In the days leading up to MSC 2025, which is set to begin on 14 February, an exclusive press briefing was held as a precursor to the conference.
During this briefing, former US National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and CEPA President and CEO Dr Alina Polyakova discussed the top policy priorities aimed at ensuring transatlantic support for sustainable peace in Ukraine.
The conversation was anchored in the forthcoming report from CEPA’s International Leadership Council, “How to Win: A Seven-Point Plan for Sustainable Peace in Ukraine,” and provided critical insights into the strategic framework expected to shape debates at MSC 2025.
In a key exchange during the briefing, the question of European leadership – and particularly the role of the United Kingdom – was posed. I asked whether London, with its strong existing partnerships with Ukraine, could emerge as a leader in a European-led coalition tasked with enforcing a ceasefire line should negotiations yield a ceasefire.
Dr Alina Polyakova, President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis, responded by acknowledging a significant leadership gap within Europe. She emphasised that while traditional alliance structures are under strain, there remains an opportunity for a select group of security-oriented nations to step forward. Commenting on the issue, Polyakova stated:
“There is absolutely right that there is a leadership gap in Europe right now.”
She went on to propose that instead of expecting every NATO member to act in unison, focus should be directed towards a more agile grouping comprising the United Kingdom, France, Poland, the Balts and countries from Northern Europe. These nations, she suggested, are best placed to drive the effort:
“We need to think about a group of countries that are security oriented, like the United Kingdom, France, Poland, the Balts and the North in particular, they can lead this effort.”
Polyakova’s response not only underlines the strategic potential of the UK but also hints at a reorganisation of European defence priorities. She cautioned against including contentious issues, such as Ukraine’s future NATO membership, in any immediate peace negotiations. According to her:
“One thing that should not be in the peace plan is any conversation about Ukraine’s future NATO membership… it’s clear that Ukraine’s NATO membership is the only ironclad security guarantee for long term peace in Ukraine.”
Her comments suggest that while the UK might indeed be poised to take a leading role, this leadership would be exercised within a broader, coordinated effort among Europe’s most security-oriented nations.
For further insight into the strategic roadmap and detailed recommendations for sustainable peace in Ukraine, I encourage you to read the full report, “How to Win: A Seven-Point Plan for Sustainable Peace in Ukraine.” This indispensable guide offers a comprehensive analysis of transatlantic policy priorities and provides essential context for the challenges and opportunities ahead.
At the UK Defence Journal, we aim to deliver accurate and timely news on defence matters. We rely on the support of readers like you to maintain our independence and high-quality journalism. Please consider making a one-off donation to help us continue our work. Click here to donate. Thank you for your support!
We Brits have experience in this field peace keeping etc ,but if and when the fighting stops I think it’s wise if the Ukraine and Russian government’s stick to the rules. Which I know would be difficult specially for Russia has it’s well known can’t be trusted 🤔 But having British boots or other European troops in my opinion just to risky has only takes one Mistake. 😲
It would need to be a significant force to deter Russia. At least probably 50k troops, which would still be a little on the low side considering russia has somewhere around 200k deployed. Not sure European nations combined could offer that, for any sustained period. UK would struggle to field 10k, france probably the same, where is the remaining 30k coming from. Italy and Poland have decent sized, but probably not 30k between them.
Also any forces deployed in Ukraine, are troops pulled from else where, including defending natos borders.
UK, France, Italy, Poland, Germany, Canada, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Norway & Sweden?
It’d have to be a whole-of-NATO effort, really.
Pretty much. Which would require some significant agreements/polictical agreements, as overseas deployment with heavy equipment doesn’t come cheap.
Plus at that point your effectively turning Ukraine into a nato member, which Russia would never agree to, so wouldn’t work.
UK would struggle to field a brigade group of 6,000 on an enduring operation without help from the AR and/or RM.
