Reports indicate that Donald Trump’s incoming administration is exploring a peace proposal for the Russia-Ukraine conflict that would involve British and other European troops enforcing a buffer zone along the frontline.
The proposed plan would see the U.S. scale back its direct involvement, with European forces taking responsibility for maintaining the buffer. According to sources cited in the Wall Street Journal, Trump’s team believes the cost and risks of enforcing peace should fall on European countries rather than the U.S., aligning with the “America First” stance he championed on the campaign trail.
The proposed 800-mile buffer zone, patrolled exclusively by European forces, is reportedly being discussed within Trump’s circle as a means to halt hostilities without additional U.S. military commitments.
Trump’s advisers have expressed scepticism about sending American troops or funding the peace enforcement effort, with one insider quoted as saying, “We can do training and other support but the barrel of the gun is going to be European… We are not paying for it.”
This proposal has drawn significant criticism, particularly from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has described any move to concede territory as dangerous for Europe. Zelensky, addressing European leaders in Budapest this week, warned that “a just peace can be bought only by showing strength,” adding that conceding to Russia’s territorial claims would be “suicidal for all of Europe.”
Senior UK security officials reportedly reacted with anger, expressing that the proposed buffer zone plan appears to cater to Russian interests by legitimising Moscow’s hold over occupied Ukrainian regions.
The plan, they argue, undermines NATO’s unified support for Ukraine’s sovereignty. The proposal also arrives amid remarks by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who, following Trump’s election victory, disparaged NATO as outdated and overly reliant on U.S. leadership, claiming that without American support, NATO’s influence would decline.
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We did something like this before the start of WW2 and look where that lead.
Our reaction so far is remniscent of the prelude to WW2. If we agree to ruzzia keeping territories for “peace” its literally Czechoslovakia all over again.
Quite true and everything must be done to support those in the USA in the Trump administration who will realise this.
Unfortunately the BBC USA is still not yet where it should be although an improvement. Watching its improper wake during the election night was quite difficult.
There must be a realisation that there has been a turning point in US politics where the old guard have been rejected but in which some of this is good and some not so good.
We need to invite Trump to the UK early on and treat him with due respect this time.
We dont want him being led off in the wrong direction for the UKs good.
Crucial difference(I agree it is appalling) is that at the time we had a huge army, navy & air force & we were rearming urgently. Today we have negligable forces & are sleepwalking barely maintaining that, let alone rearming.
Vous sortez du secteur américain?
For me a partition of Ukraine is only plausible if rump Ukraine joins NATO quickly. It has to come at a bigger price for Putin
agreed. I think this is the best option. Both sides get what they want and dont get what they want. Russia gets to keep the stolen land, ukraine gets to be in nato to ensure no land ever gets stolen again.
and all NATO countries will have to commit to 3%. It should be the end of the pivot to the pacific – forget east of Suez and Aukus and concentrate on Russia since Trump couldnt care less about Europe
I supported the pivot to the Pacific, and still do.
However, if Trump thinks we have to face Russia alone we should be clear the USA faces China alone.
But I’m yet to be convinced it is anything more than typical Trump businessman mode in trying to get Europe’s major nations, including our own useless shower, to start taking defence seriously.
When the decision was made to pivot, the Putin threat was underestimated. Now we know its real, its impossible to do both. UK would have to go back to 1960s/70s levels of defence % spending to do both in a meaningful way. I don’t particularly think we should get involved in the SCS but do have some residual sympathy for the aussies who we would let down if we reconsidered. Also, Aukus makes the next gen SSN affordable for us probably
Question: do Australia and the UK really need US involvement to go ahead with AUKUS in terms of technology could they not just go it alone?? and also the fact that Trump has won again should be a wake up call to Europe in that they should stop being so overly reliant on America, but then again I don’t think the US want’s a strong Europe as they would see that as competition in the long run??
The details of the Aukus nuclear sub deal are quite rightly secret. What can be ascertained however is that Australia wants a British submarine hull design (eg smaller with less manpower requirements than a block 4 or 5 Virginia class with the double sized 18-24 cells VLS strike payload modules.
