\n
<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s consider some relatively recent history. In 1999, NATO waged a 78-day war against Yugoslavia, aiming to halt a bloody ethnic cleansing campaign by Serbian troops in the restive province of Kosovo. The Serbs ultimately withdrew, and the Western alliance filled the resulting vacuum by dispatching peacekeeping troops. The number of forces deployed was 50,000<\/a>\u2014even though Kosovo is a tiny piece of territory, a bit smaller<\/a> than the U.S. state of Connecticut or about one-third the size of Belgium. Today, 26 years later, there are still approximately 4,500 peacekeepers stationed there.<\/p>\n So now we turn to Ukraine\u2014a country, it should be noted, that is 55 times<\/a> the size of Kosovo. Since the recent flurry of diplomatic activity in Alaska and Washington, the discussion about ending the Russia-Ukraine war has turned to the notion of \u201csecurity guarantees\u201d\u2014a strikingly fuzzy concept<\/a> that means very different things to different people. The pundits in Europe and the United States are busily jawboning over what form it might take. But the entire discussion is permeated with a palpable sense of unreality<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Let\u2019s consider some relatively recent history. In 1999, NATO waged a 78-day war against Yugoslavia, aiming to halt a bloody ethnic cleansing campaign by Serbian troops in the restive province of Kosovo. The Serbs ultimately withdrew, and the Western alliance filled the resulting vacuum by dispatching peacekeeping troops. The number of forces deployed was 50,000<\/a>\u2014even though Kosovo is a tiny piece of territory, a bit smaller<\/a> than the U.S. state of Connecticut or about one-third the size of Belgium. Today, 26 years later, there are still approximately 4,500 peacekeepers stationed there.<\/p>\n So now we turn to Ukraine\u2014a country, it should be noted, that is 55 times<\/a> the size of Kosovo. Since the recent flurry of diplomatic activity in Alaska and Washington, the discussion about ending the Russia-Ukraine war has turned to the notion of \u201csecurity guarantees\u201d\u2014a strikingly fuzzy concept<\/a> that means very different things to different people. The pundits in Europe and the United States are busily jawboning over what form it might take. But the entire discussion is permeated with a palpable sense of unreality<\/a>.<\/p>\n The aim of any security guarantee for Ukraine should be to provide it with security\u2014in other words, to keep it safe from Russian invasions going forward. A piece of paper saying \u201cguarantee\u201d will not do; that has already been tried and failed. Russia, the United States, and Britain did not honor their guarantee of Ukraine\u2019s borders, which was signed in Budapest in 1994. Russia\u2019s invasions of Ukraine since 2014 also violated multiple other agreements signed by Moscow.<\/p>\n It is hard to imagine how any form of protection for Ukraine would not entail the presence of a large body of troops on the ground. The Europeans have been referring to this theoretical entity as a \u201creassurance force<\/a>,\u201d a term with a distinctly Orwellian ring. Are we talking about a military operation or a therapy session?<\/p>\n And who, precisely, would contribute service members to this force? The British, traditionally among the more martial of the Europeans, originally spoke of contributing 30,000 troops<\/a> to a possible Ukraine contingent, but that figure seems to be trending downward<\/a>\u2014influenced, at least in part, by Britain\u2019s shrinking military capabilities<\/a> and slow-motion financial collapse<\/a>. The French, although proudly styling themselves among the leaders of the \u201ccoalition of the willing<\/a>,\u201d have been conspicuously reluctant to commit any troops. (In February, indeed, President Emmanuel Macron ruled out<\/a> immediately sending any, though his position could be changing.)<\/p>\n And those are the two countries that have been pushing the idea of a \u201creassurance force\u201d the hardest, with decidedly mixed results. (A headline in the Wall Street Journal<\/em> five months ago proclaimed<\/a>: \u201cFrance-U.K. Plan for European Troops in Ukraine Falters.\u201d) Who will pick up the slack? When German Chancellor Friedrich Merz was asked on Aug. 18 whether his country would commit to sending troops, he replied<\/a>: \u201cIt is too early to give a definitive answer.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to blame him for hedging his bets. In the wake of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion in 2022, the head of Germany\u2019s military published a social media post<\/a> saying that the Bundeswehr, Germany\u2019s military, was \u201cmore or less broke.\u201d Even though Berlin has committed vast sums to defense since then<\/a>, it will take time for the money to trickle down to the troops. One recent poll<\/a> showed that two-thirds of Germans surveyed fear that dispatching troops to Ukraine will trigger war with Russia.<\/p>\n So who\u2019s left? The Italians? They\u2019re also facing serious financial problems<\/a> and a public that is deeply skeptical<\/a> of support for Kyiv. