Tag Archive for: Russia–Ukraine war

Peace in Ukraine depends on European commitment

Peace is an attractive, yet elusive, concept. It can mean different things to different people at different times. Ukraine is a case in point. The quest for peace could yield either of two fundamentally different outcomes: a Vichy-style capitulation, perhaps with an interim ceasefire that buys Russia more time to rearm and prepare its next attack, or a robust defence of a frozen frontline, as one finds on the Korean Peninsula today.

The Kremlin’s vision for peace in Ukraine is clear. Russian forces would directly occupy swathes of illegally seized Ukrainian territory, and a compliant, helpless Ukrainian government (lacking any meaningful military capacity) would take orders from Moscow. Something quite similar happened in France during World War II, when the part of the country not under direct German occupation was run by General Philippe Petain’s collaborationist government and took orders from Berlin.

Thus, for most of WWII—roughly between 1940 and 1944—the situation on the ground in France was ‘peaceful’. The Vichy regime under Petain regularly boasted that it had protected France, while blaming the Resistance—French guerrillas—and periodic Allied bombing raids for any disturbances to the ‘peace’. This option has been on offer for Ukraine since the first hours of Russia’s large-scale invasion. Yet having witnessed the executions, rapes and other atrocities committed by Russian forces against civilians in Bucha and elsewhere, the Ukrainians have understandably refused to capitulate.

The alternative is the type of peace that kept Germany peaceful for decades after WWII and kept the Korean Peninsula peaceful since the 1953 armistice. In each case, the peace was secured by accepting de facto borders, which were fortified with massive defensive military buildups, boots on the ground and credible security guarantees. While West Germany enjoyed NATO membership after 1955, South Korea relied on a bilateral alliance with the United States. Even today, the US keeps around 28,000 active-duty troops in South Korea and 50,000 in Germany.

Such backstops made the former wartime frontline almost impregnable, allowing each rump state to consolidate, develop and remain at peace. The equivalent of a West German or South Korean model for Ukraine today would require a freezing of the frontline and either NATO accession or a deployment of tens of thousands of Western troops to Ukrainian territory.

The French government has pushed for this kind of solution since February 2024, and it now features prominently in discussions among European leaders. With the new US administration demanding that Europe do more to ensure its own peace and security, at least a half-dozen European governments are said to be seriously considering it.

Of course, if Europeans dislike the first model (a Vichy-style peace) but prove unable to deliver a sufficient security guarantee, that will create the conditions for a third possible scenario: a bogus peace leading to another war. A temporary ceasefire—like the one that prevailed under the Minsk agreements after 2014—would allow Russia to regroup, rearm and attack again sooner rather than later. Not only might this cycle be repeated more than once; it also could implicate countries beyond Ukraine—such as the Baltics or Poland.

Thus, if Ukraine does not get enough support in the coming months and years, Europe will find itself confronting a dangerous new strategic reality, one that would challenge NATO solidarity and leave EU territory perpetually vulnerable. With enough prodding and hybrid warfare, Russia could test the limits of NATO’s mutual defence guarantee and either expose it as a dead letter or precipitate a direct military confrontation between nuclear powers. Such would be the consequences of a bogus peace.

The immediate task for Europe, then, is not only to navigate US President Donald Trump’s unilateral pursuit of a settlement with Russia that could offer Ukraine on a platter to Russia, but also to ensure that any deal does not increase the likelihood of an even wider war in the near future.

Many Europeans think that if Russia could not conquer Ukraine in 2022, Russia would not dare challenge NATO and the European Union. That is dangerously wishful thinking. Occupying most of Ukraine would not only allow Russia to expand its territory, but also allow it to unite Europe’s biggest and second-biggest armies, under Kremlin command. Occupied territories bring in new people, defence production capacities, and resources—from rare-earth minerals to gas and nuclear power plants. Ukraine’s defence industrial capacity—which has been impressive in multiple areas, from sea drones to the sheer capacity to produce equipment en masse—would be a welcome bonus for Russia as well, and it could be used against Europe. French President Emmanuel Macron already publicly warned that the combined armed forces of Russia and Ukraine would be unstoppable.

The bottom line is that avoiding a Ukrainian capitulation or a fake peace will require a European commitment to, at the very least, freezing the current frontline. Otherwise, vulnerable EU and NATO members could be the next targets. European public opinion must wake up to the reality that the only alternative is something that no one wants: a perpetual threat of war for much of Central and Northern Europe, with all the security and economic uncertainty that comes with it.

Trump’s turbulence shifts Australia’s focus to Europe

The SS United States is the largest American ocean liner to be entirely built at home.  To this day, it holds the speed record for crossing the Atlantic Ocean, which it set on its 1952 maiden voyage thanks to its military-grade propulsion.

Informed by a wartime need to move soldiers and materiel to Europe, the luxury liner had been designed to be readily convertible to a troopship that could swiftly deliver a 14,000-strong US Army division anywhere in the world. 

Despite decades of rust and decay, the beauty and power of the now 75-year-old vessel was evident when I had a private tour of United States in Philadelphia some years ago. Once emblematic of US primacy and trans-Atlantic ties, the ship is soon to be an artificial reef off Florida. Its fate and destination—in the re-named ‘Gulf of America’—is a depressingly apt metaphor for what America is becoming. 

