Ukraine is now Europe’s problem. Opinion

The United States Congress has finally approved an aid bill for Ukraine, this version has the official approval of Donald Trump. This is called a lend-lease package, meaning that Ukraine will receive military aid in the form of a commercial loan, and will receive leased military equipment that will be returned after use. The military part is a political cover, as it was during World War II, when the United States supplied weapons to its allies on the basis of the Lend-Lease Act of 1941. But this is very different from the financial aid part of the package which comes in the form of loans or grants.

When Ukraine joins the EU, if it does so, its debt will become the EU’s debt, as the Union will ultimately have to finance the country’s transition. What Donald Trump and Mike Johnson are doing is putting the burden of financing on Europe. Even if the package is agreed, there will be legislative and logistical delays until it is implemented.

On the other hand, Russia has taken advantage of the political vacuum in Western policy towards Ukraine and created a reality on the ground. Attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure are devastating. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz sent one of Germany’s 12 Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine. This is appreciated, but will not be decisive. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that he would need 25 systems to fully defend the country. It is estimated that in Ukraine there are between three and five. This gap is a good indicator of the magnitude of the problem: the gap between Western promises and facts on the ground.

As American foreign policy increasingly focuses on the Middle East, this war is becoming Europe’s war. Apart from more anti-aircraft systems, what Ukraine and its European allies need most is a strategy, a clear idea of ​​what the best and second-best outcomes are, and how to get there. It is rare that modern wars end with complete winners and losers. The consequences of this war are more likely than Russia’s occupation of all of Ukraine or Russia’s complete defeat.

The West’s biggest mistake is underestimating the power of Vladimir Putin and his resistance, and underestimating the impact that economic sanctions will have on the Russian economy. Russia has recorded higher growth rates than any major Western economy. In terms of purchasing power, the country is roughly the same size as Germany. Now that the counter-attack is taking place, it seems that the West has lost interest and is mainly focused on the Middle East war.

A recent comment by Scholz reminded me of the lack of strategy. He said he expected the war in Ukraine to last a long time. This is consistent with an informal estimate I heard from a source that the working hypothesis in the Berlin Chancellery is that the war will last a decade. This expectation is very revealing. That’s ten years more than even the Scholz government’s most optimistic life expectancy estimate. This is another way of saying that we don’t know how the war will end, and we’ll happily leave it to the next person in charge.

The Germans provide more aid and arms than anyone else in Europe, but strategically they are a disaster. The only obvious thing coming to us from Berlin are the red lines. We know that Scholz does not want to move beyond Ukraine’s borders. Everything else is surrounded by dense fog. The red line approach got us into the eurozone debt crisis last decade. Now they are doing the same with foreign policy.

There is no doubt that the West has more and better weapons and many more resources than Russia. It was quite impressive to see that the Patriots intercepted all but seven of the 120 ballistic missiles, 170 drones, and 30 cruise missiles sent in the direction of Israel by Iran.

A Ukrainian proxy war against Russia, supported by the West, will not pose any real challenge. But it has become one because of a strategic failure to establish specific war objectives as well as plans to achieve them: securing the current front lines; Liberate the occupied areas section by section; define possible outcomes that fall between the extremes of complete defeat and complete victory; and prepare a diplomatic settlement when the war ends.

The underlying strategy behind the 10 Years’ War is to attempt to tire the enemy or wait for another event to intervene. I would not advise Western leaders to try to defeat Putin in a contest of patience and will. Our geopolitics are much more likely to suffer from attention deficit disorder or chronic fatigue syndrome. A 10-year war would also put Ukraine’s EU and NATO membership into permafrost, and would be economically disastrous for Ukraine and the EU. Neither NATO nor the European Union can accept a country at war. Have you thought about it?

We are entering political conditions unknown to Europeans. Germany is the only country that has the capacity to help Ukraine and yet Germany is a country with red lines. On the other hand, the United States remains a distant and increasingly reluctant ally. It’s not just about Trump. Now this is our job.

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