Latest news with #DefenseContactGroup
Al Arabiya
6 days ago
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Britain pledges to deliver 100,000 drones to Ukraine by April 2026
Britain pledged on Wednesday to supply 100,000 drones to Ukraine by the end of the current financial year in April 2026, marking a tenfold increase, after saying the unmanned aerial vehicles had transformed the way wars are fought. The government on Monday endorsed an independently produced Strategic Defense Review, which calls for a more lethal, tech-driven army to counter emerging threats, including possible Russian aggression. Britain, one of Ukraine's staunchest Western supporters, plans to learn from Kyiv's more than three-year fight against the Russian invasion, during which drones have transformed the battlefield. The 350-million-pound ($473 million) drone package is part of a broader 4.5-billion-pound military support initiative for Ukraine, the government said. Defense Secretary John Healey will make the announcement at a 50-nation Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting in Brussels, co-hosted with Germany. 'The UK is stepping up its support for Ukraine by delivering hundreds of thousands more drones this year and completing a major milestone in the delivery of critical artillery ammunition,' Healey said in a statement ahead of the meeting. In addition to the drone deliveries, Britain said it has completed the shipment of 140,000 artillery shells to Ukraine since January and will spend a further 247 million pounds this year training Ukrainian troops.
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The U.S. Won't Abandon Europe
Europe is in disarray, and Ukraine feels betrayed. That is the view coming out of last week's series of high-level European security conferences. The angst began last Thursday at a meeting of the Defense Contact Group comprising Ukraine's military partners, when U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated in his speech that he was there 'to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.' The next day, during a wide-ranging address to the Munich Security Conference—the premier security gathering for European leaders, defense officials and analysts—Vice President JD Vance issued what some see as a wakeup call, declaring that 'it's important, in the coming years, for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defense.' Perhaps more shocking for the assembled audience, Vance also chided Europe for what he portrayed as its flawed free speech protections and the efforts by its mainstream parties to exclude far-right parties from government coalitions, which he called a greater threat to the continent than Russia or China. These statements came on top of a direct phone conversation between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, as well as a meeting in Saudi Arabia between U.S. and Russian officials to discuss ending the long-running war in Ukraine. The worry is that the talks themselves, which took place without representatives from Ukraine in the room, are a concession to Russia. When coupled with the predictably unpredictable Trump placing blame on Ukraine for the war, as well as Hegseth's remark during his aforementioned speech that 'returning to Ukraine's pre-2014 borders is an unrealistic objective,' the concern is that Ukraine could essentially be carved up by Washington and Moscow, bringing to mind the World War II-era Yalta Conference between the leaders of the U.S., U.K. and Soviet Union, which led to the postwar division of Europe into rival East-West blocs. Above all, many fear that Europe will soon be on its own when it comes to securing Ukraine and deterring future Russian attempts at territorial aggrandizement. As one headline read, 'Trump threw Ukraine under the Russian bus. NATO could be next.' To get more in-depth news and expert analysis on global affairs from WPR, sign up for our free Daily Review newsletter. Those twin concerns led French President Emmanuel Macron to convene a summit of European military powers, renew calls for the creation of a European army and consider large deployments of European troops in Ukraine to secure any eventual peace deal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy echoed the call for Europe to build an army, saying that 'the old days are over when America supported Europe just because it always had.' The two issues—the U.S. commitment to NATO and U.S. support for Ukraine—are obviously linked. Despite Vance's claims to the contrary, the primary threat to Europe right now is Russia, and Russia is presently attacking Ukraine. But the two issues are also not one and the same, especially from the perspective of the Trump administration. Let's start with NATO. That the longstanding concerns over Trump's commitment to the alliance have once again surfaced should not shock anyone. Indeed, some of these recent statements are a replay of Trump's approach to Europe during his first term in office. Moreover, he has staffed his national security team with people who see China, not Russia, as the United States' primary 'peer