First things first: what US vice-president JD Vance said on Fox News on Monday evening, seeming to dismiss and insult the militaries of the United Kingdom and France, was wrong. The fact that Vance sought to clarify his remarks after the inevitable blowback suggests that the normally articulate politician knew that he could have been more careful with his words.
Amid the outrage, however, we risk missing the forest for the trees. It isn’t ridiculous for the US to question the value of a European-led deterrence mission inside Ukraine after any settlement is signed. It’s a matter of not only hard power – that is, whether the UK, France and other members of the so-called “coalition of the willing” possess the capabilities, weapons, manpower and combat enablers to staff a mission like this – but also one of political will.
This last element is absolutely essential because it determines everything else. The credibility of a potential European deterrence force inside Ukraine depends not only on whether the capacity is present but whether the countries involved are willing to follow through and fight back if Russia breaks a peace deal. “Credibility” might be an overused term in the international relations business, but in the case of trying to persuade an adversary that the costs of a renewed war aren’t worth the trouble, it is fundamental.
The fact that UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron are spending a significant quantity of time and energy on lobbying US president Donald Trump to provide a “backstop” to a European force should serve as a flashing red warning light that, no, the Europeans are ultimately not up to the job. If they were, then the Americans wouldn’t be approached with such a proposal in the first place.
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