They want British hull and tractor, American combat management system and American weapons. British sonar or American sonar? Probably British. So the Aussie Aukus will be really mixed. UK Aukus will have as much British content as possible but might end up with American combat management system and strike VLS cells but likely only 12. Still a big improvement over Astute class launching land strike missiles in very limited numbers from torpedo tubes.
I’m hoping Aukus programme can be moved to the left and brought forward far earlier ideally 5-7 years earlier and we can try to retain the last 2 Trafalgar class as war reserve?
I agree with you DM, it probably is a bit of a salesman tactic but there’s an underlying belief there too. If Trump 1.0 was looking for NATO to spend more on it’s own defense then it worked (with further help from Russia invading Ukraine). Given the escalation in tension in Europe, I think Trump 2.0 is saying what most on here already believe, all European states need to be spending even more and %ages of GDP is not the way to go. Now is the time to be asking, “What do we need? Then pay for it!” Of course, the answer to “what gives” is the tricky bit. It strikes me as arrogant and complacent that Europe have leant so heavily on the US for so long now. I think Trump is only right in demanding more from us all.
A reminder that only one NATO nation has ever leant on other NATO members to provide manpower and equipment to a shooting war, and it wasn’t any European country.
Ridiculous argument. Without USA there would not be Western Europe due to our feckless political class.
I suspect the issue will be that all the NATO nations up there defence spending to 2% of GDP, then Trump will push for 3% ( that was mentioned last week) which from the point of view of most NATO members are only facing Russia is a bit overkill
The thing is Trump will always care more about having things to run on than solving problems (it’s why he blocked the border bill, so he could run on immigration).
If Europe spends 2% (which most of us do) he will start to cry to his voting base about 3% for certain. It’ll never be enough spending for him.
Maybe some one should point out to trump that Poland as a % of GDP are spending more then the US !!
As I said, he doesn’t actually care. “Europe isn’t paying their NATO membership fees,” is a ridiculous line, but it buys votes. Trump threatening to not help NATO members who don’t pay 2% is patently stupid since any NATO member even potentially activating Article 5 is paying more than 2%, but he’ll keep squawking that line because it’ll get him a third term (if he lets an election happen).
Like DP above says correctly GDP numbers were just a remnant of peace time reasoning.
Peace ended, now if war is to be won then the necessary money and eventually troops will need to come. 2, 3, 10% whatever of GDP to achieve the mission results.
Note that with Russia able to get North Koreans and eventually others the Ukranian troop situation will get worse.
Why do you support the pivot to the Pacific? To counter the Chinese dragon? I think that should be Main Effort for the US, Japan, South Korea, Australia and NZ.
Perhaps the RN should pivot to the Pacific with at least one CSG and 1-2 SSNs periodically present, whilst keeping something (not much of course) back for home waters (incl Channel and North Sea) and Eastern Atlantic…and the RAF and the Army focus on Europe.
As in your second paragraph mate, militarily.
The “pivot” as some have been saying to death here for years is not all about military, but trade, and alliances. AUKUS and GCAP with Japan are two.
The main effort must always be European NATO, that is a given.
But I was always concerned Labour would pull out completely ( based on their own rhetoric over the last few years which we have done to death here ) giving up bases along the way that give us strategic reach.
And as a P5 UNSC and G7 member, with our links and history, I want to see the UK globaly engaged.
As it is, I agree with Jonathan that should it kick off with China, we could only really help relieve US forces from further west in the Med and western Indian Ocean. Depending on Trump, of course. If he is not helping Europe we can leave the US to it with China and sit aside.
But I have a bit more faith in Trumps ideas than most here, so lets see.
“The US faces China alone”
But they don’t. There’s South Korea, Japan, Australia, India even, all in the region. If America’s focus shifts to the Pacific, shouldn’t we prioritise the Atlantic, North Sea and Med?
Agree with all of this. For those in the know the strategic breadth and life changing threat posed by China is enough to keep you awake at night.
We are locked into AUKUS. Anyway it is a procurement consortium not a military alliance involving deployed forces.
There is one major problem with that idea 💡.
only one?
Recognition of People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk? Bitter pill for Ukraine to swallow.
Trump and Vance will Veto any Ukraine bid to join NATO.
