Ukraine - Next Steps for the EU

Enhancing EU's Actions are Critical to the Next Phase of Putin's War

Writings in Foreign Affairs “Ukraine’s Security Now Depends on Europe” [Dec 2024] and elsewhere, are accepting of the beliefs committing Ukraine to some manner of being severed, according to terms which may suit Russia. The notion that the EU should weigh its participation in these talks with a goal to have a seat at the table is precisely backward. The EU should be leading from the front.

Russia isn’t able to win. It’s simply more willing to kill.

The EU, having seen this movie before (Hitler, Stalin), needs to begin a mobilization along two strategic fronts, and one tactical. The strategic fronts involve sending more war-fighting materiel to Ukraine and expanding their warfighting budgets to a level which formally acknowledges a practical reality: that the EU is at war.

Tactically, the EU should begin troop preparations and mobilizations towards the Ukraine border. Together these actions will draw the attention of Putin. Thus far, Putin’s attention towards the EU has been one of slight regard, as demonstrated by Putin’s resort to outright vandalism and street crime as a way of “managing” the EU. Putin sees the EU as if its composed by a group of decadent street gangs, not as “Great Nations”. Clear communications of intent to support Ukraine’s destiny on Ukraine’s terms will begin the process of altering Putin’s plans.

Waiting for some kind of thought bubble from the US side to jump-start either negotiation or capitulation – it remains unclear which avenue the US will travel down – simply wastes time. We can be assured, though, that whatever emerges will be both loud and unbaked. Trump’s assertion that he will resolve the Ukraine war in 24 hours indicates his lack of understanding of war, lack of understanding of Putin, and for that matter, of Ukrainians.

We can hope that Kellogg might bring a strong sense of reality to Putin’s ears and the EU’s guts. But as long as “management by tweet” reigns in the White House, Kellogg’s presence can merely fill a seat, not support or sustain an interest. The US interest in Ukraine is to ensure a Ukrainian victory over a diminished, yet controlled, Russia, while realizing an EU more capable and willing to defend itself.

To demonstrate resolve, the EU’s mobilizations should begin immediately. Britan, France and Germany should simultaneously declare their intention, through convincing actions, to mobilize their troops and technologies in support of Ukraine. Concomitant and complimentary actions by Poland, Finland, and others will help to drive home to Putin - and the US - that the time for watching and waiting and hoping that this war will “go away”, is at an end. And importantly, the next stage isn’t the EU huddling beneath the US umbrella, mumbling platitudes, but to clarify the direction of the war. After ceding the initiative to Putin for three years, this will be correctly interpreted as the EU, at last, standing up. While disorienting to Putin, this may also be disorienting to the EU.

Steady on.

To ensure that Ukraine enjoys the iron-clad assurance that the EU has its back, the EU should begin more positive discussions to include Ukraine in the EU. Shading notions of including Georgia would help to build a proper, and long-absent EU perspective into the parameters of Putin’s War. Allowed to run roughshod over Ukraine, and then to escalate the texture of the war with multiple unanswered escalations, introducing the necessary stick into the Russian spokes will result in conveying a certain kind of physics into all participants thinking, and actions.

Putin has been allowed to run a cost-free war against Ukraine. This may seem counter-intuitive given Russia’s huge losses in manpower and materiel. To fight Putin, its necessary to fight him where he lives – in his fantasy world of “Russian Greatness”.

How do fight in a fantasy world? Dismantle the real-world assumptions which Putin’s fantasy is built on.

Fantasy one: the EU is composed of decadent gangs which lack the will to fight a real war. Taking actions which acknowledge Putin’s War, and insert a will to fight it ,will begin the appropriate erosion of this fantasy.

Fantasy two: Russia, because it is great, is free to escalate the war in any way it sees fit, and because of Fantasy One, will not encounter obstacles. This is akin to Hitler’s ideology which kept him fighting in Ukraine long after the strategic requirements of facing the Allies was urgent and necessary. Ideology merely captures its adherents.

Fantasy three: Russia’s interests are the world’s interests. Putin is merely peeling away a layer of something foreign, an orderly system which allows any actor to pursue their interests: economic, legal, moral, or aspirational. That there can be something competitive in the world which would establish power beyond that which Russia can control is impossible because, well, “Russian Greatness”. Tautologies never survive encounters with reality. But they thrive when they fail to meet an immovable object.

There is a fourth fantasy. It is this: China will follow Russia’s lead. With the inclusion of North Korea in Russia’s play for Ukraine, China is faced with losing something it has always counted on: a troublesome, but relatively inert actor on its border. Putin, after spending three years gnawing on Xi’s ear to “Take Taiwan”, has placed Xi in a position which may be untenable. Xi can learn to tolerate a regime which is acquiring additional agency ,with Russia’s help, or he can “take Taiwan” and join the process of igniting WWIII, or he can step up and try to bring Putin’s War to a close.

Xi lives in interesting times.

Joining Putin’s war by extending it to Taiwan would foment a crisis that China, modern China, has not had to cope with. A fundamental disruption of China’s economy at a time of increasing unrest might not redound to Xi’s or the CCP’s benefit. For someone who sees himself as an emperor, being forced by lesser powers to take catastrophic actions, with his untested military, might be risible and seen as impudent at the same time.

While China has sat out the war in Ukraine, providing no viable means for ending it, Xi’s opportunity, given the above conditions, may be to raise the stakes of ending the war. This may include Russia backing off its claims to Ukraine in return for Ukraine ceding Crimea. Putin, as the dependent actor in the “allies without limits” relationship, has had a free run to do as he pleased in Ukraine. (Not dissimilar to Putin’s having free reign to wage war in Ukraine on his own terms – not allowing, through escalatory threats, attacks on Russia proper (Kurdish aside), while sustaining a blanket on EU initiatives.)

Should these two conditions emerge – EU “standing up” and China “stepping up” – Putin may be forced to back down. This only appears incongruous to Putin’s actions to date. Putin’s actions only appear coherent because he has been fighting a war, while the EU has been, in relative terms, watching a war. China too has been “watching” this war. Benefitting where it can and staying out of the real fighting.

The US, relying as it must on the “weaves” of Trump, may also have an opportunity here if it can seize it. While the Ukraine situation provides ample ground from which each party can harvest a “win”, facilitating this kind of outcome, which reaches beyond Ukraine to Asia would help to shore up the very system Xi and Putin desire to bring down.

Sometimes, winning is the only thing.

It is through this kind of activity that the EU can be assured that its voice can be heard in Moscow and in Washington, and in Beijing. The pieces are in place for a systematic alteration of the strategic flow of the war. For this to happen the EU needs to remember, once again, what happens when it fails to stand up.