The Trump administration has put Europeans on notice: Postwar Ukraine’s security is their responsibility, and they should not expect the United States to help. As U.S. President Donald Trump put it, the war in Ukraine “doesn’t have much of an effect on us because we have a big, beautiful ocean in between.” Geography hasn’t been as kind to Europe; its leaders believe that a renewed Russian attack on Ukraine could threaten their countries’ safety and that bolstering Ukraine’s capacity for self-defense is therefore a matter of self-interest, especially given increasing doubts about the U.S. commitment to defending Europe.
Bringing Ukraine into NATO is not a solution for this problem. The alliance has been divided on Ukraine’s membership ever since it accepted the idea, in noncommittal terms, at a 2008 summit in Bucharest, Romania. Trump effectively shut that door last month by affirming his defense secretary’s statement that “the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.”
The Trump administration has put Europeans on notice: Postwar Ukraine’s security is their responsibility, and they should not expect the United States to help. As U.S. President Donald Trump put it, the war in Ukraine “doesn’t have much of an effect on us because we have a big, beautiful ocean in between.” Geography hasn’t been as kind to Europe; its leaders believe that a renewed Russian attack on Ukraine could threaten their countries’ safety and that bolstering Ukraine’s capacity for self-defense is therefore a matter of self-interest, especially given increasing doubts about the U.S. commitment to defending Europe.
Bringing Ukraine into NATO is not a solution for this problem. The alliance has been divided on Ukraine’s membership ever since it accepted the idea, in noncommittal terms, at a 2008 summit in Bucharest, Romania. Trump effectively shut that door last month by affirming his defense secretary’s statement that “the United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement.”
One idea for a European role in defending Ukraine—which French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are trying to sell—involves the creation of a force with troops provided by a subset of willing (non-U.S.) NATO countries. Alas, this proposal is even more unrealistic than NATO membership for Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky believes that a European peacekeeping force will require at least 200,000 soldiers to deter—or, failing that, foil—a future Russian invasion. But after more than three decades of prioritizing spending on economic and social programs over building up its military power, Europe lacks the ability to assemble a battle-capable army anywhere near as large as Zelensky proposes. The military-related spending of NATO’s European members has increased in recent years but, on average, as a proportion of GDP it barely budged since the late 1990s. Consequently, Europe’s armed forces remain heavily reliant on the United States in critical areas, including command and control, long-range targeting, logistics, surveillance, and airpower. What’s more, even if Europe had enough soldiers for the task, Russia has declared the presence of European troops in Ukraine as “completely unacceptable,” regardless of their number or mission.
But there’s another way, more feasible and less risky, for Europe to bolster Ukraine’s security: It can help Kyiv adopt a strategy of armed neutrality. Now that the Trump administration has all but closed off Ukraine’s NATO membership, this strategy has become even more appropriate.
Here’s how armed neutrality would work, as part of a negotiated settlement. Under a long-term agreement, willing European states, joined by the United Kingdom, would commit to training and equipping Ukraine’s army. The goal would be to eventually create a modernized Ukrainian force, one far more formidable than the one Russia has faced since its 2022 invasion.
This is not beyond Europe’s capabilities, especially if it ramps up investments in its military industries. Already, Europe and the U.K. have provided 40 percent of the military aid—worth over $45 billion—Ukraine has received from the West since the war began. Between 2019 and 2023, five of the world’s top 10 arms exporting countries were European; they accounted for almost 28 percent of global sales—more than two times Russia’s share. Europe also has several world-class armament manufacturing companies, such as BAE Systems, Rheinmetall, Thales, Saab, and others. And Europe’s economic resources and record for technological innovation, which far surpass Russia’s, give it a strong foundation on which to build—for both helping move Ukraine toward armed neutrality and for boosting its own defense capabilities.
A European coalition won’t be able to fill the gap entirely should the United States cease arming Ukraine, but it can still strengthen the Ukrainian army’s future capabilities and increase its contribution over time, relying on its own defense industries and purchases from the United States. Plus, though the Trump administration has likely ruled out a U.S. security guarantee for Ukraine, it may be amenable to an arms-for-cash arrangement—such as U.S. weaponry in exchange for Ukrainian minerals—of the transactional sort that Trump favors. On the political side of the ledger, many more European states will join a coalition for arming and training Ukraine’s military than one that pledges to defend Ukraine even at the risk of going to war against Russia.
