The visit by Boris Johnson to meet Donald Trump so soon after the latter’s brush with death is indicative of just how serious the international situation has become. The Republican nominee has just chosen JD Vance, a hardline Ukraine sceptic, as his vice-presidential candidate for November’s election; a sure sign of the direction of travel in terms of the US position on the war and defence more generally.
With Trump almost guaranteed the presidency after narrowly dodging the assassin’s bullet, Boris must know that seeking to persuade Trump to continue his support of Kyiv and of wider European defence is now paramount. For as things stand, Vladimir Putin knows he need only hold on until November, when the assumption is Trump will pull the plug on US support to Ukraine.
For too long, Europe ignored the geopolitical shift in global tectonic plates. Putin told us for years he would invade Ukraine, and we did not just put our hands over our ears – we actually reduced the size of our armies and continued to rely on the US for plugging the defence deficiencies on the Continent.
It is encouraging that Johnson and Trump spoke for an hour. There are reports that the former prime minister was important in persuading Trump to give Mike Johnson in Congress the green light to allow the $60bn of US aid to Kyiv to pass. But the fact is we now stand on the edge of the abyss of another war in Europe. I agree with other commentators that Europe has 2 or 3 years, at best, to stiffen our defences, until Putin is in a realistic position to threaten Article 5 and push NATO, without “Uncle Sam” as our back stop and savour.
The announcement of the UK Strategic Defence Review is welcome, but in the face of the Trump/Vance pact to leave Europe to Putin, by the time the report drops sometime next year, we could already be in direct armed confrontation with the Russians. I do not need to pay a golf professional £100 an hour to be told I’m trying to hit the ball too hard – likewise, we do not need a bunch of academics to tell the government our army is too small, and we have the wrong type of kit to fight Moscow. For sure, we need specific equipment which the report will highlight, but since time immemorial we have needed soldiers to take and hold ground – and at the moment we have neither in sufficient quantity. So we should be getting on with it.
Yesterday was already too late, frankly. We must ‘turbo charge’ our defence industry today to meet this challenge. Putin already has a two-year head start on Europe, especially if Trump and Vance impose a ceasefire on Ukraine in November – the massive army he has built will be redirected elsewhere. Nobody who has studied Putin or Russia in any detail believes that he will stop in Ukraine.
As Keir Starmer deliver’s his King’s Speech today, the honeymoon period of his thumping victory at the polls is well and truly over. He may only have until November to prepare this country for direct conflict with Russia. He probably has 2-3 years to turn our military into a conventional deterrence to deter further Russian expansion.
Those who fail to prepare must prepare to fail, and everything else vexing us at the moment – the cost-of-living and illegal migrants steaming across the channel – could become horrifically irrelevant if we do not prepare.