The domestic whirlwind sweeping the US is echoed in its foreign policy, with serious implications for Australia’s strategic interests.  President Trump not only has renamed a map feature, he also is opening a gulf between the US and its long-time partners and allies—and Moscow and Beijing are strategic beneficiaries. 

While Australia rightly will remain committed to the Alliance which has underpinned our national security for decades, we must recognise that other countries that share our principled strategic goals will become more important to our national and regional security. 

Regional partnerships remain critical, but European nations—with their own experience of an autocratic neighbour—can help buffer our region against Trumpian caprice and resist growing pressure from a would-be hegemon, China. 

In his first term, Trump’s goading and confrontational bluster was fuelled by his unquenchable thirst for publicity. This time, it is more visceral, informed by conviction (in more than one sense of the word), and underpinned by determined malice and vindictiveness. 

This has been especially evident in his disdain for Ukrainian sovereignty, his dismissive attitude and threats towards NATO and Europe, and his solicitous courting of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. 

Barely a month in office, Trump has shifted the strategic balance more decisively in Russia’s favour than the Kremlin had been able to since Putin started his full-fledged, illegal and unjustifiable war of choice against Ukraine in February 2022. Trump deludes himself about the real aggressor, denigrating Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy while trying to monetise Ukraine’s existential war and extort an arms-for-minerals deal in a shakedown that would make Don Corleone blush. 

It is shameful that one democracy should be willing thus to abandon another to the predations of an autocracy. 

We are yet to see any strategic quid pro quo for Trump’s unilateral turn towards the Kremlin. His innately mercurial approach and pathological need to ‘win’ yet may disappoint Moscow, but Europe will scramble in the short term to compensate for any abrupt diminution in US commitment to trans-Atlantic security. Decisive leadership and vision will be vital, but the recent German election results underscore that this is not a given. 

In Who Will Defend Europe? Keir Giles, one of Britain’s leading Russia analysts, examines the self-imposed constraints that prevented the EU and NATO from adjusting fast enough to the end of the post-post-Cold War era and the return of strategic competition. At the core was Europe’s lack of military-industrial readiness and political resolve to confront a revanchist Russia. Those shortcomings must now be reddressed with long-overdue urgency. 

Giles usefully illuminates the wider malaise afflicting other nations grappling with the new world disorder and revisionist risk-takers who see strategic gain in near-term opportunism and confrontation. His arguments underscore an important consideration for Australia in coping with the turbulence and disruption emanating from Washington. 

Australia will need to maintain its natural focus on our Indo-Pacific region, but we will benefit at the same time from deeper collaboration with European counterparts in building national resilience here and elsewhere. By pooling our respective experience of autocratic efforts to subvert domestic cohesion and undermine trust in our democratic institutions, we will be better able jointly to contend with what’s become known as the Axis of Upheaval.

We can learn from the forthright approach of NATO’s newest members, Sweden and Finland.  Both use the concept of ‘total defence’, in which aspects of national strength, including social resilience and economic power, contribute to the defence of the nation, and from the honesty with which their governments articulate the challenges their societies face. 

Though varied in size and heft, Norway and the Baltic nations (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) have deeply relevant and valuable experience as frontline states that share not just a continent but a common border with an imperially-minded power whose strategic goals are misaligned with those of democracies that trust in, and rely on, the international rule of law for their security and prosperity rather than the application of military force. 

Poland is also a valuable exemplar.  Like Estonia and Sweden, it has been pushing back against disinformation for years.  It recently put one of its most seasoned diplomats in charge of countering subversion and is also hosting a multinational Communications Group to better co-ordinate efforts at debunking misleading Russian narratives. 

As the SS United States began its final voyage, Susan Gibbs, the grand-daughter of the ship’s designer observed: ‘The ship will forever symbolize our nation’s strength, innovation, and resilience.’  While we must hope that these qualities will endure in the Alliance, we would be prudent to cultivate them more assiduously in our relations with Europe. 

Negotiations can’t end the war in Ukraine; it would just evolve

In the coming days, a slew of commentary will claim that the Russia-Ukraine war may well imminently conclude after three years, following peace talks in Saudi Arabia. Such commentary will be wrong.

Regardless of what agreements the United States and Russia may come to, the war would likely continue; it would just evolve.

The belief that a negotiated end to the war would stabilise the status quo is the same misconception as thinking that the war started with Russia’s invasion in 2022 and that it involves only Ukraine and Russia. It also ignores the opportunities for rebuilding that a break in conventional fighting would present to Russian forces.

Russia’s war against Ukraine did not begin with the start of conventional warfare on 24 February 2022. Rather, it followed soon after the ousting of pro-Russian Ukrainian president, Viktor Yanukovych, on 22 February 2014. Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula on 18 March 2014 and, through proxies, occupied parts of Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk regions. This began a simmering seven-year-long proxy war in Ukraine’s east, long before the outbreak of conventional warfare.

