European security depends on Ukraine

In this video, I reflect on the discussions about security guarantees for Ukraine and explain why they are still immature. It's good that there is now a focus on security guarantees rather than Ukraine needing to make territorial concessions. However, it is a significant mistake to view Ukrainian security as independent of broader questions about European security as a whole. Western Europe needs Ukraine as much as Ukraine needs Western Europe. This point was illustrated quite vividly with the Russian drones flying into Poland.

Watch the video here or read the transcript below.

Best,
Anders.

Transcript:

The discussion about security guarantees for Ukraine has intensified. There is a lot of talk right now about what that's going to look like, who's going to contribute what, and what will be sufficient to deter Russia from starting another war in the future. And on the one hand, it's good because the question about security guarantees is very important for the possibility of ending this war. But at the same time, I think it's still also clear that the discussion is quite immature. So let's talk about it.

There is a certain irony to the fact that to a large extent it was the meeting between Trump and Putin in Alaska that sparked the current discussion about security guarantees for Ukraine. After that meeting, Trump claimed that Putin had agreed to the West providing security guarantees after the termination of the war. Putin actually never said that, but because Trump kept on saying that Putin had said it, then everyone else started to work under the assumption that this was somehow a done deal.

Since then, there have been many discussions, especially among the European NATO countries, about who can contribute to these security guarantees and when that might happen. There have been talks about how the West can provide soldiers on the ground, aircraft to patrol the skies, maritime missions in the Black Sea, or what other measures that can be put in place. It's also been discussed how the Ukrainian army can be equipped so that they will be well prepared for any future Russian aggression. And finally, there's also been a very important discussion about the role of the United States in all of this. and what Trump will be willing to provide in terms of support for this effort.

So, on the one hand, this is good. For far too long, the discussions about how the war in Ukraine can end have focused on the wrong issues and have neglected this issue of security guarantees, which as I see it, is probably the most important aspect to discuss in the first place. Because until this Alaska summit, what most people talked about was the issue of territory and where the border should be after a peace settlement. But now it's a much more nuanced discussion and there seems to be a broader understanding that this issue of security guarantees needs to be on the table.

I have for a very long time said that it's a mistake to assume that this is a war about territory. The war in Ukraine is not primarily a territorial war, it's a war of independence. So the central issue is the question of Ukrainian independence or Russian dominance over Ukraine in the future, and to assume that you could settle a war of independence by giving some territorial concessions, that's just an absolute misunderstanding of the dynamics of the war. It was a hopeless project and in that sense, I think it's good that we are now talking about security guarantees because it means that we've moved the discussion from viewing this as a war about territory to recognizing that it's a war about Ukrainian independence.

But on the other hand, I also think it's evident that it's still a quite immature discussion that we have about these security guarantees. The problem is that the war in Ukraine is still seen in isolation from the broader issues of European security. It still frames the question as an isolated Ukrainian problem that is somehow compartmentalized or distinct from the challenges that are facing the rest of Europe.

But having a discussion about Ukraine's security without addressing the broader issues of European security just seems detached from reality. Ukraine has security issues, but they're not alone. The question about how to deter Russia from aggression is something that many countries in Europe are currently grappling with. And I think it's very important that we don't fall into the trap of seeing these as separate issues. And that is, unfortunately, what still seems to be happening in the discussions about the coalition of the willing and how European countries can support Ukraine.

What I mean by this is that Europe is basically in a situation where the foundation of our security, which has existed since the Second World War, has fallen apart. Traditionally, it's been the United States that has provided the necessary deterrence to prevent first Soviet and then Russian aggression. Now it's pretty clear that the United States is not going to play that role going forward. We cannot trust Donald Trump, and after Donald Trump, we cannot trust the United States to again have the necessary commitment to providing this security in Europe.

This means that we in Europe have a huge problem right now as we try to figure out how we can establish sufficient military deterrence to prevent a war with Russia in the coming decade. The idea that we could have this discussion among European NATO countries separately from a discussion about Ukrainian security is quite frankly absurd.

Ukraine has the second largest army in Europe. Russia is number one, Ukraine is number two. So, among the countries that we could meaningfully ally with, Ukraine has the strongest army. It's much larger than the German army, the French army, and the British army. So, it's crucial that we don't fall into this trap of assuming that we in Western Europe are somehow stronger than the Ukrainians or that we would be able to do better than they can. Because we're not stronger than them. Ukraine is the only country right now in Europe that is strong enough to actually withstand the kind of pressure that Russia is putting on them.

