[This article was first published by CEPA]
Huge ambitions and baby steps are an odd mixture
Vaulting ambitions are no bad thing. Should Britain put nuclear weapons back on board the warplanes of the Royal Air Force? Yes, probably. Should Europe have its own military command structure? Intelligence agency? Armed forces? Super. Comprehensive air defences would be nice too. Fix the Brexit divide with a UK-EU defence pact. Take a strategic approach to soft power, with media outlets to promote our values, and political warfare to undermine our foes. Let’s rebuild Europe’s competitiveness as suggested in the Draghi report.
We will all be astronauts when we grow up.
But in the meantime, it is time for homework. The gap between the European appetite for change, and the capability to implement it, is striking. Britain, for example, is trumpeting an essentially trivial increase in defence spending, of £2.2bn (€2.63bn, $2.85bn), following another £2.9bn announced in the autumn. That is fine, but to make up for neglect and cheeseparing of the past 20 years, these figures need a zero on the end.
To see why, look at the Baltic states, where Britain is struggling to keep an effective 1,000-strong deployment in Estonia, where it is the lead country in NATO’s tripwire force. Estonia urgently wants Britain to preposition large quantities of ammunition there; once the crisis starts, supply lines will be congested or blocked. Britain is supposed to contribute a brigade – 3,000-5,000 soldiers) for the upcoming Siil [Hedgehog] exercise. That is proving difficult too.
Nor was Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign-policy chief (and former Estonian prime minister) able to raise the €40 billion she sought for military assistance to Ukraine. An EU leaders’ summit earlier this month retreated into generalities. That could have prompted public outcry and soul-searching: if we are indeed in a defense emergency, why are Europeans failing to make big decisions? Instead, the summit outcome prompted anonymous briefings saying that Kallas is too bossy.
Nor can Europe even get a grip on Russia’s frozen central bank assets. Some €210bn is in EU countries, with €183 billion at the Belgian clearinghouse Euroclear. The British government has not even been able to get hold of the £2 billion proceeds of the forced sale of Chelsea Football Club, which used to be owned by the oligarch Roman Abramovich. These legal impasses have been going on for more than three years.
The price of delay is paid immediately by Ukraine. In just one week Russia sent 1,310 guided bombs, over 1,000 attack drones, and nine missiles of various types to Ukraine. As air defense stocks dwindle, Russia’s attacks will become even more deadly and destructive.
But the clock is also ticking elsewhere. Europeans cannot assume that they will be able to crank up sanctions on Russia at will. The US may have other ideas. It is possible that President Trump will double down on sanctions against Russia: on Sunday he said he was “very angry” with Vladimir Putin. But it is also possible that his ire will turn again towards Ukraine, or towards Europe, or both. The Kremlin’s read-out of the Riyadh talks highlighted the removal of sanctions on Russia’s agricultural and fertilizer trade as a condition of the proposed ceasefire.
Europeans are in conniptions about US inconstancy, actual and potential. But a tougher target and more important target should be their own decision-making. A cynic might say that leaders in Brussels, Berlin, Paris and London are waiting for things to get worse. Only when voters become truly alarmed will they allow their leaders to make painful decisions. But that may be too late. Our enemies operate at their own speed, not ours. And it is much faster.
Photo Credit: CC-BY-4.0: © European Union 2025– Source: EP