There is an outside, long shot chance of saving Ukraine and the Western Alliance—Buy American.
I don’t mean American cars or cereal. I mean something which really costs—American weaponry, American satellite links and American intelligence.
The money is there, $300-plus billion in frozen Russian assets that was being held back for Ukrainian reconstruction. There is not much point in saving it for reconstruction purposes if there is no country to reconstruct.
On top of that the normally frugal Germans are about to remove the EU debt brake and leap into a defense spending spree. And across Europe taxes are set to rise and welfare budgets cut to pay for what is now a defense emergency.
The purpose of the rapid rise in defense spending is to fill the huge hole left by the withdrawal of the United States from Ukraine and probably Europe as a whole. The problem is that no matter how big the budget it will take at least five—probably more—years to rebuild military forces and defense industries, and Putin is banging on Europe’s door today.
That is why British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky pressed Donald Trump for security guarantees as part of any ceasefire agreement.
The problem is that Trump does not see any advantage for him—or America—in providing such guarantees. It involves expensive aid until a ceasefire agreement is reached; commits US forces to a clash with Russia if Putin—as expected—breaks the ceasefire and potentially interferes with his plans to buddy up with fellow autocrat and would block access to Russian natural resources.
So give him a cash incentive with a bit of ego boosting thrown in for good measure. This is the kind of enticement Trump easily understands.
To start with the US gets the mineral rights deal he is demanding for past aid. Next,Trump is the recognised point man in negotiations with Vladimir Putin, but he has to consult and keep informed European leaders and Zelensky.
The US continues to provide military and intelligence aid while ceasefire talks are being held. The Europeans at the same time increase their contribution and pay for the US support using the frozen Russian assets and their augmented defense budgets. As part of the agreement the European powers guarantee the future security of Ukraine. Russia does the same, although no one will believe them and the United States officially leaves the scene.
Meanwhile, the European leaders nominate Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian committee that decides the prize winner will almost certainly reject him. But at least the European leaders and Zelensky can say they did their part by nominating him.
The Europeans will continue to supply Ukraine with weapons and buy the American equipment that will enable them to 1- beef up their own defense forces 2- supply their boots on Ukrainian ground 3- erase the America’s $162 billion trade deficit with the EU and 4- Eliminate the need for tariffs.
This proposed scenario has the advantage of appealing to Trump’s transactional instincts and pours money into American coffers. He should love it.
But it has lots of provisos and consequences. First proviso is that Putin accepts it. That is unlikely. He is demanding international recognition of the territories he has illegally annexed and then some. He also wants Ukraine de-militarised and banned from NATO and probably the EU as well. Finally, he wants a pro-Russian puppet government in Ukraine. All of which means he wins. The West loses and there is no need for security guarantees.
The other problem concerns Trump’s long-term strategy. It is increasingly feared by many that the populist American leader identifies more closely with his Russian counterpart than America’s traditional allies. If that is so then his plan could be to throw Ukraine and Europe to the Russian bear in return for access to Russian natural resources and some sort of alliance with the Kremlin and he will reject any deal that thwarts that goal.
Regardless, the major consequence of almost any course of action is the rearmament of Europe. This will inevitably lead to its political independence from Washington, which Americans should not want. On this issue, the role of Britain becomes crucial. For more than a century it has acted as a bridge between America and continental Europe. Sir Keir wants to continue that role. The British voted in 2016 that they don’t want to be part of Europe. They may be forced to reconsider that decision.
* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and author of “The Encyclopaedia of the Cold War” and “America Made in Britain".
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
The Joy of Six 1339
Kemi Badenoch vs the Conservative Party: how the polling compares - The Week in Polls
F10 is passed overwhelmingly. Now the work begins...
Blackness Road - 1967 #dundeewestend
Torchwood is now a Cardiff Bay institution
Zachary Adam Barker
tom arms
Neil Hickman
Joe Bourke
13 Comments
In his 1935 book “War is a racket’ Smedley D. Butler, a retired United States Marine Corps major general and two-time Medal of Honor recipient discussed how business interests commercially benefit from warfare, giving a variety of examples, where industrialists, whose operations were subsidized by public funding, were able to generate substantial profits, making money from mass human suffering.