Andrew we ‘Blair’ signed off an agreement with Russia alongside the yanks. All parties meant to respect Ukraine independence. Why Blair thought we could take that liability on who knows. We failed. To me this is down to Poland & Germany the 2 big land forces that matter. They need to be at the table, less so Britain. We of course offer air / navy support within NATO. Unsure why Ukraine would agree to losing territory without nato membership, Russia HAS to pay something towards reconstruction of Ukraine.
My guess is Russia wouldn’t agree to a nato nation being involved. It will probably push for China/ India to lead it, nations that are ‘friendly’ to both sides. Only potental nato member would be turkey.
Although I would bet the US would not be happy with China having a foothold in Europe.
The agreement was that the UK and US would guarantee Ukrainian independence IN EXCHANGE for Ukraine giving up it’s Soviet era Nukes. The reason Blair took on the liability was because the idea was that Ukraine was replacing it’s own Nuclear Umbrella with the UK and US’s ones.
Ukraine won’t agree to this, Russia probably won’t agree to it either, it’s Trump and Vance’s idea, and the only way it’ll come to pass is if Trump and Vance (and Musk) can throttle both sides into a ceasefire of their design. The issue, as I see it, is that Trump can’t force both sides to the Table: If Ukraine wants to keep fighting the only tool at Trumps disposal is to cut off military aid and put them in a position where they have to surrender to Russia, but then Russia would have no reason to enter a ceasefire. If Russia refuses to consider a ceasefire the only option really open to Trump is to flood Ukraine with NATO equipment…. at which point, why would Ukraine consider a ceasefire that is so blatantly not in their interest?
What on Earth has Tony Blair got to do with the signing the Budapest Memorandum ?.
This really grates on me. We are not a part of Europe. Why is it always the UK ‘leading the way’ or getting involved.
The Ukraine war is Europe’s war. How many European countries joined us in the Falklands war?
We are actually part of Europe.. we are no more than 800 miles away from Russian soil, we are 220 miles from a nation that has a boarder with Russia and we 21miles away from our nearest European ally.
Rubbish, we are part of Europe that’s a geographical fact, we simply are not part of the EU, and if Europe falls in whatever form that takes be it militarily or merely as Russian controlled oligarch and mafia driven client states of Russia (as in Ottoman times) this Country can’t exist as a small near bankrupt (because we would be) island off of its coast can it. Do you seriously believe we can? Then how? Without allies Napoleon would have been the winner of the World not us. The US won’t protect us if Europe falls or if it did as happened in the War it would destroy, in fact far more so, our independence and economy and any real freedom in decision making, we at best would be a distant colony, like Cuba or the Philippines were to them in even saner times. The US remember as now deeply influenced by right wing power brokers with industrial power and influence, was contemplating war with Britain in the thirties, instead it destroyed us during and post WW2 financially, the City lost most of its investments in the US, (a large part of its economy by the way) some to Nazi sympathising industrialists like Henry Ford, we gave them all our technology even including the nuclear bomb, we had to pay until recently for the privilege of keeping Germany (or otherwise Russia) from winning a war that would have left the US as near irrelevant in the World order and very possibly brought to defeat by superior German technology that fed into post war US superpower growth instead. So what would be the ‘payments’ this time around? Let’s get real in this increasingly dangerous World we are a third rate power almost as much due to America as Germany. It’s just that the US wrote the history and we like a good compliant puppy dog certainly after Suez lick their hands in thanks of an occasional treat.
Paragraphs?
You’re not part of the EU but, unless you strap on motorboat engines on the entire British eastern coast and start to drift towards America, then you are in Europe..
Why do you equate the EU with Europe?
What is wrong with you?
Not very good at geography, are you.
We ARE part of Europe. Europe is not the EU. Please stop confusing the two.
The Ukraine war is Europe’s war, and we are part of Europe. It is also NATO’s problem, and we are a key player in NATO.
No European countries joined us in the Falklands War: we didn’t ask them to! And the Falklands falls outside the remit of NATO, seeing as it’s in the SOUTH Atlantic.
Please think about what you type before just bashing away at the keyboard.