competitor,' and Asia, not Europe, as the extra-hemispheric region of core U.S. interest. But just as it is important not to overstate Trump's influence on international affairs, it is also critical not to overreact to the statements and events of last week. The U.S., even under Trump, is not abandoning NATO or Europe. For starters, while the comments made by Hegseth and Vance might be concerning, neither one of them claimed that the U.S. was poised to withdraw from NATO. Far from it. In the same address, Hegseth said, 'Our transatlantic alliance has endured for decades. And we fully expect that it will be sustained for generations to come.' But he made clear that European NATO members had obligations that they aren't meeting, and that in the current security environment of a revanchist Russia, they need to do more—namely spend 5 percent of their GDP on defense and secure European soil, including in Ukraine as part of any eventual peace deal, with European and not U.S. troops. The reality is that Europeans themselves have been frustrated over their inability to develop more strategic autonomy, so the comments by Hegseth and Vance are a useful push. As Hegseth highlighted, if Europe were to do more to secure Europe, it would 'establish a division of labor that maximizes our comparative advantages in Europe and [the] Pacific respectively.' Given that the U.S. military industrial base has faced sharp capacity limits in recent years, such a division of labor appears necessary. Neither did Vance signal a lack of commitment to NATO. In his Munich address, he said 'the Trump administration is very concerned with European security' and that it sees Europeans spending more on defense as 'part of being in a shared alliance together.' As for Ukraine, he told reporters during a meeting with Zelenskyy that the goal was 'to achieve a durable, lasting peace. Not the kind of peace that's going to have Eastern Europe in conflict just a couple years down the road.' Moreover, for all of Trump's bluster about free-riding NATO allies during his first term—bluster that is not unprecedented for a U.S. president—Trump eventually became a self-described 'NATO fan,' after claiming credit for the increases NATO allies made to their defense spending. While these increases were already in motion following Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea and the subsequent signing of the Wales Pledge to 'move towards 2 percent' of GDP as a benchmark for alliance defense spending, then-NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg was more than willing to praise Trump for pushing the European powers to make more progress in meeting that obligation. Additionally, while the U.S. may want to focus on deterring China, Europe remains important in that great power competition. As I wrote last year when reflecting on NATO's enduring relevance to the U.S., 'So long as instability in Europe can influence the global and, hence, U.S. economy, the United States will have a strong incentive to keep a seat at the table of European security.' If there is one thing that Trump values, it is having a seat at the table, and NATO provides it, giving the U.S. the ability to shape policy and respond militarily if needed, even if the day-to-day U.S. troop presence is diminished. While the U.S. is unlikely to abandon NATO, there is still some cause for concern over Ukraine. On this issue, specifically the possibility of reaching a deal to end the war, the picture is less clear, in part due to the slew of verbal jabs and accusations Trump and Zelenskyy have traded since the direct U.S.-Russia diplomatic channel was launched. On one hand, it seems that Trump is so keen to make good on his campaign promise to end the war that he'll do anything to induce Russia to stop fighting, from publicly lambasting Zelenskyy for not accepting a U.S.-Russia deal without Ukrainian participation to supporting an outcome that favors Russian territorial gains. On the other hand, it is increasingly likely Trump will find that Russia, and specifically Putin, is not really interested in a deal regardless of what is offered and who is at the table. Indeed, Putin has already downplayed the two leaders' lengthy phone conversation, which Trump announced triumphantly. Some see the comments made by Trump administration officials last week as the beginning of the end of the long-standing U.S. role in European security. After all, the U.S. is now run by a president who has a 19th-century view of the world and the United States' place in it. In concrete terms, that means the U.S. is separated from the troubles of Europe by a 'big, beautiful Ocean,' as Trump put it in a social media post. But even if the U.S. will no longer play as central a role in maintaining European security, that doesn't mean the Trump administration is interested in abandoning NATO to the dustbin of history—and Europe to Russia. Paul Poast is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a nonresident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. The post The U.S. Won't Abandon Europe appeared first on World Politics Review.