“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”
This Ukraine war is a racket for the Russian elites and now Trump wants to be in on the racket personally with his minerals deal to extract as much as possible from the beleaguered Ukrainian population and their descendants.
Thanks Jo for your point about who benefits from war, but are we not now in a slightly different place from 1935 or even a few years ago? In contrast to the past, we now have a leader, elected into office, who puts business, transactional benefits before morality, good and right international relations and care for people around the world even though he dresses it up in the shallow outer clothing of peace. At least in the past, the business side of things was not upfront.
If weapons are to be purchased, might France be a more reliable vendor?
https://www.politico.eu/article/france-overtake-russia-world-weapons-exporter/
On treaty/promises/ally reliability scales of 0 to 10, what might Trumperica score?
Ditto France?
Ditto our current Government?
Yes, war is a racket, and yes, Trump wants to be in on it – But Tom Arms’ proposal nevertheless deserves to be taken seriously. Putin has clearly offered Trump a great deal to carve up and pillage Ukraine. If we in Europe want to stop that, we need to outbid Putin. We can potentially do that by buying arms from the US.
Before we do that, we must get Trump’s commitment to switch sides back to Western Europe. Otherwise we will have wasted our money. If Trump will not play ball, then we can show the world that Trump is Putin’s poodle – and that we have tried our best for Ukraine.
Buying US armaments also makes military sense. Ukraine has little use for a European rearmament programme that will make Europe a real contender in ten years’ time. Ukraine needs the missile defences and intelligence now. Only then can Ukraine strike a not-too-dreadful peace deal. Without US support – or US arms bought by Europe – Ukraine is facing annihilation.
Trump may very well refuse to sell Europe anything. If that happens, the wider free world will know that the US has left it. If nothing else, Europe will have gained clarity – and friends.
Surely Putin’s goal is straightforward; to regain USSR, the important bit is Ukraine. Trump’s is to ward off and challenge China which he sees as the biggest threat by bringing on the demise of USA. Russia will be his ally, or more, likely sort of neutral and not a vassal state for China, meanwhile a source of exploitation of resources. Anything that gets in the way of that = Europe, will be overlooked, trampled on, or ignored. Trump will lose and cause complete chaos on the way, if not political, physical, economic devastation on the way. Inport tarrifs will aid that and hasten that downfall.
Tom Arms…..To start with the US gets the mineral rights deal he is demanding for past aid. Next, Trump is the recognised point man in negotiations with Vladimir Putin, but he has to consult and keep informed European leaders and Zelensky……….
Good luck with getting Trump ‘onside’ with the bit about ‘consulting an informing’…
BTW.. Reagan was. supposedly, best buddies with Thatcher.. BUT he didn’t even ‘inform’, let alone ‘consult’, about his Grenada invasion..
Expats,
Yes, it will be hard, maybe impossible, for Europe to outbid Putin and get Trump on side. But if we don’t try our best – which means offering to buy American arms – then we will be partly to blame for failure.
The US should not get the mineral rights deal “to start with”, and Trump’s false rhetoric about it being compensation for past aid should be ignored. Too much nonsense is talked about “the art of the deal”. Actually, Trump is an incompetent negotiator, but a capable bully. It is for Europe to overcome the bullying by smart, hardball negotiation. Make Trump a good offer – preferably on arms purchases rather than the giving-away of Ukrainian minerals resources – But don’t settle until you can be sure you have gained Ukraine’s security in return. So offer things like long term stage payments, whereby if Trump welshes, he gets nothing.
It’s horrible having to negotiate with a fascist bully. But Europe has no alternative but to try.
Bill Browder, who was the largest international investor in Russia until being declared a threat to its national security for exposing corruption, has long argued that handing frozen Russian assets to Ukraine would tip the balance and allow Ukraine to “fight off the Russians” and “arm themselves properly”.