Russia conducted the proxy war predominantly through grey zone tactics: sabotage, subversion and economic warfare. During what is now 11 years of conflict, tactics have also extended to cyberattacks, disinformation and large-scale combat operations.

Conventional warfare is thus an extension of Russian tactics: its beginning did not mark the start of conflict in Ukraine, nor will the end of conventional warfare necessarily mark its end.

Moreover, the conflict is not, nor has it ever been, just a war in Ukraine. Putin long-ago expanded his confrontation with NATO, challenging European interests through intervention in Syria, Libya, Mali, Sudan, Mozambique and the Central African Republic. Much of this was done surreptitiously through the Wagner Group.

Ukraine responded in Sudan and Syria to block Russian interests via a proxy warfare dynamic. In Syria, Ukrainian support of political organisation Hayat Tahrir al-Sham helped to deny Russia the warm water port of Tartus. But in Sudan, Ukrainian support for the government has so far failed to persuade it to refuse a Russian request to set up a naval base there.

Over the past three years, Russia has engaged in more than 150 subversive activities and sabotage operations in European countries. Further horizontal escalations against NATO began before the 2022 escalation in Ukraine. Russia also has a long-demonstrated pattern of ending active conflicts without establishing peace treaties or frameworks. It then exploits these frozen conflicts to coerce opponents.

Considering this history, believing that a nominal end to the Russia-Ukraine war will bring peace is simply naive.

Putin’s very willingness to negotiate now should give pause. By some accounts, Russia has lost 10,000 tanks and nearly a million personnel in the past three years, in addition to an enormous quantity of other materiel. This will take time to re-build.

Russian losses have weakened domestic support for Putin. Russia’s ability to use conventional warfare as a tool of coercion elsewhere is constrained as long as it remains focused on Ukraine. Russia’s military and security budget present amounts to some 40 per cent of the federal budget, while weathering 10 per cent inflation. Under such pressure, there are signs the Russian economy is reaching its breaking point.

Given these conditions, a negotiated end to conventional hostilities would likely embolden, not discourage, Putin.

Having achieved a supposed peace, Putin could be expected to revert to the practiced political warfare handbook and continue to subvert Ukraine’s institutions, while he rebuilt his military power and revelled in the glory of having defied the West. This increasing strength might dash the hopes of pro-democracy groups in Georgia, Belarus and, indeed, in Russia itself.

Putin will also likely increase coercive pressure against the Baltic States, Ukraine, Georgia, and Central Asian countries. Moldova was the victim of a massive Russian influence campaign in 2024 and will almost certainly face another to sway its 2025 parliamentary election.

Understanding such risks, the Nordic and Baltic States have affirmed their ongoing support to Ukraine.

The one thing that a negotiated snap freeze to the Russia-Ukraine conflict would bring would be a false sense of stability and security. In reality, it would mark a shift in Russia’s tactics and a chance for it to rebuild depleted forces.

Poland’s path to remarkable prosperity

Browsing social media, I recently came across a map showing all the countries with GDP per capita higher than Poland’s back in 1990 and in 2018. The difference was striking. While 35 years ago there were quite a few such countries, not only in Europe but also in South America, Asia and Africa, in time their number has significantly decreased. In 2018 there were no longer any South American or African states highlighted on the map.

As of 2025, the group has shrunk even further. According to data from the International Monetary Fund, Poland’s GDP in 1990 was a mere US$6690 in current dollars. By 2024 it grew almost eight-fold to US$51,630 in terms of purchasing power parity. All that in just three decades, or one generation. And it goes on. According to the European Commission’s forecast, in 2024–25, the Polish economy will be the fastest growing large economy in the European Union.

How did it happen? Apart from the hard work of our citizens, two major factors—or, to be more precise, two institutions—contributed to our economic success: NATO and the EU.

The first, which Poland joined in 1999, provided security guarantees and helped overcome decades-old division between Eastern and Western Europe. The second, which we joined five years later, took the process of easing long-standing disparities one step further. It granted new member states access to ‘cohesion funds’ and most importantly to the common European market.

After the fall of communism in Poland in 1989 and the return of messy democratic politics, despite day-to-day political squabbles one thing remained constant no matter who was in power—Poland’s determination to join the two aforementioned organisations. Why?

We are a great nation but a medium-size country. We cherish our long history—this year marks a millennium since the coronation of our first king—but our population is much smaller than that of Beijing and Shanghai combined. Poland needs allies to boost its potential on the international stage.

What’s been true for Poland—in 1990 a poor country coming out of four decades of Russian domination and economic mismanagement—might well be true for many of the middle powers in Asia, Africa and South America looking for room to grow.

These countries often need what Poland desperately needed 35 years ago and still profits from: good governance, foreign investments with no strings attached, and above all political stability, rule of law and a predictable international environment with neighbours eager not to wage wars but work together for mutual benefit. In fact, these factors can benefit every country, no matter their GDP.

Today the international order is being challenged on multiple fronts, sometimes for good reason. Decades-old institutions—including the UN and its Security Council—are unrepresentative of the global community and incapable of dealing with the challenges we face. What they need, however, is to be thoroughly reformed, not entirely rejected.