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said<\/a> in March that a troop deployment to Ukraine \u201cis not being planned<\/a>.\u201d The Poles? \u201cThere are not and will not be any plans to send the Polish military to Ukraine,\u201d wrote<\/a> a top Polish official on X in May, saying that Poland was partly responsible for defending NATO\u2019s eastern flank and providing logistical assistance to the Ukrainians.<\/p>\n Spain and the Netherlands have also declined to commit troops (though leaders have hastened to add that they will offer support in other ways). Hungary and Slovakia, each with a Russia-friendly government, have given<\/a> a hard \u201cno.\u201d Among those who have so far declared themselves willing to put boots on the ground are Belgium, Lithuania, and Estonia, with a combined population of 16 million. If I were Ukrainian, I\u2019m not sure that I would feel especially reassured by any of this.<\/p>\n As for the United States, the Trump administration\u2019s interest in security guarantees appears to be bound up with the desire to minimize U.S. involvement. Among the Europeans, there has been a great deal of earnest talk about the need for a U.S. \u201cbackstop<\/a>\u201d for any potential troop presence in Ukraine. (Translation: The Europeans want the U.S. military to bail them out as soon as it gets serious, as if we were in the 1980s.)<\/p>\n Who knows where the Americans will end up? The Financial Times<\/em> just reported<\/a> that U.S. President Donald Trump has offered to add U.S. intelligence support and other capabilities to the mix. That\u2019s encouraging enough\u2014but who\u2019s to say that he won\u2019t change his mind tomorrow, especially if Russian President Vladimir Putin gives him a flattering call?<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s envoy, the feckless Steve Witkoff<\/a>, said<\/a> after the Aug. 15 Alaska summit that the West could provide \u201cArticle 5-like\u201d guarantees to Ukraine\u2014another highly ambiguous choice of words. The whole point of NATO\u2019s mutual defense clause is that it rests on U.S. might. Why should anyone\u2014much less the Russians\u2014fear Witkoff\u2019s version of NATO Lite?<\/p>\n Witkoff also claimed that Moscow had agreed to the notion of \u201crobust security guarantees.\u201d More Orwellian doublespeak. The Russians have made it abundantly clear<\/a> that they prefer a system in which they can retain a veto<\/a> over any efforts to boost Kyiv\u2019s security, as they suggested<\/a> at the so-called peace talks\u2014in reality, terms-of-Ukraine\u2019s-submission talks\u2014in Istanbul in 2022. Just within the past few days, Putin reiterated<\/a> that the Russians refuse to countenance any Western troops in Ukraine. On Aug. 24, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared<\/a> that Moscow will only allow members of the United Nations Security Council to guarantee Ukraine\u2019s security\u2014which would presumably give Russia (and its friend, China<\/a>) a veto.<\/p>\n This is nonsense, and it shouldn\u2019t be countenanced. The Ukrainians need the security guarantees because they\u2019re the ones who are being invaded.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Russia raises the issue of security guarantees, I, frankly speaking, do not know who is threatening them,\u201d Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rightly said<\/a> during an Aug. 22 meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in Kyiv. \u201cThey attacked us, and I do not quite understand what guarantees the aggressor needs.\u201d<\/p>\n But do the Americans really understand that? On Aug. 19, Trump gave an interview<\/a> in which he once again seemed to blame Ukraine for defending itself from aggression: \u201cIt\u2019s not a war that should have been started, you don\u2019t do that. You don\u2019t take on a nation that\u2019s 10 times your size.\u201d Can the coalition of the willing really forge a credible deterrent with an ally who can\u2019t distinguish aggressor from victim?<\/p>\n The whole idea of providing Ukraine with security guarantees is a chimera\u2014and one senses that the Europeans understand this<\/a>. They deftly used their Washington meeting with Trump to deflect the threat of an incipient U.S. deal with Putin over the heads of the Ukrainians. They are betting<\/a> that the Russian president\u2019s dithering\u2014 his unwillingness<\/a> to attend a summit with Zelensky, his refusal<\/a> to allow a cease-fire, and his continuing attacks on Ukraine\u2019s civilian populations\u2014will soon raise Trump\u2019s ire beyond repair.<\/p>\n The Europeans understand that the best way forward is to keep up the pressure on Putin. That means supplying Ukraine with more and better weapons (and helping it build them<\/a>), continuing financial and economic support, and intensifying sanctions on Russia and the buyers of its oil. Seizing the roughly $300 billion<\/a> of Russian assets frozen<\/a> in European banks and giving them to Kyiv<\/a> would send exactly the right kind of signal. Now, that would be just the sort of commitment to Ukrainian security that Putin would actually understand.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n