Not to mention if you are confusing the two then Ukraine is not in the EU and so the same argument could apply to every country in the world, only Ukraine is Ukraine.
We are a part of Europe!
We are just not a part of the EU.
I was proud to vote to leave that political construct, and it always annoyed me that people would deliberately conflate the two.
I’m equally proud to be European. We share the same continent, culture and the Europeans at the end of the day are our allies,
despite the usual politics.
I’m sure there were some that said the same thing in 1939 when Nazi Germany rolled into Poland…
We are in Europe what goes on in mainland Europe impacts the uk
Actually a lot of European countries joined us in the Falklands war in the UN vote, even the USSR. We didn’t officially ask any country for support as it would have been embarrassing if we had. We get all the unofficial support for the likes of France and the USA (mostly) that we asked for.
‘…significant leadership gap within Europe. She emphasised that while traditional alliance structures are under strain…’ that is rather stark, after 2 years of overt attempts to maintain, and claiming success in terms of NATO unity (beyond a few outliers like Hungary) we get a throwaway comment (in reality there must be substance behind it) like this that then goes on to say effectively there needs to be a two tier European set up whereby you have ‘reliable’ and ‘less reliable’ entities in ensuring Ukrainian peace efforts.
Now I can understand Germany not being classified in the former, whatever one thinks about their reliability due to the historical nature of their history in Ukraine and with Russia but Spain, Italy, the Czechs and others not mentioned, though I assume by ‘Northern’ the Dutch, Danes, Norwegians and perhaps Swedes are blanket included. So are we now talking of an alliance within an alliance, is this just in terms of Ukraine or are we talking more generally too. I would have thought Russia would be more open to Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Belgium forces than UK forces, especially UK led forces. Is it just embedding the underlying, if not stated view that a number of Countries would be totally unreliable in peace keeping, not much of a hindrance to further Russian aggression is it, or are these other Countries politically just don’t want to put their heads above the parapet and made it known within the alliance?
Maybe I’m reading too much into it but it doesn’t instil one with great confidence about European unity at a time we need it most, because even if this ‘war end’ is installed I fear this is Trump’s self serving solution to both saving immediate US (more his own) face and to thereafter leave it to the Europeans to keep Russia out of any more future adventurism, claiming it’s a purely European affair from now on while he builds golf courses and casinos in Gaza ironically. Indeed I wouldn’t put it past him to get Putin to sign up to this ceasefire or whatever it turns out to be presented as, by secretly tempting him with he can do what he likes later when the US and Trump are no longer engaged, meanwhile getting his peace prize and internal public approval no doubt.
If this is indeed the future Hell do we need a Country like Ukraine to become over time another Poland to protect Europe on its eastern front while presenting us with secure food, technology and resources to help relieve us from US hegemony. Big decisions to be made I think perhaps costly to start with but essential for European independence.
In the end the US will utterly fuck itself if it continues to undermine NATO and the idea of a unified western security question..if Donald Trump segments western interests he is going to end up fighting a war with another superpower that quite frankly has far greater political will than the US without any European allies and if that happens I have little doubt the US would loose a sino-us war if it was isolated from its greatest and richest set of allies ( Europe).
US doesn’t care about NATO anymore. It’s focus has moved to Asia. Although as the EU is it’s single largest trading partner it really should care.
Unfortunately they have an orange moron in charge who has no idea about international relations and treats allied nations the same way he does with his business transactions.
What loses money, borrows other people’s money and loses that and bankruptcies. Good good for the world economy.
How would we lose to China without you or Europe? Reduced European and Atlantic burdens would mean we could concentrate in the pacific where we have far more reliable defense partners such as Japan, South Korea and Australia.
Funny you say about reliable defence partners, which is precisely what the US ISN’T right now. How long before Japan, South Korea and Australia also view the US as unreliable?
Europe (UK included) has significant economic clout and, despite what MAGAs might believe, a potent combined military force.