To those desperate for change, force might look appealing. It would be a mistake. Abandoning forums for international dialogue and resorting to violence will not get us far.

Take Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine. According to Kremlin propaganda, it is a justified reaction to western imperialism that allegedly threatens Russia’s security. In fact, it is a modern-day colonial war against the Ukrainian people who—just like us Poles 30 years ago—want a better life and realise they can never achieve this goal by going back to subjugation to Russia. That is what they are being punished for—an effort to free themselves from the control of a former metropolis. The Kremlin’s aggression is a desperate struggle of a failing empire to restore its sphere of influence.

A Russian victory—may it never come—would not create a more just global order. It wouldn’t benefit countries dissatisfied with where things stand now. It wouldn’t even bring about a more just and prosperous Russia. Suffice to say there are now more political prisoners in Russia than there were in the 1980s when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. There are many more casualties as well.

War is hardly ever a shortcut to prosperity. Over the past millennium, Poland experienced its share of invasions and uprisings against occupying forces. What finally brought us prosperity were three decades of peace, predictability, international cooperation and political stability.

That is why on assuming the presidency of the Council of the European Union, Poland made its priority clear: security in its many dimensions, including military, economic and digital. A Europe that is safe, prosperous and open for business can benefit not only Europeans but a greater global community. Just as it benefitted Poland over the past three decades.

It may sound dull, but it worked. Just look at the numbers.

How Europe can pay for rearmament

Europe urgently needs to rearm. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the broader threat that President Vladimir Putin’s regime poses to Europe, requires nothing less. US President Donald Trump’s administration has also now made clear that neither Ukraine nor the United States’ NATO allies can count on continued US support. Perhaps this particularly brutal wake-up call will finally jolt European governments out of their complacency.

If so, the big question is how to finance the requisite increase in military investment at a time when Europe’s economies are weak, public finances are stretched and many voters are loath to accept cuts to other government spending. The scale of the challenge is indeed daunting. Russia’s economy is on a war footing, its army is battle-hardened, and it has a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons. Even though Europe’s economy dwarfs Russia’s, a recent report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates that, after adjusting for purchasing power, Russia’s military expenditure last year (US$462 billion) was higher than Europe’s (US$457 billion).

Europe’s big powers have struggled to meet NATO’s previously agreed peacetime target of spending at least 2 percent of GDP on defence. France and Germany managed barely more than that last year, while Britain reached 2.3 percent of GDP. These figures are woefully inadequate for an age when war has returned to the continent and Europe must provide for its own security.

Trump wants NATO’s European members to raise their defence spending to 5 percent of GDP, while NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte acknowledges the need for ‘considerably more than 3 percent.’ Poland has already upped its military spending to over 4 percent of GDP, with the aim of reaching 5 percent, and other frontline states such as Estonia and Lithuania are not far behind it. Now the rest of Europe must follow suit.

But how should they finance the effort? With European economies stagnant and many Europeans struggling, governments are not keen to raise taxes or slash welfare spending. While such measures may ultimately be necessary nonetheless, the politically obvious solution for now is to borrow. This would make economic sense, too, since higher defence spending is, in fact, an investment in Europe’s future.

True, high government debts, EU fiscal rules, and domestic political constraints make increased borrowing tricky for many countries. But there are at least three options for mitigating these factors. The first is to exclude investment in defence from the bloc’s fiscal rules, which broadly limit government borrowing to 3 percent of GDP. Last year, the European Commission launched an ‘excessive deficit procedure’ against Poland, which rightly argued that its increased borrowing was necessary to protect the country—and the rest of Europe—from the heightened Russian threat.

Fortunately, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen seems to have come around to the Polish position. She is proposing to activate the Stability and Growth Pact’s escape clause (which allows higher borrowing during crises) to permit increased defence investment. While Germany and other fiscally frugal countries have previously objected to granting such additional flexibility, that may change after the German elections on 23 February, given the country’s belated awareness of its vulnerability.

Since Germany itself has low public debt and a small budget deficit, EU fiscal rules would not prevent it from borrowing more to upgrade its feeble defences. But it is shackled by its own constitutional debt brake, which then-chancellor Angela Merkel introduced in 2009, and which the country’s powerful constitutional court aggressively enforces. Again, though, there could be greater openness to amending this measure after the election.

Fiscal rules are not the only constraint, however; so, too, are bond markets. France’s public debt already exceeds 110 percent of GDP, and its minority government has struggled to pass a budget that would trim its bulging budget deficit (6.1 percent of GDP). The country’s precarious political situation has further increased the premium that it must pay relative to German debt. Indeed, the interest rate on French debt briefly exceeded that of Greece last year.

A second option, then, is for European governments to borrow collectively to finance a one-off investment in defence capacity, as French President Emmanuel Macron has suggested. There is a precedent for this: the European Union’s €750 billion (US$782 billion) Covid-19 recovery fund. Another round of joint borrowing to the tune of €500 billion (3 percent of EU GDP) could amplify member states’ defence spending, help to rationalise European defence procurement, and potentially bolster European defence firms.