So the point I want to make is that the security order in Europe needs to be redefined. We in Western Europe must come to terms with the fact that our strongest ally, the the United States is pulling away and leaving us behind. And we obviously need to look around in our neighborhood to see what other strong potential allies can provide some of the capabilities that the Americans are no longer willing to offer. And Ukraine clearly stands out as someone who actually has what we need.

The way I see it, if we want to have a chance of deterring Russia from aggression in the future and preventing war in Europe, we depend on Ukraine. We need Ukraine to be on our side. That's why it's so important for us to help Ukraine and ensure that they don't lose this war. But we also need to start thinking about how we will rely on Ukraine's position and their army for our security once this war is over.

That's why I think this discussion that we're having is still not sufficiently developed. We made some progress because we've now moved from seeing the war in Ukraine as being a war about territory to recognizing that it's a war about Ukrainian independence. But we still have not made the final and necessary step of understanding that this is a war about European security as a whole.

So to break this down a little bit and to make it more specific what I'm thinking, then I believe it's important that we elevate the discussion from how the Western countries can help Ukraine fight a future war that is localized in Ukraine and contained there. Both because the Ukrainian army is already the largest army in Europe, so the idea that us sending 10 or 20,000 soldiers would make a big difference is quite silly. But more importantly, because we need to have conversations about how to ensure that when Russia looks at Europe from the outside, what they see is one giant coherent front line that stretches from Norway in the north and all the way through Ukraine to the Black Sea in the south.

This is the type of European security structure that I'm talking about. If we can present Russia with a front line like that, which also includes the second largest army in Europe on the other side, then we're seeing the contours of something that might actually work in terms of providing the sufficient deterrence to prevent a war.

The reason why this would be intimidating is that it would make it really difficult for Putin to control escalation or to concentrate forces in a localized conflict if he starts a war. He would be facing the potential of what is called horizontal escalation, where suddenly a war can spread from one area to another. Right now, Russia is fighting a war in Ukraine. So it has prioritized its forces in this area. But if they were also facing a threat that could mean that they could be attacked from, say, airstrikes from Finland, they would need to allocate many more soldiers and resources to defending that area as well. So, this would mean that they would have fewer resources in Ukraine.

That is what horizontal escalation or the threat of horizontal escalation can do. And it would also work the other way. Having Ukraine included in this type of security structure as an ally of the Western countries would make it really challenging for Putin to try something in Finland or the Baltic states. He would face the threat that the Ukrainians could suddenly start pushing Russia in another area. This might be the situation where suddenly the Ukrainians decide that now is the time to take back the Donbas. So he wouldn't be able to allocate all those forces to the invasion of Latvia that he has in mind.

These are the types of dilemmas that Europe will need to figure out how we can present to Putin if we want deterrence to work. So this is what I mean, that a more mature discussion wouldn't just focus on security guarantees for Ukraine. It should be about creating an entire new security structure for Europe. This structure would recognize that it's not just Ukraine that needs help with security guarantees that the Western European countries can provide, but that Western Europe also depends on Ukraine. That our security actually depends on us being allies with Ukraine in the future if we want to deter Russia from aggression in a time when the United States is unwilling to provide that security.

So, it's a good start of that discussion that it's moved from being about territorial concessions to now being about security guarantees. But it needs to move further. It needs to be about broader European security where Ukraine is also seen as a provider of security to the rest of Europe and not just the other way around.

This will probably require Western European soldiers on the ground in Ukraine as a kind of tripwire force, but just as much, it would probably require Ukrainian soldiers in other European countries as well as a tripwire force there. So, there are these discussions that we need to have about how Ukraine and the current NATO countries can work together to deter Russian aggression against everyone in the future.

Okay, I will end this discussion here. If you found the video helpful or informative, please give it a like. And also remember, you can subscribe to the channel and click the bell icon that you will get notifications when I upload new videos. If you want to support this channel, you can gain access also to some bonus videos if you subscribe to my newsletter at www.logicofwar.com. Thank you very much for watching, and I will see you again next time.