The moral argument is a strong one, but it does set a worrying precedent that could see a major retreat from the recycling of International capital through financial centres like London and New York and difficulty in financing balance of payment deficits. If the Frozen assets are held as part of reparation negotiations between Russia and Ukraine then the norms of International law might be preserved.
Former British air force planners in cooperation with Ukraine’s armed forces have developed a proposal named SkyShield. They say that it could offer Ukraine a protection zone without being a NATO operation against Moscow. According to the plan, the protection zone would cover Ukraine’s three operational nuclear power plants and also the cities of Odesa and Lviv, but not the eastern Donetsk region where hostilities are ongoing 120 Combat Jets Could Defend Ukraine’s Skies Under ‘SkyShield’ Plan
With Russia taking advantage of the US suspension of military aid and intelligence support to increase its aerial bonbardment, the introduction of Eurofighters to protect civilians and infrastructure in Western Ukraine seems to be wholly justified. This is particularly the case with the US announcing it is ending support for Ukrainian F-16s The US is ending support for Ukrainian F-16s
Haven’t Trump’s actions in blocking the delivery of arms, and the shutting down of intelligence gathering technology, demonstrated the unreliability of arms procurement from America ? We should be looking for alternative sources of supply and scratching US companies from all arms procurement shortlists.
European rearmament, however necessary, won’t save Ukraine. Long before Europe can intervene to any significant effect, Putin and Trump will have installed a Lukashenko-lookalike puppet leader to rule Ukraine, share the mineral spoils between Russia and America, and invite in Putin’s tanks to impose colonial “order”. Unless we can outbid Putin.
Given how Trump’s regime have turned the supplies of military materiel and intelligence off, cut medical supplies and disabled Ukraine’s F16s, it seems extraordinarily naive to think of increasing reliance on what is clearly a rogue, dictatorial, oligarchic regime. And they are trying to extort Ukraine for its mineral wealth whilst openly cosying up to Putin’s Russia. Apart from which, we should be creating the jobs and expertise this side of the Atlantic to benefit our own economy, not Trumps.
Frankly I find the suggestion of increasing dependence on the USA quite astonishing. This is not going to change for the life of the Trump regime and for some years beyond. As has been suggested, it’s like Roosevelt insisting on Britain allowing Hitler to take over Europe plus a few colonies, whilst charging Britain for the arms it was providing (lend-lease anyone?), and claiming the mineral rights for all of our coal fields.
Can I suggest a bit of reading about decades of Russian brutal colonialism imperialism (Snyder, Applebaum) which Putin has made clear he intends to continue. Russia has made quite clear its opposition to Europe, and both Putin and Trump’s mob have made clear their opposition to liberal democracy. Any bode fide LibDem should have spotted that.
It is a well known fact that any piece of technology can be set by the supplier to be made inoperable by a simple command. A long time ago it was ink cartridges that were set to burn out the circuitry when nearly empty to prevent refilling. Likewise I gather that manufacturers can remotely immobilise tractors and combines in case of theft, but also non payment of loans. Chinese telecommunications devices clearly cannot be relied upon in the event of heightened tensions and whether our so called nuclear deterrent is independently usable without US permission has been questioned for a long time but never answered.
Over all other factors, total trust is vital and clearly we cannot trust Donald Trump because he has chosen to unilaterally break trusts both with other states and within the US as well.
Buying mission critical equipment from the US under these circumstances has to be way too risky to even contemplate at present.
Trump and Putin are ratcheting up the tension while they prepare to table their offer to Europe and Ukraine. It will cause shock and awe. It will be grossly unacceptable. Ukraine will want to fight on. Trump will denounce “Ukrainian Nazi warmongering”, apply sanctions, and impose emergency tariffs against all nations who refuse to abandon Ukraine to its fate. Then – What use will an unspent new EU defence budget be?
No arms should be bought from the US, and no moneys paid, unless and until Trump has proved he has been persuaded to switch sides and abandon Putin.
Will this work? Quite probably not. Should it be tried? Yes, because the alternative is worse.