Europe also has time to help Ukraine adopt armed neutrality because of the toll that the war has taken on Russia’s military and economy. At least 700,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded in Ukraine. Though Ukraine has much bigger manpower problems, Russia’s troop shortages have become evident of late; even before, it relied on foreign mercenaries and, in Kursk, thousands of North Korean troops.
Moreover, Russia’s military has suffered staggering losses in materiel: more than 19,000 military vehicles and pieces of equipment destroyed, captured, or abandoned. The shortage of armor has forced the Russian army to rely increasingly on dismounted infantry and to pull decades-old tanks and infantry-fighting vehicles out of storage. Worse, it has been forced to use vulnerable passenger cars and vans, Chinese-made golf carts, motorbikes, and horses to transport troops and supplies to the front lines. Together, these strains account for the fact that the pace of Russia’s advance in Donetsk—notably on the Pokrovsk, Chasiv Yar, and Toretsk fronts—has slowed noticeably in recent months and even faced Ukrainian counteroffensives.
The war is also placing increasing burdens on Russia’s economy. The army’s demand for troops (along with the defense industry’s need for workers) and the state’s willingness to meet it with lucrative salaries and bonuses that civilian employers cannot afford have created acute labor shortages. Russia’s inflation rate is 9.9 percent, twice the official goal, and a 21 percent interest rate has choked off investment. Defense expenditures now swallow nearly a third of the national budget. This year’s military budget exceeds last year’s by more than 40 percent and comprises 6.7 percent of Russia’s GDP. (The vast majority of non-U.S. NATO countries spend less than third of that proportion.) Add to this the costs of rebuilding the heavily damaged parts of Russian-occupied Ukraine, which Moscow may well retain as part of a political settlement. Subsidies to Crimea have cost Russia’s central government between $1 billion and nearly $3 billion annually since 2014 and accounted for 70 percent of the local budget. And the estimated cost of reconstruction in the war-ravaged Russian-occupied Donbas region ranges from $100 billion to $200 billion.
None of this means Russia is losing the war—note that Ukraine’s army has been forced to withdraw from Kursk, parts of which it occupied in August—or will be forced to make big concessions. But given these constraints, it’s unlikely that, having already fought Ukrainians for three years, Russian President Vladimir Putin, or a successor, will rush to attack again. Russia will have to reconstitute its depleted armed forces, replace vast amounts of destroyed equipment, and tend to an ailing economy. And its leaders now know that Ukraine, though far weaker, cannot be defeated easily because its people will fight, die, and endure severe hardships to defend their country.
The war’s depletion of Russia’s army and economy matter. It gives Europe time to beef up its defense spending and help train and equip Ukraine’s military to make armed neutrality feasible. For this arrangement to work, however, in negotiations for ending the war, Europe and Ukraine must reject the likely Russian demand for caps on the size of Ukraine’s army and on the number of critical armaments, such as tanks and artillery, it can deploy—something that Moscow sought in the negotiations held in March and April 2022.
In order to move toward greater autonomy in defense and to enable Ukraine’s armed neutrality, Europe must move quickly to acquire the capabilities that it badly needs but sorely lacks. That will require addressing numerous military weaknesses—exemplified by the serious problems plaguing the armed forces of Germany, one of the continent’s richest countries—that owe, in no small measure, to Europe’s good fortune of having been able to count on U.S. protection for more than 70 years.
Still, if Europe can muster the will, it has the economic and technological means to eventually overcome these problems. And given the Trump administration’s demand that Europe assume much greater responsibilities for its own defense, it now has a compelling motive.
As for Ukraine, now that NATO membership looks all but impossible, it needs sustained military training and weapons supplies, which Europe can provide to make armed neutrality a feasible strategy.
The post Europe’s Best Bet for Protecting Postwar Ukraine appeared first on Foreign Policy.