Agree and a crucial post. Trump will not pull the US out of NATO; the Senate would not allow that. But ‘Europe’ will have to step up to defending Ukraine. Post Brexit, ‘Europe’ is looking like UK and France defence leadership will replace the Franco – German EU ‘locomotif’ at the centre of European politics. No accident that Starmer was the first British leader to attend armistice celebrations in France since Churchill.
Let’s assume for one second that we do end up leading the charge of enforcing the buffer zone – with what exactly in our bare cupboard are we supposed to do that with?
My first thought as well. Even if we did manage to scrape something together the Baltic States, Finland and possibly Poland would be exposed.
An open invitation to Putin.
Well these are internal ‘ideas’ at this stage, we’ll see what comes out it all post 20th Jan 2025…
Cheers CR
We need a bigger Navy…
Poland isn’t exposed. It’s taking measures to ensure it’s territorial integrity through a massive increase in its army and air force as well as a small but capable Baltic sea focussed navy. The Baltic states are going to have to up their game they each need to be able to field armies in the 75,000-100,000 troops region with all the required support, tanks, artillery, GBAD etc. if they don’t up their game then why should we even be deploying any forces to defend them? It was a big mistake admitting them into NATO.
They should be told to get their armed forces upto a viable deterrent force or be chucked out of NATO.
The population of Estonia is less than 1.4million, there are currently ~7700 active personnel. increase that by 10x seems very unlikely
Standing army of that size, no. But two-three brigades, at least one armoured or mechanised, shouldn’t be out of reach. And a large National Guard/Defence Force of conscripts with a load of light weapons wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
It’s a daft idea. The UK would have to do precisely the opposite of what we should be doing and invest massively in ground forces and heavy armour to protect Eastern Europe and the rest of Ukraine. The army would have to go back upto the 125,000-150,000 troops level to provide a meaningful force. The area being protected by this buffer zone would be greater than the area of responsibility that the old BOAR was tasked to guard.
I say leave this to the Europeans. No more than a single battle group and 2000-3000 personnel should be deployed on an intermittent rotational basis
Concentrate on air and sea power (as well as GBAD/BMD) Those are the enablers and forces the UK requires for our own national defence
Since we helped set up NATO in 1949, we are not solely concrned with our own national defence. We are committed to contribute to the defence of the Euro-Atlantic region …and that includes significant (I did not say massive) Land forces.
^This.
I agree with that. We only put the 2nd Army (Later BAOR) on the ground in Europe because Europe had fallen. Otherwise we would have won the Battle of the Atlantic 12 months earlier and cleaned up in the Med the same with the RAF (and of course France) much more active entirely stopping Germany deploying to North Africa.
UK is best as a NATO flank guard and expeditionary force. We probably need a couple of Ice-Breakers. I jest not or Russia will own those spaces.
Don’t forget Space! We need to be there.
The russian icebreaker fleet is substantial, I agree, we need icebreakers.
And with what weapons ?? Our current government and past ones think defence spending is discretionary
Why would Russia agree to this ? And also it’s quite insulting to tax payers that European security is decided by a country on another continent
If Trump and others also barred Ukraine from joining NATO and restricted their arms supplies I could see Russia going for this, gives them time to rebuild and escalate elsewhere.
That didn’t take long, and as everyone else pointed out, can’t possibly end badly if it was enacted. Or that Russia would stop there. But its likely only the start.
Bad idea.
Numbers. We do not have enough. And its a blue hat job not Nato. Be interesting to see if Sir Kneeler bends over to gain favour with the new Potus. One good thing? It just might wake Nato’s European members up. Poland, Sweden and Finland with the Baltic states lead by actions.
It’s an 800 mile DMZ with an aggressive hostile power on one side, I doubt any 1 European nation has the numbers available to create and enforce such a DMZ.
Would the troops in this buffer zone be under NATO command? If so then there would be no need for ukraine to be in a rush to join NATO and this would fufill one of Putin’s conditions. While placeing Unkraine behind a NATO curtain.
Even if it was under NATO command, not sure how Europe would react to NATO with an American General in command would react to being put into such a position whilst under the command of a general who answers to a Eurosceptic POTUS.