The hitch is that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is openly pro-Putin, while four other EU countries (Austria, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta) have maintained their official neutrality vis-a-vis Russia. Moreover, fiscally frugal northern European countries have hitherto been reluctant to sanction further EU borrowing.

One potential workaround is for a coalition of willing governments to set up a special purpose vehicle separate from the EU, which could issue joint bonds backed by guarantees from participating governments. This would not only bypass recalcitrant EU members; it would also allow for participation by non-EU defence partners such as Norway and Britain. The relatively new British Labour government might find this especially attractive, given its own domestic fiscal constraints.

Finally, the third option is to expand the scope of European Investment Bank lending. While the EIB can already finance dual-use (civilian/military) projects, such as those producing drones and satellites, 19 EU governments recently suggested that it should also be permitted to finance wholly military spending, such as investments in tank and ammunition manufacturing.

However it is financed, Europe needs to rearm now. Upping defence spending to avert Ukraine’s defeat and deter broader Russian aggression is much less costly than fighting an all-out war. Otherwise, as Rutte warns, Europeans will need either to learn Russian or to move to New Zealand.

The underexploited potential of Ukrainian defence tech

Western companies and entrepreneurs are largely missing a chance to invest in the thriving and innovative Ukrainian defence tech industry and take its experience back to their home markets.

Failure of foreign investors to put even modest sums into the Ukrainian defence industry also means that Western armed forces are missing out on rapid developments, for example in drone technology. Foreign drone programs developed in peacetime conditions don’t have the benefit of insights and innovation from the pressure-cooker of the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s own companies dominate its industry, with 1.5 million first-person-view drones built by Ukrainian firms in 2024. Yet Ukrainian producers would welcome further mutually beneficial cooperation with Western companies.

According to Brave1, a state-run innovation cluster, the number of defence tech startups it encompasses more than doubled in 2024 and now totals 1500. Some of these firms develop multiple products. Products include unjammable drones directed through fibre optic cords instead of radio signals; remotely-controlled machine gun turrets on uncrewed ground vehicles; and anti-drone drones, which intercept uncrewed Russian reconnaissance aircraft.

Although manufacturers must put Ukrainian defence needs first, they’re also looking at export markets and even civil applications for their products.

Take, for instance, the startup Farsight Vision. It combines a software platform with a tiny hardware device that together can quickly create a 3D model of an area from drone-captured footage. Such models allow unit commanders to keep up with the constantly changing terrain in their area of operations—something that satellite imagery fails to provide due to longer production cycles. At the same time, such 3D models have non-defence applications, including monitoring environmental changes in areas that are hard to access, or scouting locations for offshore construction projects.

2025 is likely to become a turning point for Ukrainian defence tech: startups will appear more slowly, and established firms will cooperate more. Smaller teams may be absorbed by bigger companies, leading to concentration and, thus, faster sharing of frontline experience.

Yet foreign investors’ commitment to the industry remains half-hearted.

Kyiv School Economics calculated that in 2024 US$25 million was invested in the Ukrainian defence tech industry by both Ukrainians and foreigners. In other words, all Ukrainian companies were able to attract four times less capital than Helsing, a German defence AI startup, got in its first investment round.

The chair of NATO’s Military Committee, Admiral Rob Bauer, asked whether European investors were ‘stupid’, because they looked away from defence industry altogether.

To be fair, rethinking is underway, as more private money is directed into defence innovation globally. More investors now recognise that security, not other forms of wellbeing, will be the most important commodity in the coming quarter of the century.

Yet very little defence capital makes it to Ukraine, with most investors deterred by various misconceptions and some legitimate concerns. To them the Ukrainian startup ecosystem remains terra incognita. But local actors, including  Brave1 and funds already active in Ukraine, can help foreign private capital make the most of opportunities in Ukraine.

Finally, foreign-built drones have sometimes underperformed in Ukraine. A US producer said it had failed to anticipate the intensity of electronic warfare in the war. That failure prompted the company to scout for Ukrainian talent.

Without battlefield pressure, Western companies cannot innovate and respond to changing technology and techniques as quickly as Ukrainian firms do simply because they must.

On the other hand, those fast-moving, sleep-deprived Ukrainian innovators, constantly incorporating feedback from the frontlines into their tech, have no time for the cumbersome procurement procedures of Western defence ministries.

Thus, win-win partnerships can spring up. Ukrainian startups can bring fresh ideas while well-established foreign defence contractors use their experience with officialdom to export the technology into Western armed forces. Exposed to wartime industry, the foreign firms would themselves build expertise faster.

So far, they are missing the opportunity.

‘Battle-tested in Ukraine’ has become a marketing label in the arms industry. It can be applied more widely with greater cooperation between Ukrainian and Western companies.

We can predict Trump’s military policy. Here’s how Europe must react

We now know the main strategist in US President Donald Trump’s administration will be Elbridge Colby, nominated as undersecretary of defense for policy.

Colby is one of the most outspoken and transparent policy leaders in the Trump team, so European capitals can easily assess his worldview and likely moves. They must appreciate his perspective, which prioritises China as the United States’ main threat, and so they must do more in terms of defence.

