Category Archives: Defence

Britain, Defence, Europe, Government, Politics, Russia, Society, Ukraine, United States

Ukraine and Europe are in a race against time

UKRAINE

Intro: The suspension of US military aid to Ukraine is a severe punishing blow

JUST exactly how long do Ukraine and Europe have to respond to US betrayal? When Russia launched its full-scale invasion three years ago, each day that Kyiv held out was deemed a victory. The west rallied to Ukraine’s support at equally remarkable speed.

But now, since Donald Trump’s re-election as US President, his administration has turned upon the victim, has embraced the aggressor, and Europe is in the process of accelerating nascent plans to bolster Ukraine by pursuing security independence. America’s allies blame the extraordinary Oval office confrontation between Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr Trump, and JD Vance for the shocking decision to halt all US military aid. Others suspect that the administration was seeking a pretext for the suspension. Zelensky has pledged to “work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts” and expressed gratitude for his first-term approval of acquiring from the US the Javelin missile defence system.

Whether such platitudes are enough, only time will tell. The suspension of all military aid concluded a rancorous fortnight in which Mr Trump attacked Zelensky as a “dictator”, the US sided with Russia against western allies at the UN, and the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, suspended offensive cyber operations against Moscow. There have also been reports that the US is preparing plans for loosening the economic pressure on Russia – even as it imposes punitive trade tariffs on allies. Little wonder, then, that the Kremlin crows that Washington “largely coincides with our vision”. Vladimir Putin has reportedly offered to mediate US-Iran nuclear talks.

Military analysts suggest that Ukraine’s forces should be able to continue fighting at their current rate for a few months if US aid does not resume, depending on what it has stockpiled. Though it is far less dependent on the US than three years ago, key elements like Patriot air defence missiles will be difficult to replace. If US logistical and intelligence assistance were completed suspended, those would be further punishing blows.

The American President is in a hurry – hence his angry threat that Mr Zelensky “won’t be around very long” if he doesn’t cut a deal soon. These remarks came after the Ukrainian president suggested that the end of the war was “very, very far away”. Still, he has also squandered leverage he might have exerted on Moscow. He has emboldened Russia to pursue its revanchist aims.

The US has already undermined central tenets of Sir Keir Starmer’s approach – maintaining military support for Kyiv and economic pressure on Moscow, and creating a “coalition of the willing” to guarantee Ukrainian security. Mr Vance derided “20,000 troops from some random country that has not fought a war in 30 or 40 years”, then claimed he was not referring to Britain or France.

European leaders must continue to try and buy time, deferring further US perfidy, and hasten rearmament for themselves and Ukraine. Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, has announced a plan, including changes to EU fiscal rules, which she said could mobilise nearly Euros800bn for defence spending. A rival operator to Elon Musk’s Starlink is in direct talks with European leaders about satellite and communication services.

Nonetheless this is an administration which moves abruptly and erratically. Ukraine and Europe are racing against the clock, not knowing when zero hour will arrive. It is likely to be sooner rather than later.

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Aid, Britain, Defence, Economic, Government, Politics

Labour’s foreign aid cuts: they will undermine security

BRITAIN

THE nature of politics is about choices. Some are forced on governments by circumstance. Others are self-imposed. The Labour Government’s decision to cut the aid budget to pay for an increase in defence spending is firmly in the latter category. It is also very wrong – forcing the world’s poor to pay for Britain’s safety and security. This is a false economy. Cutting overseas aid will make the world more unstable, not less. The very crises that fuels conflict – poverty, failed states, climate disasters, and mass displacement – will only worsen with less development funding. Labour’s logic is self-defeating: diverting financial resources from aid to defence does not buy security; it undermines it.

The numbers tell the story. Despite government attempts to inflate the amounts involved, in real terms the extra £6bn for defence is tiny relative to Britain’s GDP. The UK could easily absorb this through borrowing – especially in a global financial system where pound sterling is heavily traded – or, if the government prefers, through a modest wealth tax. Yet, Sir Keir Starmer has chosen to frame this as a zero-sum game, where aid must give way to security. But why? Because this is not about economic necessity – it’s about political positioning. Labour wants to prove that it can be fiscally disciplined even when the numbers don’t demand it. It wants to neutralise Tory attacks, even when the real battle is over priorities, not affordability.

It is also a move that aligns with Donald Trump’s worldview. The US President wants to close down the US government’s main overseas aid agency, treating it as an expensive indulgence rather than a pillar of foreign policy. A UK prime minister that echoes Mr Trump’s “America first” instincts on defence and aid will likely meet with congeniality. Starmer has been searching hard for common ground since President Trump was re-elected. On aid and defence spending he has found it.