Oh dear
Cheers CR
We need a bigger navy…
I hope that SACEUR reports to NATO HQ primarily. He does head up a NATO command.
On paper yes, but as a US general would they go against a direct order from POTUS? I doubt it. So even if there was no direct input from POTUS I suspect the general would be well aware of Washington’s preferred course.
Cheers CR
We should simply say no.
And if the alternative is worse?
Agree with Chariot Rider
We Need a Bigger Navy!!!!!
Good. If we were a serious country we would have our tentacles in every inch of that country’s economy, polity and geography
A few sobering facts are becoming clear with time:
As far as I can see there are only 2 scenarios now in which UKR can win:
Very true – sadly those that have been posting similar here over the last two years have been accused of being Russian Trolls.
Most of us realised that two years ago. Good luck.
The Kursk incursion was a bit of strategic mistake I think. It’s going to end up having been a waste of manpower, resources and kit with nothing really gained from it. Maybe a little embarrassing for the Russians but it was a lightly defended part of the border.
Ukraine could solve it’s manpower issues, just not quickly. As far as I understand it, they currently aren’t conscripting 18-24 year olds. Their conscription starts at 25, there is a big pool of their population that isn’t being tapped into. It wouldn’t be quick with the training time but there is a manpower pool there to tap into. Whether it would be enough to make a difference is another thing all together.
Why is that rightfull thinking has failed in the minds of the European political elites.
Warmongering and victory over Russia is what they think at the expense of peace!
Hope diplomacy and respect prevails
Did you forget that Russia started this war by invading Ukraine ?
Diplomacy and respect ? you also forgot that we are dealing with Putin who does not know the meaning of those words
Totally and well said – when Putin invaded, he was counting on Wester support waning to the point they would give up and leave UKR to fit on by themselves. He was willing to wait the West out and it looks like it’s a strategy that is going to work.
Really? It wasn’t KIEV shelling ethnic Russians since 2014 resulting in well over 10,000 civilian deaths? Or KIEV’s general assault on the Russian language and culture contrary to UN conventions? Or how Yanukovych decides to accept Russian’s loan offer and then hey presto is deposed in a colour revolution? Or Paris and Berlin lying to Moscow over the Minsk Agreements in that they had no intention in honouring the treaty and were just buying time to build a Ukrainian army? (How did that work out by the way?) And so on and so and so on……..
Bringer of facts? Really? FFS more like bringer of buckets of vomit. You are like a bunch of children here. If war came it wouldn’t be you sitting on the start line waiting for the movement order. No you will be playing armchair general safe from any conflict.
Give your head a wobble.
Utter Rubbish, 2014 was a different conflict, an internal civil war which BTW was fuelled by Russia arming the rebel side.
So in order just to protect some small Russian enclaves in the east of UKR, Russia attempts a full invasion of UKR?
“Bringer of facts? Really? FFS more like bringer of buckets of vomit.”
Yeah go ahead with your venomous ad hominem attacks, it just shows that you are the infantile one on this thread. You cannot hold a civilised conversation.
Maybe once you have grown up and left school you will have developed the ability to communicate with educated adults.
BTW
Supporters of Putin / Hamas / Hezzbollah / Iran / Kim Jong Un are not welcome on this forum …yeah I’m pointing at you.
You mean the “shelling of Ethnic Russians” that was at an all time high in 2015, and was mostly done by the Russians themselves? The shelling which was at an all time low in 2022?
Are you just a Putin mouthpiece at this point?
Respect… From Mad Vlad in Russia? Do me a favour. He respects nothing. Rule of law. Nope. Democracy. No he’s a dictator. Freedom of speech. No he’s locked up anyone inside Russia who dares to question. Human rights. No he’s an indicted war criminal wanted by the ICC for crimes against humanity.
The list goes on and on. You can’t negotiate with Putin. Any deal he signs is worth about as much as a piece of used toilet paper.
If we did send out troops to police this, what happens if we’re fired upon.. NATO article 5 brings the US back into full on war?
The British military have to be very careful not to over commit to this proposed appeasement. If we deploy thousands of troops on an enduring commitment to protect the remaining 80% of Ukraine and to monitor the buffer zone that will stretch the army very very very bare. With NATO forward deployments in the Baltics as well.