From my own interactions with him, here is how I understand his big-picture assessment:

First, China is the ultimate threat to the US. China is an urgent threat, as it is outpacing the US in many key indicators and is clearly preparing for a global war. China could win such a war against the US, whereas other countries couldn’t.

Second, Colby believes the US is overstretched strategically and militarily. The US has overpromised security in many places and does not have the capacity to deliver on all its commitments. So it must prioritise. Almost everything the US will do strategically and militarily must be aimed at countering China and deterring it from launching a kinetic war.

Third, many US allies, from Europe to East Asia, are asking for US protection but not sufficiently funding their own defence, in Colby’s view. Defence spending of two percent of GDP in Europe or Japan is clearly not enough given current strategic threats.

The US defence industry base is weak, underfunded and poorly managed, Colby believes. It must be boosted and put on track, with a focus on building up the military power of the US and of core allies, power that is needed to confront China.

This world view of the incoming undersecretary will shape Trump’s expectations of European nations, and it suggests what they should do.

First and foremost, European defence spending must at least double. Trump has indicated a target of 5 percent of GDP, but only Poland is on track to reach it soon. Most NATO allies are only just finally meeting the 2 percent, deep-peace era minimum of 1990s.

Northern, central and eastern European countries—which have real fears of a possible Russian military attack—are urgently boosting their defence spending. For them, 4 percent sounds realistic.

Yet many western and southern European NATO members—facing economic problems and lacking the such fear of Russia—will surely reject such high spending targets. This may create a rift inside NATO between the eastern flank states and the rest of Europe. We may see Trump’s threats last year come to reality—that the US will protect only allies who spend enough.

Second, European states must expect that the war in Ukraine will be almost entirely their problem, not a transatlantic issue. If rich European states want Ukraine to survive, they must put their money where their proclamations about the epoch-deciding Russian war in Europe are. European capitals should offer to buy US weapons and ammunition for Ukraine. This is a deal the Trump administration may accept in exchange for its continued support of Kyiv.

European states need to send significant equipment and ammunition reinforcement to Ukraine for its immediate defence and to hold any potential future frozen contact line in its territory. If European NATO countries don’t, we will just keep watching Russia destroy brave yet exhausted Ukraine piece by piece.

Third, central and eastern European states should see a chance to transform themselves from beggars for US protection to active supporters of the US in its primary theatre as it confronts China.

To be valued in global US military strategy, they need to lift defence spending to between 4 and 5 percent of GDP and scale up their arms industries to reinforce their own forces and Ukraine’s. Moreover, they should become involved in East Asian security, giving Washington another reason to care about them as they face the Russian threat. They could, for example, help train Japanese, South Korean, Philippine or Taiwanese soldiers in such areas as cyber, coast guard, air defence, military logistics and civil-military preparations.

NATO’s eastern flank is preparing for a large defensive war against Russia, while East Asian states must change their defensive postures considering the threats from China, Russia and North Korea.

We can expect the Trump administration to focus on deterring China from taking hostile action against Taiwan. So that is where smaller central and eastern European allies should look to help. They can provide direct political support. They could put particular effort into training Taiwanese troops on US soil, and they could build many thousands of drones for a US strategy of turning the Taiwan Strait into a hellscape for a Chinese invasion force.

Trump, and Colby, would be pleased.

North Korea is the big beneficiary in its military partnership with Russia

North Korea is getting more out of its engagement in Russia’s war than Russia is getting from North Korea.

The forces that Pyongyang has sent to fight Ukraine are poorly equipped and are not performing well. Yet, the military-technological help that Russia is sending to North Korea in return is highly valuable.

Moscow’s assistance to Pyongyang is somewhat destabilising for East Asia, since any increase in North Korean military strength heightens the risk of war on the Korean Peninsula. South Korea should respond by helping Ukraine.

The growing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia is substantial. Among other reasons for this military-cum-strategic partnership, North Korea eyes several strategic and tactical goals. These include the modernisation of its military capabilities, access to Russian military technologies, combat experience, help in launching spy satellites into space, bolstering its air-defence networks and possible diplomatic cover at the United Nations from international sanctions.

The troops provided by North Korea lack battlefield expertise despite some reportedly being part of North Korea’s special forces. They’re also unfamiliar with the terrain of Russia and Ukraine. Two South Korean lawmakers, Lee Sung-kwon and Park Sun-won have said that North Korean troops deployed in Russia suffer from a ‘poor understanding of modern warfare tactics’. Recently, Ukrainian defence forces wiped out an entire battalion of North Korean troops in Makhnovka, a village in Kursk.

The artillery ammunition, rockets and missiles imported from North Korea have proliferated across Russian defences in large volumes, outdoing EU production lines. Their poor quality translates to low accuracy. While such low-tech weaponry might frustrate Russian soldiers, without it the Russian war machine would slacken.

Consider, however, what North Korea is getting in return. First, Russia sends oil from Vostochny, a port east of Vladivostok, to the North Korean city of Chongjin. But its aid to Pyongyang beyond oil is more important because North Korea is technologically starved.

Russia has already responded to North Korea’s help by sending it air defence systems. According to South Korean intelligence reports, North Korea’s air defences have been outdated and need great improvement to combat South Korean and US air power.