Of course, MAGA idiots refuse to acknowledge this and see Europe as – as you put it, “burdens.” The US needs Europe as much as Europe needs the US. Without US bases across Europe the US would have to spend tens of billions, if not more, on its defence. No more B2s or B52s in Germany or the UK means loss of aerial access to the Middle East and North Africa – you’d need more carriers to ensure a presence able to reach there, especially if needed on short notice, you’d need to permanently station a carrier.
It’s small-minded MAGA thinking that Europe is a burden to the US.
Try running global sanctions against China without Europe then see what happens to the USD and the EUR.
That’s why America needs Europe.
Because any china US war is going to be a very long war to either strategic exhaustion or failure of political will..it will be an existential war and will have almost fuck all to do with the military you have at present because 3-5 years of war will have burned and renewed your military over and over.
The U.S. ( and Europe) have forgotten that the existential wars between peers are not about your peace time armed forces going off and fighting a campaign they are about two nations burning everything they have until one gives up through running out of resources, money or manpower or most likely the political will to keep losing men, money and resources.
The problem with the thinking in the US around we can handle china on our own is that you have fundamentally forgotten what an existential war between near peers is…it’s long term ongoing utter and complete pain and destruction…when/if the US goes to war with china you are going to burn 30-40% of your Ecconomy on that war for however long that takes ( and china is planning for any war to take years and years) it will cost you probably 10 trillion dollars + a year to prosecute..your not just going to bring a fleet together and lob a few bombs win and be home for the Super Bowl.
If 23% of the worlds economy and wealth is not on your side but decided to be neutral the US will have a very very big problem. If the U.S. has Europe as a firm ally totally committed that’s 23% of the worlds wealth and economic resources behind the U.S..it’s means from a balance:
US + European nations 53% of worlds wealth and power vs 20% of chinas …a pretty good chance of overcoming china even before political will in the US collapses as its can be economically isolated.
US 30% of worlds wealth and power vs 20% of chinas…chinas will is not going to collapse easily it will take massive overwhelm and suffering to collapse its political will and the US is infact politically weak, one have of your population fears and mistrusts the other half ..the US has found it impossible to win wars against politically strong opponents even when they were tribes with AK47s and it suffered essentially tiny losses due to a collapse in the political will to fight, so a sino US war where the U.S. cannot isolate china, burns 10 trillion dollars a year and sees 10,000 maybe hundreds of thousands of deaths…is going to be problematic and at best you will have a pyrrhic victory shattering your economy, at worst 2-5 years in the US will to fight collapses through political turmoil and you nation is forced into a humiliating peace.
The U.S. only wins if it can scare china into not going to war..but china will go to war as it will take almost any level of suffering if it thinks it will win…so it has to know it will not win and the only guarantee it will loss is if it has to fight the US and the whole of NATO as one.
No we did not lose wars to tribals with AKs, in the spirit of all Western powers we get bored and then we sail away. We did not lose any battles, we killed who we came to kill.
Building Afghanistan into a modern country?That was added later by the bleeding hearts who couldn’t bear the thought we launched a campaign in revenge. They were then aided by the corrupt to grift money. Had we desired to just kill and leave, no one would remember it had even happened and we would all be happier for it.
As for China? America wins by forcing them into a Cold War and allowing their shit demographics take care of that problem for us.
As for what Europe can offer us in a war with China? Basically moral support, which is of dubious value when the people providing it are French and other assorted globalists.
@Elliott, you can win every battle and still loose the War. America has proven very adept at winning battles but loosing Wars. Iraq, Vietnam, Afghan, even Korea.
As for Europe (Or European NATO) offering in a War with China? The EU has nearly 2 million active duty personnel (which is more than the US has, and that’s before adding in NATO members like the UK and Turkey that aren’t in the EU). ENATO lacks corps level assets and enablers, but in terms of # of divisions that NATO members can actually put into the field they give the US a run for it’s money.
On the Naval front: Europe also brings 6 Carrier Strike groups to the Table (2 British, 1 French, 2 Italian, 1 Spanish), 240 Surface combatants (Destroyers, Frigates and Corvettes), and 47 Submarines (For Comparison the US has about 110 surface combatants and 67 Submarines).