What are the rest of our European allies and neighbours doing? There are 500 million Europeans with a combined yearly GDP of trillions and trillions of Euros. They can guard and protect Ukraine.
Our commitments to European security should be the RN and air power. I don’t think we should deploy a single soldier to Ukraine as they are not part of NATO and we have no treaty dictating we honour their defence as a commitment.
We would struggle to deploy a brigade on an enduring operation without commitment of a reconstituted 3 Cdo Bde RM, and possibly some AR lads as Polyfilla.
Looks like Trump is pretty much getting ready to pull the US out of Europe, probably would mean the end of NATO as a realistic alliance.
I can see a purist America first agenda essentially turning the European powers and the US as essentially neutral to each other..essentially more like the relationship we have with India.
It would be a massive geopolitical disaster for western Liberal democracies and probably spell the end of U.S. hegemony, coming as it does at the point where the authoritarian regimes are getting closer together and in many cases acting or preparing to act in concert.
If the worst happened and the US essentially pulled away from partnership with Europe then I think realistically the UK and European powers would end up having to enact an a “west of the straits of Malacca” policy as geostrategically “Most” of what Europe needs can be found in the sealanes of the Indian Ocean and a lot of resource needs from Africa.
Essentially European engagements in the pacific has always been more about supporting its pacific allies..if it’s pacific allies basically give European security the middle finger then Europe losses any real driver to engage in geopolitics within the pacific. This would likely lead to a European power cool down and reset with china..,
We could very well see a world in which the European powers are essentially neutral with the U.S. china and India with a Cold War competition with Russia. The U.S. would then need to essentially closely align with the liberal pacific powers in competition with china..but without the support of European powers.
The world then falling into 5 main geopolitical spheres 1) Europe, 2) Russia/Asian, 3china, 4the U.S. and liberal pacific powers 5) India . With Africa, South America, south east Asia, the levant and Middle East being the powers chess boards.
The very big Geopolitical elephants in the room are
1) that china is almost ready to roll the dice on a war with the entire western world..if Europe and the U.S. clearly part ways and it’s guaranteed Europe would stay neutral then there is no question china would invade Taiwan and if it though the U.S. was going to defend Taiwan then it would quite likely first strike the U.S. western pacific assets and go to war ( knowing that Europe, Asia, Africa, India and South America would all be neutrals).
2) To stabilise to a Cold War with Russia Europe would need to massively upgrade its nuclear deterrence to allow the European powers to deliver MAD.its therefore likely that Europe would need to expand its nuclear capabilities with Germany, Poland and Italy developing a deterrence as well as France and the UK..that would mean the European powers throwing NPT out the window.
Is America under Trump even going to defend Taiwan ?
This will be a key question..and will be profoundly impactful for the US. Because china will be the new world hegemonic power if the US does not engage with the world. I can see five likely outcomes
1) the U.S. continues to engage with NATO, all of NATO becomes more serious about defence and shows political unity. It also shows it’s willingness to suffer and take risks by pushing hard against Russia in Ukraine..US says it will defend tiawan and the rest of NATO is full engaged in the pacific, in this case china is likely to conclude the west would win a world war and it would not engage the U.S. in a war over Taiwan
2) the U.S. continues to engage with NATO, but NATO stays looking a bit less than unified, defence spending does not go up and the west is lukewarm with Ukraine and there is a peace treaty that gives Russia its puffer zone states. The U.S. says it will defend Taiwan. In this case china would likely conclude it would probably win a long world war and it would attack the U.S. as part of any campaign to take tiawan a hugely damaging world war would then occur eating 30% GDP, shattering the worlds economy and killing millions..who would win “no one knows”.
3) The US disengages with European NATO, NATO essentially collapses and the European powers create a new Eurocentric alliance focused on the Atlantic and Indian occean. Russia probably gets a part or ukriane in a peace settlement and Europe and Russia settle into a good old Cold War..the U.S. becomes focused on the pacific still staying it will defence tiawain, because it knows the loss to china of 80% or the worlds semi conductor manufacturing as well as a hole in the first island chain means that china will dominate both the pacific and become the world leading eccomonic power..china will inevitably feel if it has the backing of Iran and Russia and India and Europe are neutral that it will be able to take the US in a long war. That war happens and in this case, stripped of its European allies with Europe as a neutral party it’s likely the U.S. losses against a china, Russia, Iran and North Korea axis..its advantage is just not that great and it would be fighting on to many fronts. Even if it won it would be essentially in the place Britain was in 1945.
