Europe Has Failed, But Ukraine Might Still Save It
It Has Been Given The Most Precious Gifts Of Time And Experience
A short meditation on what Europeans owe to Ukraine. When it comes time, decades from now, to write the history of this era, I wager that one thing that will be regularly said is that Ukraine’s sacrifices over the last few years will have been some of the most important in European history. Without these sacrifices, the whole European project might be ruined—but because of what Ukraine and the Ukrainians have been willing to do, and to suffer, Europe still has a chance.
We have to start with a basic admission. European policy makers have failed. Its been now exactly 38 months since the Russians launched their full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022—that’s approximately 1150 days that European policy makers have had to plan and react. Sadly, they have been better at giving speeches than actually taking the needed steps for Europeans to look after themselves.
If rhetoric had been enough, Europe would be in great shape. At the time of the full-scale invasion there was great talk about how an era had ended and Europe must change (remember Zeitenwende?). Since then there have been regular speeches, President Macron has been key in this, by European leaders saying that they needed to stand by Ukraine, that they needed to do more to look after themselves, etc, etc.
In the end, though, European policy makers did relatively little. Mostly they have sat back and been reactive. Even though a Ukrainian victory was very much in the interests of European states, they allowed the Biden Administration to dominate their policy towards Ukraine and institute its terrible strategy of genuflecting to Russian threats and trying to micromanage the war. Between 2022 and 2024 European defense spending continued to be at levels far too low for the continent to look after itself. In 2024 average European defense spending was 1.9% of GDP—showing that most of the continent was still below NATO targets set decades earlier.
That was just the start. Even though the return of the openly pro-Putin Donald Trump to the White House was at least a 50-50 proposition for most of 2024, European states refused to accept the reality staring them straight in the face. They either denied it would happen or even comforted themselves with bull-shit stories that Trump would not be so bad or even, most ludicrously, that they might talk him around with their silky charms.
When Trump was elected President and was inaugurated, and did exactly what he said he was going to do and align the USA with Putin while ending US support for Ukraine, the European response remained confused and weak. There was talks of building bridges to Washington, golf games, back slaps and lots and lots of praise in the hopes that Trump could be appeased. Its amazing to have seen such denial in action, as there were clear examples that standing up to Trump, the policy of Canada for instance, was always the best way to deal with him.
One of the problems here is that many European states seem to be relying on Washington lobbyists with MAGA ties for their advice. They are being told to be agreeable little boys, to suck up to Trump, to try and get crumbs from the table—because that is what MAGA acolytes need to do to succeed. The inability of European states to think for themselves so far has been one of the great problems.
Yes, there have been some moves to rearmament, but they have been slow, limited and insufficient. What there has not been is any serious planning about what to do in precisely the situation European states find themselves in now—facing the prospect of the US not only abandoning Ukraine but also sidling up to Putin.
By any reasonable measure this policy failure should have crippled Europe. However, amazingly, European states still have a chance to make things right, to recover from the disaster of their own making, and to prepare for the future with some hope of strategic redemption. They only have this chance because of the sacrifice and willingness to fight of the Ukrainians. Ukraine has given Europe the most precious gift possible—time.
This has come in two ways. The first is that in destroying so much of the Russian military, Ukraine has given Europe time to still prepare for any future war. If there was a ceasefire agreed tomorrow, it would still take at least 5 years for the Russian military to be a credible threat. It has lost almost all of its vehicles, suffered a million casualties, seen its Navy heavily damaged and lost many valuable aircraft. In some ways its a force that would have to be rebuilt from scratch and right now the Russians lack the productive capacity to replace what they have lost (though the Chinese could make many of these equipment losses up for them if they wanted).
Moreover, Ukraine has given Europe the second most precious gift possible to go along with this vital time and that is—experience.
Learning from Ukraine gives European states the chance to rebuild their own militaries with the help of the most experienced combat force on the continent and arguably the world—one which understands how UAVs, sea drones, long-range missiles, etc have altered the experience and possibilities of combat. If European states were simply rebuilt along their old lines, with lots of tanks, etc, recreating the militaries that fought the wars before 2022, much of their efforts would be wasted building the wrong equipment in the wrong amounts. Ukraine’s experience can be tapped into by Europe to make sure that they are ready for what a rebuilt Russia might actually do—not what the failed analytical community assumed that they can do.
Europe still might not be able to save itself. The alignment of the USA with Russia and China could doom liberal democracy unless people in Europe are willing to fight for it and European leaders are willing to prepare for it. However the fact that Europe still has this chance, still has time and can prepare with the right experience, is down to the sacrifices of Ukrainians. It is a gratitude of historic proportions.
And it is one that might even give the USA a chance to save itself in the end.
Outstanding piece. Cold comfort to the Ukrainians, though.
Tough facts. but so true. Any path to improving ourselves starts with admitting these uncomfortable truths. Which are by the way relevant not only to this matter of Russian aggression in its various forms and our unhealthy dependency on US technology companies and US strategic thinking, but also in regard to our failure so far to act with sufficient decisiveness in relation to Chinese economic imperialism and in relation to the climate crisis.