Although North Korean soldiers in the Russia-Ukraine war have not been highly effective, they are learning. Moreover, the war has introduced them to drone warfare. Pyongyang can look forward to this experience improving the combat power of its forces in its own theatre of potential conflict, the peninsula.

The big concern is that Russia may help improve North Korea’s nuclear forces, which in some respects remain somewhat limited. For example, Pyongyang would probably want help in improving its ballistic missile technology, particularly for intercontinental strikes. It must also want nuclear weapons—or better nuclear weapons—for submarines.

Jenny Town of the Stimson Centre, argues that if Russia’s dependence on North Korea expands, the deeper cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang is likely to intensify, and may facilitate the development of nuclear technologies in North Korea.

Earlier this year, the deputy US representative to the UN, Dorothy Camille Shea, warned the Security Council that North Korea might be gaining an upper hand in its military relationship with Moscow, which could strengthen it and make it more capable of destabilising its neighbours.

Scholar Robert Carlin argues that North Korea previously built and tested advanced weapons systems as leverage in negotiations with South Korea and the United States. However, North Korea may now be less interested such negotiations.

Although South Korea’s correct response should be to help Ukraine more, it is still debating whether to send lethal weapons. They could include the Cheonmu multiple rocket launcher, K9 self-propelled howitzer and 155 mm shells.

The South Korean public does not support arms transfers to Ukraine. Indeed, all non-lethal aid from Seoul is routed through the US, since direct supply could create unnecessary friction with Moscow.

In response to the growing relationship between Moscow and Pyongyang, Seoul is at least increasing cooperation with democratic partners.  For example, upon NATO’s request, the South Korean government sent a delegation to Brussels to discuss possibilities for intelligence sharing. And in 2022, South Korea opened its diplomatic mission to NATO.

Norway should cede its war windfall to Ukraine

Norway’s government has effectively become a war profiteer, we argued in a commentary in December. It is an opinion shared by a number of European politicians and by European and Norwegian media. But rather than paying attention, Norway’s government is getting defensive.

The basic facts are not up for debate. After the outbreak of the Ukraine war caused natural gas prices to rise sharply in Europe, Norway reaped windfall profits totalling some €108 billion, according to Norway’s Ministry of Finance. That is more than the value of all military and civilian support Ukraine has received from the United States and Germany combined from when the war started through October 2024. It is roughly one-third of the value of the Russian central-bank assets that are currently frozen in the West (and which Western governments have extensively debated channelling to Ukraine for defence and reconstruction).

But Norway has kept its windfall for itself, providing a measly three billion euros in aid to Ukraine in its 2025 budget, only slightly up from the previous year. This approach is simply wrong: Norway must transfer its recent super-profits, excess profits above the normal level, in full, directly to Ukraine. Unfortunately, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store and Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum seem more interested in justifying their decision not to do so than in helping Ukraine, Europe or even future Norwegians.

Store and Vedum contend that the windfall gains were a normal result of the myriad market forces that determine gas prices. But this argument is disingenuous. While it is true that many factors shape energy prices, Norway’s excess profits overwhelmingly reflect one: in 2022–23, it had in Europe a captive market for its natural-gas exports. This was a direct result of the Ukraine war: Russia had cut its natural-gas supplies to Europe, but European gas importers had not yet managed to build liquefied natural gas terminals to offset the loss.

Store and Vedum do not stop at dismissing Norway’s war profits as good fortune; they claim that their government, and the oil companies operating in Norway, did our European neighbours a favour by stepping up gas supplies when Russian deliveries ceased. Europe should be thanking us, Vedum says. This ‘good Samaritan’ narrative smacks of hypocrisy, especially as Norway, while pocketing its lucky gains from the spike in gas prices, sends a pittance to the Ukrainians fighting and dying for their country’s survival and Europe’s security.

In fact, from the perspective of European gas consumers, the elevated gas prices were equivalent to a Norwegian war tax on them. The increased energy costs strained the budgets of households and companies, thereby reducing European governments’ room to raise taxes for supporting Ukraine’s war effort. And yet, many of these countries have still managed to provide far more support to Ukraine, as a share of GDP, than Norway has.

Store and Vedum say that, rather than use its windfall as a political instrument, the excess profits should go directly into the Government Pension Fund Global, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, where they will be preserved for future generations of Norwegians. This position aligns with Norway’s longstanding commitment to safeguarding its long-term fiscal sustainability, exemplified by a rule that no more than three percent of the fund’s value can be transferred to the government budget each year.

But Store and Vedum’s position is short-sighted in the current context. After all, what could harm future generations of Norwegians more than the failure to preserve democracy, freedom, and the rule of law in Europe?

In any case, the fiscal rule was created to prevent domestic macroeconomic problems (such as exchange-rate appreciation and excessive inflation), which would not arise if the funds were transferred directly to Ukraine. The leaders responsible for establishing it—including former Norwegian prime minister and former NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg—could not possibly have imagined that Norway’s government would one day use it to justify holding on to wartime rents.

