299,5187],"class_list":{"0":"post-369990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-editors-picks","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115084363316601882","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369990"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369990\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}