Labour doesn’t just believe in fiscal discipline; it believes that it must adopt financial rectitude and has constructed a justification for that belief. The problem is that by accepting Conservative trade-offs, Labour locks itself into an orthodoxy that it may later need to break. In a volatile world, Britain – outside the EU – must boost high-value exports and cut reliance on fragile supply chains. Even under Joe Biden, the UK was kept out of the US-EU Trade and Technology Council, which strengthened transatlantic industrial policy. Will Downing Street ever admit that Britain’s real limit is productive capacity and not budget deficits?

Britain’s fiscal constraint is artificial, but its resource constraints are real. Energy, food, and manufacturing are matters of national security, not just market functions. Without investment, dependence on key imports makes the UK vulnerable to supply-chain shocks and price inflation. If every pound spent requires a cut elsewhere, recent announcements by Labour’s Ed Miliband and Steve Reed wouldn’t have mattered.

Keir Starmer often presents himself as a pragmatist rather than an ideologue – claiming to be adapting to circumstances rather than adhering to dogma. Yet, such pragmatism is itself a belief system, one that treats capitalism’s rules as fixed and unchangeable, markets as being beyond politics, and history as a one-way street where past mistakes justify permanent and crippling caution. In doing so, Starmer isn’t just rejecting viable alternatives – he’s rewriting history to suggest they were never an option to begin with.

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Britain, Defence, Europe, Government, Politics, Russia, Society, United States

A defining moment for the future of Europe

EUROPEAN SECURITY

EIGHTY years ago, Franklin D Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill met in the Crimean city of Yalta to determine the future shape of Europe.

Together the United States, Soviet Union, and Britain had defeated Nazism. The symposium was intended to deliver lasting peace and security on the continent.

There were echoes of that momentous occasion this week when representatives of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin gathered in Saudi Arabia to thrash out an agreement over the future of Ukraine.

Significantly, Ukraine itself is excluded from the talks, leading to suspicions of an impending sell-out.

For Putin it’s a diplomatic coup. A pariah just a few weeks ago, the swaggering and revanchist bully is back at the global top table.

For President Trump it’s a signal that America will no longer bankroll Europe’s security without getting something in return.

He has made it clear he wants an end to this war and that if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blocks his plan for peace, military aid may be withdrawn.

In addition, he says the aid already provided by the US should be repaid by Ukraine handing over oil, gas, mineral rights, and infrastructure that totals around £400billion.

Mr Zelensky had himself raised the idea of giving America a direct stake in Ukraine’s lucrative mineral industry in the hope it would deter Putin from attacking in a similar vein again.              

But what Mr Trump is asking for is more than the reparations demanded of Germany after the First World War. Battle-ravaged Ukraine simply couldn’t pay.

This is a defining moment for the future of Europe and NATO. If Mr Zelensky rejects a Trump/Putin deal, European nations must decide whether to keep backing the war effort without US support. The situation is becoming more precarious and volatile by the day.

They have only themselves to blame for this dilemma. For decades they have spent far too little on defence, expecting the US to ride to the rescue in times of trouble.

President Trump is demanding, not unreasonably, that from now on they bear more of their own security burden.

Sir Keir Starmer has been talking tough in recent days, saying Britian is ready to put “boots on the ground” to guarantee any peace deal. Such an announcement has not gone down well with Moscow or with some of our NATO allies including Germany who are furious that such a suggestion has been made when a peace deal hasn’t yet been brokered. Nevertheless, is the UK actually capable of doing so, given the depleted state of our armed services after years of draconian cuts?

The incumbent government in Britain still hasn’t made good its pledge to spend 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence. This is the minimum required. Most military experts say it should be at least 3 per cent.

There’s no denying that money is tight, especially after the Labour Government’s disastrous budget increased the tax burden on families and businesses by £40billion. Imposing even higher taxes would send Britain into a deep depression.

Borrowing to boost defence would increase already stratospheric debt repayments, so the only sensible option is to cut the bloated, unproductive state. For the sake of national and European security Keir Starmer has no other option. Many in the public sector are likely to be offended when the axe starts to swing.

If Yalta taught the world anything, it’s that Russia can’t be trusted. Within weeks of that conference it had reneged on all its commitments to allow the occupied nations self-determination and the Iron Curtain came crashing down.

In the words of Roosevelt’s ambassador to Moscow, Stalin’s aim was “the establishment of totalitarianism, ending personal liberty, and democracy as we know it”.

Putin’s ambitions are not dissimilar. If he is allowed any sort of victory in Ukraine, it will not be long before he moves on to menace another European democracy.

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