I wouldn’t call doubling the number of Surface Combatants (and almost doubling the number of submarines) that the Alliance has access to “Moral support.”
And that’s before we touch on the Industrial Base that Europe can offer, as Europe has it’s own, capable, MIC, even if Europe didn’t deploy any ground troops or naval assets in support of the US, and pulled an “America in both world wars” act, having access to European Military development and manufacturing during a Peer on Peer conflict is definitely something the US would be better off with, than without.
@ Elliot.. you got bored.. you spent hundred of billions lost 2000 lives and stopped fighting because you got bored and just wandered off… it’s called political will, you don’t loss a war because you get bored, you loss because you lose the political will to fight and the US has suffered this problem for 65 years.. infact you keep losing wars. Your enemies know this. A battle or campaign is not a war, the US is sublime at winning battles and campaigns.. utterly poor at winning wars. Infact the last major war the US won was WW2. It’s managed not to loss a couple, had some iffy sort of losses and some blatant defeats but no definitive win since 45.. unless you count tiny islands with a population of thousands.
It’s funny because loosing every battle and still winning a war was the way America was born 😀🇺🇸💪
@Jim Be fair! America had the French win a few battles for them. 😛
This is an excellent summary of total war.
Elliott, are saying that America’s European allies are unreliable? How so?
If a Sino-US war kicks off – which it will within the next 5yrs according to the experts – the US will rely upon its allies in the region like Japan, South Korea, Australia and the Philippines – not Europe. The US will look towards Europe for political support but not military.
Political and economic support.
And not all military support is direct. At the very least the US would be looking for European countries to fill in the gaps as the US pulls assets out to fight China, e.g. eNATO ships taking over duties that US ships were covering before US/China war kicks off.
It’d be Europe who then has to keep Russia in check as well.
So even if not direct support, the US will need Europe for military support.
It will require Europe to take vast ecconomic pain. If there is a split and Europe refuses the US will struggle to take China down the rout of strategic exhaustion.. at which point it’s all about political will and I’m afraid China probably has more of that than the US.. infact the US has shown itself to have little political will for the long war.
Reliability is a concern of allies. I can’t see uk fielding enough of a deterrent force. Would 10,000 personal be enough. Putin and his successors playing silly buggers and unable to respond until a high threshold is broken.
germany wanted low cost fuel and courted the russian regime. german interests came first, will they stand by ukraine
This is of deep deep concern, our enemies Russia and china have spent a good decade and a half using political warfare against NATO, this is a very good indication they are winning. You win the political war you win the whole war simple as.
We should work with France on this idea. It has to have a political dimension.
Let someone else lead for once.
Our politicians use the abused (the armed forces, the Army in particular) to ponce around on the world stage.
It is hypocritical to use the Army for this when they say we do not need one of any appreciable size.
And if we decide to just take a back seat, we look weaker. We look like we can’t step up when it matters, and will be treated as such.
If we do that we might as well just step back and focus on basic self-defence, in which case more cutbacks would come – and be justified.
Look weaker to whom?
Why do we need to keep proving ourselves?
We are weak, politically and militarily – certainly the Army.
Look weaker to the likes of Russia and China. If they see us as a weak link they’ll try to exploit that.
Look weaker to the likes of the US, who are throwing their toys out of the pram. Like it or not, correct or not – right now European NATO needs to show that it can pull its weight without the US. Trump is adamant that US troops won’t be part of any peacekeeping force in Ukraine after the war, so it falls on Europe, of which we are still one of the most powerful countries.
Look weaker to our European NATO allies. If we don’t take a lead on this, why would they? We’ve led the way a lot with Ukraine, e.g. donating tanks, donating Storm Shadow etc, and were basically nagging the US to approve missile strikes by Ukraine into Russia.
If we don’t take a lead, who will? Someone has to. We know it won’t be Germany.
We need to not be weak.
