Europe's coalition of the willing collapsed faster than the Maginot Line in 1940

If Trump's Ukraine deal is so dire, and it is, why allow him make the running?

So, it seems the coalition of the willing isn’t actually very willing. After all that sabre-rattling against Putin, the UK and the EU have crawled back into their shells. They still complain bitterly that the bad man Trump is selling Ukraine short and “rewarding Russian aggression” by proposing to cede Crimea to Russia. Shocking! Shameful! But do something about it? That’s America’s business.

Keir Starmer last month promised “boots on the ground” in Ukraine to bolster any peace deal there. They have now decided that those boots might be a little vulnerable to Russian artillery and drones if they got too close to the front line. Not only that, military planners think it might be “too risky” even to send ground troops to guard key cities, ports, and nuclear plants. In other words, we back you to the hilt, Ukraine — just don’t expect us to take on any risk. Europe’s coalition of the willing has collapsed faster than the Maginot Line in 1939.

How do they think wars end? By making speeches? By passing draft resolutions in Brussels? By judgements in the European Court of Human Rights? How about sending in a battalion of human rights lawyers led by Jolyon Maugham and Philippe Sands to jolly well tell Putin to observe the international rules-based order?

Trump’s behaviour is indeed shocking, erratic, blustering, egocentric, and all the things we know about the President’s temperament. But if Trump is so appalling, why is Europe allowing him to make the running on Ukraine, the first major war in Europe since 1945?

Europe has rewritten the Kennedy Doctrine for the snowflake age: Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall NOT pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, or oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.