4) option four is that the US simply disengages with everything including tiawan. In that case Europe would go the same way as in option 3. But without the US tiawan would have no choice but to take whatever offer china gave it and it would reintegrate, it would have no choice as it’s unthinkable that it could fight it’s not a Russia Ukraine type inbalance. This would lead to a massive geopolitical and geostrategic shift, geopolitically China would have around 90% or the global semi conductor production to add to its over 50% of global ship building..it would be in a place Britain was in the 19c and the U.S. was in the 20c, it would become the global hegemonic power in a peaceful transition.. geostrategically china would have put a knife straight through the first island chain, it would hold all sea access to japan at risk it would have instant access into the second island chain and allow it to completely dominate the western pacific.
NATO would not collapse if the US pulled out. European nations, especially the smaller ones, would need such a collective Deterrence and Defence pact even more.
No but it would not really be nato it would be a different treaty organisation.. with different aims.
Yeah whoa, situation 4, that’s the one where Australia will need an independent nuclear deterrent.
indeed, in that worst case I could really see the NPT collapse as there would be no realistic US nuclear umbrella.
European NATO would need to expand its deterrent to MAD, so essentially around 500 active warheads..and the only realistic way that happens is if either the wider European NATO nations fund France and the UK to expand their SSBN fleet or Germany, Poland and Italy step up and become nuclear powers as well.
wider world wise, china, Australia and Korea etc would need to consider some form of nuclear deterrent…you could see them forming a NATO like structure to combat china.
USA will not abandon Korea, Japan and Taiwan.
This is great game competition with China.
I would agree, so the big geostrategic question is will Europe be an acive ally or a friendly neural to the US when that comes to an inevitable head and that will be profoundly meaningful to both the likelihood of a major powers war and its final outcome on the U.S.
Trump sort of hinted that the US might leave NATO in weeks of starting his first term, then he got the message that this was not wise and turned his attack onto directly calling out under-spending ENATO members instead. It seemed to work!
So I doubt he would pull forces out of W/Europe this time around. He will berate ENATO for paying only the bare minmum of 2% (its a target not a ceiling), and suggest they pay 2.5 or 3%.
If US did however exit NATO and Europe was on its own, we would all need residual NATO even more – it certainly would not fall apart.
Indeed but I think it would be a reset and it would not be NATO. There is a lot of structural stuff in the North Atlantic treaty that requires the US. It would need a structural rebuild and would essentially be a new treaty. To be honest it would give the European powers a chance to focus down on what they need from the treaty’s as well as which nations they are really willing to go to war over( I could see turkey not being a member along with another nation that will remain nameless). Europe can take care of its own defence as long as it has a good solid treaty everyone is signed up to.. remember the really woolly bits of the nato treaty were all inserted by the US.
Yes, I think you are right about all of that.
Hi Jonathan,
Great analysis and an interesting read.
Thanks CR
It’s a “brainstorming” session, shared to a) Signal to Russia/Ukraine that the Trump admin does indeed want an end to the conflict and b) To light a fire under Europe. It will probably succeed in the latter, the former I doubt.
However, if they want us to lead this it suggests the Trump admin are again looking for the UK to be the lead European NATO nation. If so, that’s a shift from the German facing Biden admin. Problem is at best all we can be is enablers, we simply don’t have the manpower to commit to a long-standing, manpower-heavy commitment, at least not without abandoning everything else.
It the UK wants that place in NATO then we need increased defence spending and associated recruitment. Even if this doesn’t come close to happening, we should be ready or planning to be ready in time to say “yes, we have this”. A “sorry we just aren’t capable of doing this” may just signal to Trump it’s time to look elsewhere, with consequences for us beyond his final term.
If we don’t want the old role of NATO #2, that’s fine, but it’ll knock us down that list of influential nations. The security and economic implications of that, I believe, would be far worse than anything increased defence spending could do.