Besides which, who needs boots on the ground when we have drones?
Drones cannot hope to replace boots on the ground.
I am glad you have said that, I was having a sarcastic moment.
However, foreign troops cannot keep the peace there – just observe.
Drones will probably be the main mechanism to achieve this.
Who else can lead Europe?
Germany doesn’t have a stable government and had elections scheduled. The traditional parties are languishing and the Putin-friendly AfD is riding high in the polls.
Macron has shot himself in the foot calling an unnecessary election, resulting in a weak government that lost the first vote of no confidence since 1962. Macron’s latest appointee leads a minority government.
Italy is lead by a party that has its origins in the remnants of Mussolini’s fascist movement.
Hungary’s Orban is blatantly pro-Putin.
Fico in Slovakia has begun a rapprochment with Russia.
Finland, Croatia, Slovakia and Czechia all have far-right parties as part of coalition governments, with the situation little better in Sweden…
It will be us doing it just as it was in Kosovo in 1999. France and Germany have neither the interest nor capability. We can do it combined with the JEF countries and Poland.
The force does not have to be scaled to protect Ukraine, the Russians won’t be allowing 50,000 NATO soldiers any where near the Donbas. It’s a trip wire force designed to send a political message of support not a hard force counter to Russian aggression.
France has more capabilities than you though.. more planes, more ships, more tanks and more men…
But France has Less SSNs, less AAW destroyers, less carriers, less 5th generation aircraft, less strategic airlift. Fixed it for you.
Half of those more planes being older, Mirages. They lack any stealth aircraft.
They actually have a smaller navy than we do, of which a single carrier so only 50% availability, compared to our 2 carriers giving 100% availability.
More tanks and more men, yes. They’re a bigger land power than us and always have been.
Pakistan has more planes than the UK and France combined. But somehow that don’t make them a great power. France has alot of older platforms but zero 5th Gen aircraft, it can’t fight in a modern battlefield end of story.
France is diplomatically key. A nation with strong historic cultural links with Russia.
leading with our mindset on defence is quite the challenge
Considering one of Putin’s “ justifications” for his unwarranted aggression is NATO on his border. A policy he has utterly failed on with Finland joining NATO. Having a NATO led peacekeeping force seem to be something Outin is very unlikely to agree to.
Michael, I don’t think anyone has suggested a NATO-led peacekeeping force. That’s a total non-starter.
Here we go, people suggesting the UK get in over it’s head AGAIN, writing cheques it doesn’t have the means to cash. The last time the UK and Russia were on a collision course (Pristina Airfield, Kosovo), the UK bottled it. Scared of starting WW3, apparently. After contributing to the death of so many Russian soldiers in Ukraine and supplying Vehicles, Drones and Missiles that have been used to attack Russia proper, doesn’t it seem obvious that the Russians would want to spill the blood of British “Peace Keepers” in Ukraine ?
The one responsible for all those Russian deaths is Putin.
If he hadn’t started his bloodthirsty war of expansion then all of the 800,000+ Russian soldiers who’ve died in Ukraine over the past 3 years would be alive today.
Fuck Putin and fuck Russia!
I don’t understand your position. Are you saying that because Britain has bottled it in the past, you think we should bottle it again, but in a larger way?
“(Pristina Airfield, Kosovo), the UK bottled it. Scared of starting WW3”
Or you could say the British Army acted in a professional manner and avoided the risk of escalation.
Bottled and Scared are interesting words….
Nobody bottled anything in Kosovo. Rather, General Jacksom handled the Russian intrusion sensibly and pragmatically. Rather than the US Commnder flapping away and ordering the Brits to prevent the Russian troops landing at Pristina, he took a bottle with him to meet the Russian commander, they got on famously and the Russians agreed to base themselves at the airport, which worked fine.
The bottom line was that Kosovo was already garrisoned by NATO battlegroups from UK, France, Germany, Italy and the US. A Russian battlegroup offering itself was no big issue; Russia has traditionally been a big brother for Serbia, cemented by history and religion and the Serb minority around Mitrovice were somewhat reassured and less problematic due to token Russiian presence.
