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Europe Must Get Real on Russia–Ukraine
Foreign Affairs
Europe Must Get Real on Russia–Ukraine
Here are five steps its leaders can take to help end the war.
MAGA’s had it with Europe.
That’s nothing new, of course. America First conservatives have long regarded the European Union as a woke, socialist superstate and lamented member-state crackdowns on right-wing parties, traditional values, and national identity.
But the acceleration of U.S. diplomacy on Russia–Ukraine last month led to greater irritation with the old continent. Many American conservatives and foreign-policy realists believe European leaders are slow-walking if not obstructing the peace process.
The Trump administration agrees, judging by an Axios report published this weekend entitled, “Scoop: White House believes Europe secretly undoing Ukraine war’s end.” For MAGA conservatives, the story was yet more evidence that European intransigence was prolonging a brutal and unnecessary war.
As the resident Europhile here at The American Conservative, it pains me to admit: These MAGA critics of Europe are right.
Though not in every detail. The Axios report struck me (and the pro-Ukraine journalist Christopher Miller) as a blame-shifting exercise by the Trump administration. The PR campaign generated a strong headline, but one criticism leveled against (unnamed) European leaders was that they weren’t hawkish enough on Russia—the opposite of what MAGA believes. Moreover, the quoted White House officials conceded that Britain and France—in this context, the most important countries—are working constructively with the U.S.
Still, the Europeans really do seem to be throwing obstacles onto the road to peace. Consider, for example, the tragicomedy of Europe’s push to provide Ukraine with postwar “security guarantees.”
Since at least February, Britain and France have floated a deployment of European soldiers to Ukraine. But, they added, this “reassurance force” would itself need an American “backstop” in the form of air support. The Kremlin opposes the stationing of NATO troops in Ukraine, and the White House has resisted U.S. military involvement, so the “peace proposal” looked to many analysts more like a poison pill. Nevertheless, President Donald Trump relented, offering last month to support European peacekeepers “by air” and claiming Moscow was open to Western-provided guarantees.
And yet, as European officials prepare to meet this week in Paris to discuss the Ukraine war, all signs suggest growing division over whether their nations should, or even can, deploy enough troops to deter Russia. As word spread in August that Washington would help with security guarantees, London scaled back its plans to send troops, and Berlin said it likely couldn’t send any, since the deployment of a single brigade in Lithuania had strained the German military.
This is embarrassing stuff. Fortunately, there’s a better way forward. Here are five steps European capitals can take to help Washington bring this war closer to a resolution.
First, and most importantly, the Europeans must take a more realistic view of the conflict and of its belligerents’ relative military capabilities. The grim reality is that Russia is winning the war. The sooner it ends, the better for Ukraine.
The Axios report had said the Europeans were pushing Kiev to hold out for a “better deal” than what Trump has helped get on the table, rather than make territorial concessions to Moscow. The sources for that claim were U.S. officials disgruntled with Europe, but it aligns with the public rhetoric of European leaders.
It’s dreadful advice. If Kiev wants to retain a sovereign, albeit truncated, state after the war, then it should embrace the imperfect deal that Trump is trying to secure. The likely alternative is more fighting, more Ukrainian losses, and a much worse deal, if not total capitulation.
The next couple steps pertain to security guarantees that would be more credible than promises of European troops: 2) inviting Ukraine to join the European Union as part of a peace settlement, and 3) lobbying for Ukraine to maintain and indeed grow its own military deterrent to the greatest extent that Moscow will tolerate.
The EU’s founding charter includes a mutual defense clause, which obligates all member nations, when one of them is attacked, to “aid and assist it by all the means in their power.” Unlike NATO’s Article 5, this clause has not been (mis)understood to require that members directly fight the aggressor, but merely support the attacked nation. Over the last three years, the Europeans have amply demonstrated their willingness to send military aid to Ukraine in the event of a Russian invasion, so such a commitment would be credible.
Whether Russia’s President Vladimir Putin would permit Ukraine to participate in the EU’s mutual defense regime isn’t clear, though he has warmed to the idea of Kiev’s joining the Union. Nor is it clear that the EU would agree to admit Ukraine, with several members wary and Hungary vocally opposed. Trump is rightly prodding Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban to reconsider that stance.
European leaders should also use their diplomatic leverage to curb the “demilitarization” of Ukraine, a Russian war aim that comes with enough wiggle room for productive negotiation. And they should commit to bankrolling Ukrainian rearmament after the war.
Moscow will almost certainly demand caps on Ukraine’s military, such as range restrictions on missiles and artillery, and compromises will need to be made. But the Europeans will achieve more diplomatically if they focus on this issue, rather than harebrained schemes of a “reassurance force.”
Step number four: European leaders should deploy some diplomatic carrots to complement the sticks. Throughout the war, they have tended to propose ever-harsher measures on Moscow to force Putin to the negotiating table, and invariably that means yet another package of sanctions (they’re currently prepping number 19).
At this point, the carrot of sanctions relief would be more effective. Ukraine’s supporters are hoping that the Russian economy, which shows signs of strain, will enter a recession, but a sharp downturn wouldn’t automatically lead to peace. The Europeans should offer Moscow a chance at economic reintegration, providing an attractive off-ramp for its spluttering war economy.
Lastly, European leaders need to lay the groundwork for some kind of modus vivendi with Russia for after the war ends. The Ukraine war is, at root, a conflict between Russia and the West, and any stable settlement will need to put relations between them on a more stable footing.
Western journalists and analysts who talk to Russian security elites can attest to the extreme antipathy they presently feel toward Europe and the deleterious effects of that antipathy on peace talks. “In our view, the Europeans play a significantly negative role, often acting irrationally and against their own economic interests,” a senior researcher at a strategic policy institute in Russia told me last week. “I do not exclude the possibility that at the first convenient opportunity, they will try to revise all the achievements that have already been made on the negotiation track.”
Recent statements by European leaders that Putin is an “ogre at our gates,” that the Russians are “Huns,” and that the Ukraine war is a symptom of an underlying Russian “cancer” do not help matters. Indeed, such pronouncements are grotesque and plainly counterproductive. Russians are a proud European people whose cultural contributions have enriched us all. The Western world must learn to accommodate the Eastern half of what I have called the “Global North.”
As the era of American hegemony recedes and China’s rise continues, the West will want to repair ties with Russia and peel it away from Beijing. Trump has wisely pursued that aim as a component of ending the Ukraine war. It’s time for Europe to join the effort.
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