A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of an unholy alliance of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
What’s driving European politics at current is worry. Concern of who Russia may invade subsequent if Ukraine have been to break down. Concern of what may occur if Trump have been to desert Nato and depart Europe to the mercy of Putin.
To adapt Dr Johnson’s adage: rely upon it, sir, when leaders worry they might be invaded in a matter of months, it concentrates their minds splendidly.
And so final week, when some two dozen European leaders assembled in Paris for a Ukraine summit, their host, Emmanuel Macron, gave voice to the rising sense of panic concerning the looming threats from east and west.
“It is a European warfare,” he advised the gathering. “Ought to we delegate our future to the American citizens? The reply is not any, no matter their vote. We mustn’t wait to seek out out what the consequence [of the US Presidential election] is. We should determine now.”
However determine what, precisely? There’s the rub. The European Union has already promised Ukraine a package deal of support value €50bn (£43bn) over a number of years. That package deal required a rare quantity of bribery and arm-twisting to get it previous Viktor Orban.
A rising physique of opinion throughout the Continent believes that the warfare is unwinnable for Ukraine and a big minority is actively pro-Russian. There’s merely no consensus in favour of stepping up EU help to Kyiv.
So Macron determined to solid any try to seek out consensus apart. As a substitute, he echoed Marshal Foch in 1914: “My centre is giving means, my proper is in retreat, state of affairs wonderful. J’attaque!”
Macron declared: “There’s no consensus in the present day to ship, in an official method, troops on the bottom. However when it comes to choices, nothing might be dominated out.”
Ruling out sending floor troops, nevertheless, is precisely what all the foremost Nato allies instantly did – particularly when the Kremlin warned that such a step would render warfare between Russia and Nato “inevitable”.
The Biden administration has been struggling for months to beat a Congressional Republican block on $60bn in new navy support to Ukraine. In an election yr, placing American lives in danger in a European warfare is out of the query.
The British have been nearly as fast to scotch the concept. “Past the small variety of personnel in-country supporting the [Ukrainian] armed forces, we would not have any plans to make large-scale deployments,” Downing Road insisted.
However essentially the most vehement try to shoot down Macron’s kite got here from Berlin. Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, dismissed any such suggestion, now or in future.
“There will likely be no floor troops, no troopers despatched [to Ukraine] by European nations or Nato states,” he declared.
Robert Habeck, Scholz’s Inexperienced vice-chancellor in Germany’s centre-Left ruling coalition, was much more pointed: “I’m happy that France is considering the way to enhance its help for Ukraine, but when I may give it a phrase of recommendation – provide extra weapons.”