Norway did provide critical energy supplies to Europe in a desperate moment. But in a purely fiscal sense, one can argue that the country did more to support Russia, as its captive market for gas (which it did nothing to create) limited its neighbours’ ability to raise wartime taxes, while Norway refrained from sending much aid to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Norway has enriched itself immensely, through the returns on the government’s direct investments in oil and gas fields, dividends from its ownership share in its parastatal oil company Equinor, and tax revenues from oil companies, which are subject to a 78 percent marginal rate on their profits.

Refusing to use this war windfall to support Ukraine’s defence and reconstruction reflects a myopic perspective that Norway’s government would do well to abandon. Despite our reluctance to join the European Union, we Norwegians are part of—and dependent on—the European community. Rather than focussing exclusively on narrow domestic interests, Norway’s government must start considering the well-being of all of Europe. Growing threats to liberal democracy—coming not only from our big neighbour to the East, but also from our big ally across the Atlantic—makes this shift all the more urgent.

To deal with Russia, first understand what Putin wants

President Donald Trump has said he wants to end the fighting in Ukraine quickly. But it’s far from clear whether this is achievable, not least because the war in Ukraine has become a proxy for Putin’s wider confrontation with the West.

Trump’s campaign pledge that he would end the fighting within 24 hours has already been modified, with the new president and his advisers more recently discussing a period of three to six months. Trump has signalled plans for an early meeting with Vladimir Putin, while the United States’s special adviser to Ukraine is expected to visit Kyiv soon.

Putin will likely welcome a meeting with his US counterpart, not least because it will put him where he always wanted to be: talking directly to Washington, one great power to another, disposing of world affairs. This appeals to the Russian president’s concern for his, and Russia’s, appropriate standing in global affairs.

Moreover, Putin will likely fancy that he can play the incoming president, much as reports claim he did at their Helsinki summit in 2018. He will also consider himself to be in a strong position to drive a hard bargain on Ukraine.

He thinks he’s winning and that time is on his side. To some extent, he has a point.

Russia has the upper hand in what has become a brutal war of attrition. Russian forces have been making slow, costly yet inexorable progress, pushing the outmanned and outgunned Ukrainian defenders onto the backfoot. Meanwhile, relentless missile and drone attacks have taken a high toll on Ukrainian energy and civilian infrastructure.

Western countries are facing domestic political and economic pressures and distractions. Putin calculates that this, coupled with uncertainty over Trump’s approach to the US’s European allies, will lead the West to tire of supporting Kyiv and to welcome a deal.

To date, Putin has shown no real interest in a negotiated settlement—except on his own terms. These terms would effectively amount to capitulation by Kyiv and are by no means in the West’s interests.

Putin has not resiled from his core objective to bring Ukraine to heel, install a more pliable government in Kyiv, and draw Ukraine back firmly within Russia’s sphere of influence.

He won’t therefore be satisfied with just a ceasefire. Rather, he’ll want recognition of Russia’s annexed territories and a pledge of permanent Ukrainian neutrality and disarmament.

This relates to Putin’s wider objectives. As the war has continued, he has increasingly described Ukraine as a proxy for what he portrays as a wider existential conflict between Russia and the West. Resisting purported Western hostility towards Russia is now crucial in legitimising Putin’s continued rule.

Putin also wants to revise the post-Cold War security settlement in Europe and restore Russia’s global standing and influence. This was the essence of treaties that Moscow proposed in December 2021 on the eve of its invasion of Ukraine.

How the Trump administration deals with Moscow will be crucial not only for Ukraine’s future, but also for wider European and global security.

A quick, partial deal now would eventually come back to bite the US and its European allies.

If Trump wants a quick deal, he will press Ukraine to accept a ceasefire along the current lines of fighting. Kyiv may indeed have to accept a loss of territory as part of a settlement. But unless this is accompanied by robust Western (above all, US) security guarantees, such an agreement is unlikely to last, giving Russia the opportunity to rebuild its forces. Once it senses that Western attention has shifted elsewhere, Moscow will be emboldened to resume its subjugation of Ukraine.

The smarter approach for Washington would instead be to try and even up the scales by intensifying pressure on Putin to nudge him into negotiations while strengthening Ukraine’s hand ahead of any talks.

For example, Putin is keen to secure a relaxation of Western economic and technology sanctions so the Russian economy can recover and Moscow can reduce its stark dependence on China. Western states should give no such relief. Sanctions should instead be stepped up to increase pressure on the already-weakened Russian economy.

Washington should also pledge to increase military and economic support for Kyiv, signalling to Putin that he’s unlikely to achieve his aims in eastern Ukraine.

These measures would push Moscow to agree to talks to end the fighting and would strengthen Kyiv’s hand (and that of its Western backers) ahead of any such negotiations.

Early signals from the new administration are encouraging. Trump has urged Putin to agree to end the fighting in Ukraine, threatening otherwise to increase pressure substantially on Moscow, including through expanded sanctions.

Even so, securing a long-term, durable settlement in Ukraine involves more than this. It will also require Washington and its European allies to face up squarely to Moscow’s more confrontational and expansive ambitions.

The question is whether the new US administration will do this.

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