The term malicious compliance comes to mind, The UK and Poland have a separate security treaty with Ukraine, so if Trump wants Europe to police the proposed line of demarcation in Ukraine, then that is what Europe should do, just send everything they have into Ukraine right up to said border and build the bases need to support said forces if Putin doesn’t like it then tough luck Vlad
Right, so just a few questions…
Who gets the job of selling this to Zelensky?
Given Britain’s past record of drawing boundaries and/or demarcation lines, who gets the job of using their crayons, to draw and colour in, the buffer zone?
Will the ‘buffer zone’ be patrolled by UN forces?
How long will the ‘buffer zone’ stay in place… 5, 10, 50 years?
Given the scale of this notion… is this where we see the birth of the united states of europe?
That’s all for now. No doubt lots of others have questions at this stage too.
UN troops usually do peacekeeping…assuming there will be a genuine peace first to keep.
Why is the Trump team instead suggesting Europeans and have they spoken to us Europeans first?
Probably not, it’s a repeat of Afghanistan, trump will do things with out consulting Americas allies and then expect them to carry the can
Given that such a DMZ a would be more North/South Korea type DMZ, the idea of the UN getting involved is not going to happen, Ukraine would never agree to it because one of the P5 would always use it against them.
No if this happens it’s not going to be UN based, and no Trump couldn’t give a feck about the opinions of Europeans on anything.
The Irony of this statement. You do realise that the Korean DMZ was litterally set up by the United Nations Command in Korea right?
Are you suggesting that the UN that existed then is the same now? From memory the Soviet Union was absent over the PRC not being seated when the mandate for a UN intervention was voted through for the Korean War.
Russia will never allow a mandate to enforce a full dmz like the Korean one, just as every other mandate is a compromise nowadays, or are you seriously suggesting that they would back a mission that would engage them when they attack again?
When was the last new Peacekeeping mandate issued by the P5? Not a renewal of something that was already happening, but a new one when one of the P5 Proxies was involved? Which nations of the UN do you think are going to volunteer for the mission?
Hilarious. You’ve been caught out and are now shifting your goal posts. So you’re now saying it wouldn’t be a Korean style agreement because the UN Is different. Okay 180 away if you like bud.
He is not shifting, UN at time was a western entity, it not such thing now.
UN troops deploying would require Russia and China not to use their permanent council veto though…
True, but if Russia had signed a peace treaty with Ukraine, then might they be happy or at least accept UN peacekeepers patrolling buffer zones between the 2 sides’ territories?
Probably not, because Russia will view any peace treaty as temporary, and realistically Peacekeepers will be protecting Ukraine from Russia, not the other way around.
Trump the Great Appeaser presents surrender terms.
Zelensky will invade the US before he surrenders to Russia.
What a joke this place is.
lets face it, freegear is so desperate to get in trumps good books, he’ll happily sacrifice more lives to further his political ambitions
We just gave away one of our bargaining chips with the USA. The Chagos. Utter folly and Lammy should grow a pair outside of the FCO from whence he should be cast out.
There were reports (can’t remember where) that the process was started by one of the Tory PM’s. There was a rather assuming game of pass the parcel between different Tory former ministers and I think the parcel finally settled in Boris’ government… Lammy just went along with it.
To be honest I think the UK’s standing in the world was starting to take some hits over this issue and if that trend continued there would have eventually been a price to pay. We are after all trying to develop new trade deals around the world and that requires good will…
Militarily there will be no immediate change as there is a 99 year lease on the base.
Times they are a changing…
Cheers CR
This is an insane non starter. If anything we should besupporting the UKR army in the field to eneaains.
Trump is showing himself to be an enemy & traitor to democracy & freedom, besides to all NATO stands for.
All the signs were there, yet similarly to 1930s Germany, the USA has voted for him.
Don’t cry and welcome to the adulthood.
UE population 440M + UK makes it ~500M.
If the rumors of this plan are correct then USA will not deploy ground troops but it did not said it will not give logistical and air support.
GDP affected by foreign trade. Note this don’t show strategic importance of said trade, distance and SLOC risk
USA 27%
China 37%
India 46%
Japan 47%
UK 66%
France 68%
Italy 69%
Germany 90%