Europe dangerously deluded on Ukraine’s lost war
NATO can’t save Ukraine from defeat and Europe’s leaders fear what happens next when that day inevitably arrives
Europe is facing defeat in Ukraine as its policies on the war go sideways. Europe’s approach is increasingly unreflective of the growing reality on the ground while growing efforts to punish Russia and promote sending troops to Ukraine appear counterproductive.
A good example of this is Germany, which has indicated it will keep supporting Ukraine and push its anti-Russia agenda. Chancellor Olaf Scholz no longer refers to Vladimir Putin as Russia’s president and now only speaks of the Russian leader by his last name, Putin.
However, Germany will not send its long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine, where they could be used to attack Moscow, because Russia now knows all about the plan due to a communications intercept. The Russians have told Scholz they will retaliate if he sends them – exactly how has been left to Scholz’s imagination.
Scholz’s behavior is no different than that of other leaders in Europe (other than Hungary) and of the super-governmental EU. All of them now understand that the Russians are winning in Ukraine and, bit by bit, Ukraine is collapsing.
That is why French leader Emmanuel Macron is trying so hard to build a coalition to send NATO-country troops to Ukraine. At least so far, his counterparts are listening but holding back. The lack of support for sending Euro troops to Ukraine is not surprising.
From an operational perspective, it would not be easy to move NATO troops to Ukraine beyond those already there. While they might be able to put some troops in western Ukraine, where there is no fighting, they know the Russians would use their long-range missiles and air force to destroy them.
The Europeans have little in the way of deployable air defenses, and if they transferred more of them to protect their troops inserted into Ukraine, they would be naked at home. In fact, they have already drained their air defenses to an unprecedented degree by supporting Ukraine.
Most armies in Europe are understaffed and underfunded. European land armies are tiny and inexperienced in combat. Fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq or in the Sahel is not the same as fighting a modern Russian army that is well-equipped and experienced in large-scale warfare.
Notably, all Western plans to defeat the Russians have so far failed. Looking past the mutual recriminations, it is clear by now that the “plan” was a fantasy.
If the Ukrainian offensive used a preponderance of Western hardware, had exceptional tactical intelligence, thousands of drones and endless ammunition, and still went belly-up, the future is grim. A leaked US Pentagon report that showed casualties at seven Ukrainians to every one Russian (or worse) was the handwriting on the wall.
The French understand the arithmetic but Macron’s “plan” is even worse than the one ginned up by the US Defense Department. Macron hints at sending 20,000 French troops to Odesa. But what would they do there?
The Russians also are thinking about Odesa and might be tempted by the idea of killing two birds with one stone. Dimitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council and former Russian president, said on February 22:
“We have longed for Odesa in the Russian Federation because of the city’s history, the people who live there and the language they speak. This is our Russian city.” French troops in Odesa would serve no military purpose other than to encourage the Russians to attack the city.
The Russians did not start the Ukraine war in good military form and made many tactical mistakes. But that has since changed as the Russian army has toughened up and its command, with the exception of the Russian Navy, is much improved at all levels.
Russian industry is producing more and better weapons and is outpacing all of the West, including the United States. While Europe and the US are actively trying to improve defense manufacturing, it will take years to even replace the weapons destroyed in the Ukraine war.
Today, Europe is gripped with fear of Russia, a fear that is not entirely misplaced. Marine Le Pen, who is parliamentary party leader of the National Rally in the French Assembly, said in an interview on March 20 with BFM-TV (Paris) that Russia is unlikely to attack Europe because it lacks a large enough army for the task.
But her appreciation is not shared by those in power in France, Germany, Britain or Poland, no matter what brave words they tell their home audiences. They fear what will happen next when Ukraine is defeated.
“There is something that I do not admit in the behavior of Emmanuel Macron, it is that he plays politics with war. Emmanuel Macron seeks to set a trap for his adversaries according to the principle which consists of saying: ‘You are either pro-Macron and if you are not pro-Macron, you are for Putin’ We cannot play with war or with peace.
– Marine Le Pen
Europe is responding unusually to its growing fear. Instead of trying to find a way to head off a disaster in Ukraine, Europe is doubling down on trying to “punish” Russia, adding more sanctions and getting ready to take already seized Russian assets and hand them over to Kiev. The Europeans seem oblivious or even don’t care how their actions will be viewed in Moscow.
Objectively, there is not much Europe can really do to save Ukraine from defeat. A lot is being made of Ukraine’s ammunition shortage, which is real, but little is being said that there isn’t any ammunition to ship there.
Ukraine’s real problem is manpower. They have run out of people willing to serve and morale in the Ukrainian army is starting to crack. These growing manifestations of collapse are bound to bring about political change in Kiev.
Some of the disintegration is reflected in strange Ukrainian military tactics that border on either the suicidal or inane. The waste of manpower on meaningless assaults on Krynky is a suicide mission, as was the attempt to hold onto Avdiivka, which resulted in heavy casualties and a Russian victory.
The latest attacks on Russian territory around Belgorod also qualify as high-casualty suicide missions. Ukraine’s apparent interest in seizing Russian nuclear weapons near Belgorod at an installation called Belgorod-22 and a missile and drone attack on the Kurchatov nuclear plant are both reckless. They are the types of desperate action that leaders take when they know they are in a trap.
Germany’s Scholz says he won’t accept a Putin-dictated peace in Ukraine. This is the rough equivalent of Scholz saying he won’t let Donald Trump win the US presidential election. Not only is Scholz’s position nonsense, but it misses the mark.
The likely end of the Ukraine conflict will come when the Ukrainian army decides it can’t keep fighting. Then the army will refuse orders from Kiev or it will seek to change the government’s leadership.
There already are examples of units refusing orders and even one platoon surrendering on the condition that the Ukrainian soldiers not be part of any exchange with Ukraine, since they know either they will go to prison or be used again on the front lines, meaning certain death.
Ukraine is rapidly reaching the point where the Ukrainian army, or the Ukrainian people, or both have to decide if staying in the war is in the country’s national interest, or even if they can hope to survive if they keep fighting.
On one level, Europe’s leaders know where all this is headed in Ukraine but they don’t want to be honest either with their own people or themselves. So they are doubling down dangerously in support of a lost war.
Stephen Bryen served as staff director of the Near East Subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as a deputy undersecretary of defense for policy. This article was first published on his Weapons and Strategy Substack and is republished with permission.