It was a good reminder of the pragmatic rather than doctrinal way in which the Brit military defuse local tensions.
If we had had to fight them for some reason, the Brits would have been perfectly ready for and up to the task.
Exactly.
There was no bottled it in kosova, it was a peacekeeping operation that included both NATO and Russia as well as the combatants sides..the only consideration was the combatants not pulling out of the treaty because then the peacekeepers would have all gone home. As was the Russians did not invade they had a different idea about how they were going to manage their bit of the UN mandate..so it was all about negotiation discussion and holding the line and above everything keeping the peace..because that was the only mandate they had, which is what the British commanding officer on the ground did very successfully.
Jack, it was very wise of General Mike Jackson to avoid starting WW3. I met Jacko a few times; very tough guy and you would never accuse him of bottling anything.
HMG better open the chequebook then and start recruiting as people currently in will walk over this just like they did when Cabrit became a case of the same old faces getting constantly deployed to it.
Nobody bottled anything in Kosovo. Rather, General Jacksom handled the Russian intrusion sensibly and pragmatically. Rather than the US Commnder flapping away and ordering the Brits to prevent the Russian troops landing at Pristina, he took a bottle with him to meet the Russian commander, they got on famously and the Russians agreed to base themselves at the airport, which worked fine.
The bottom line was that Kosovo was already garrisoned by NATO battlegroups from UK, France, Germany, Italy and the US. A Russian battlegroup offering itself was no big issue; Russia has traditionally been a big brother for Serbia, cemented by history and religion and the Serb minority around Mitrovice were somewhat reassured and less problematic due to token Russiian presence.
It was a good reminder of the pragmatic rather than doctrinal way in which the Brit military defuse local tensions.
If we had had to fight them for some reason, the Brits would have been perfectly ready for and up to the task.
I don’t at all.like the idea of a two-speed NATO Europe, where some countries step up and others don’t. All 31 are in an alliance and it would be a bad precedent to set if we ever have to fight a peer war on Europe’ borders.
If Trump succeeds in getting a ceasefire deal, it’s enforcement will need.a lot more than some lightly-armed UN-type monitoring force, because we know that Russia.is as likely to go.on the offensive again against Ukrainian border forces.and it will be hopelesss if a thin NATO covering force has to beat a hasty retreat.
The length of the front line from Kherson to Kharkiv is.very long, is it 700+ miles? Then the north-east.would need a covering force, because Sumy etc border Russia and are open to attack. You cannot man that kind of line with a few battlegroups..it would at the least need about 10 manoeuvre brigades., and well-armed, heavy armoured infantry, plus strong divisional.rocket and tube artillery., air defence. UAVs, anti-tank resources etc. Plus a couple of fighter aircraft and cruise missiles wings the whole to deter Russia from kicking off again.
That means one brigade from each of the bigger nations – Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and Turkey, and no doubt some nominal US land force, plus contribution from the smaller NATO.nations.
Britain is in no military position to lead anything, far too few uniformed personnel, big equipment gaps and limited munitions stocks and reserve stocks. Before HMG even thinks about posing on the world stage, it would have to have a crash.programme to increase service numbers back to.2010 levels minimum and a speeding-‘up of new fighter aircraft and useful aka tracked.army vehicles and corps/division assetd. That would require an early jump to 3% of GDP.
The navy would have a limited role to play, such as securing the eastlant, as Russia’s Black Sea flotilla poses little risk to anybody.
At present there is no hope with the force levels the army has, effectively the British army units are all doing two jobs each. Even to get one heavy brigade for this job the British army would need to somehow create 3 new heavy brigades.
Jonathan. Totally correct. Amongst other things we would need 5 armoured regiments and 350 tanks.
The American Emperor gets whatever he wants.
The other Idiocracies can fight over the scraps
I don’t like to brag but ‘I told you so’
♾️❤️☮️