Special to WorldTribune.com

By John J. Metzler, November 29, 2024

PARIS — There’s a strange unease in Europe. Part of it reflects the misplaced nervousness reacting to Donald Trump’s re-election as the American President. Naturally there’s the predictable political nail biting that a new virulent and assertive U.S.  administration will be tough on European trade deficits as well as not instinctively committed to writing blank checks for Ukrainian military aid.

The wider strategic issue concerns Ukraine’s future and the crescendo of military escalation on both sides to step up, or decisively wind up the war before the end of the lame duck Biden Administration.

Timing is everything. Now in the twilight of the Biden Administration, the White House is pushing and pressuring a last minute gambit to stabilize Ukraine’s teetering military fortunes.

Biden has given the green light to Kyiv to use long range U.S. ATACMS missiles to hit targets deeper inside Russian territory. Equally the White House is pressuring the European NATO allies, especially Germany, to authorize sending Taurus cruise missiles to assist Ukraine.

Most European leaders are decidedly apprehensive during this political interregnum between the end of Joe Biden’s term and the start of a new U.S. administration which promises to end the war in Ukraine.

Thus both Washington and Moscow are feverishly posturing to strengthen their military position in Ukraine before the guns presumably fall silent. Presumably.

It took Trump’s reelection to focus on, if not jolt “peak level” support for Ukraine from the Europeans before the new American president assumes power in January.

But Biden’s characteristic indecisiveness in Ukraine is a culprit; Indeed Washington has supplied billions in military and economic aid for  embattled Ukraine. But each step was gauged to reacting to Russian military advances rather than shifting to an offensive mode.

Washington’s endemic dilly-dallying over sending F-16 jets (from NATO states) to offset Russian air power, the vexing indecision over finally sending U.S. Abrams, German Leopard and British Challenger tanks to counter Russia’s heavy armored advantage, underscore the fog of indecision.

Now come the missiles!

The British and the French already wanted to deploy longer range missiles, but Washington called for refrain. That actually made sense given the risks in widening a war against a nuclear power. Germany hesitated too, but now Biden is pushing Berlin’s collapsed Social Democratic government to send cruise missiles to Kyiv’s arsenal. Too little, too late?

The French daily Le Figaro quotes a ranking French diplomat, “The Americans are now doing what they should have done at the beginning of the war, but the course of the war will not be changed by these missiles, it’s too late.”

All these steps are naturally guided but cautioned by the sober reality that expanding and escalating the war in Ukraine, now going on for more than a 1,000 days since the Russian invasion, has a chance of spilling over into a nuclear conflict or a Third World War.

Considering the personalities in the Kremlin, this is not a farfetched possibility.

The French Foreign Minister Jean Noel Barrot added, “There are “no red lines” when it comes to supporting Ukraine.”  President Emmanuel Macron assured Europe will help Ukraine, “As long as it takes.” But such political bluster may be a bit too late.

Europe is of course divided, deeply dependent on American munitions and support, and lacking sufficient military power of its own to seriously confront Russia beyond its own ad hoc entanglements.

France and Germany still don’t even allocate the requisite NATO 2 percent of GDP for defense spending but yet are assuming disproportionate commitments and risks. Britain which does support  sufficient defense spending, has nonetheless massively overcommitted its resources and munitions to Ukraine.

But Russia has its own missiles and has been using them on Ukraine’s power grid and civilian targets. Russian hyper-sonic missiles struck fear into Ukraine and the Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin stated he was, “ready for all scenarios.”  Moscow is now supported by North Korean shock troops thus underscoring the globalization of this war.

Thus, while the Europeans are preparing to “Trump proof” many of the significant trade relations with the U.S., and equally face-off Moscow in Ukraine, the stark reality remains that the European Union alone doesn’t hold the strategic balance to change the battlefield in Ukraine. Thus, peace negotiations become inevitable.

Naturally a bigger issue remains will President elect Trump really be able to coerce or conclude a ceasefire between both Ukraine and Russia to be followed by a peace accord between Kyiv and Moscow?

In the meantime, the missile deployments on both sides buy time until it’s time to talk.

John J. Metzler is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of Divided Dynamism the Diplomacy of Separated Nations: Germany, Korea, China (2014). [See pre-2011 Archives]

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