A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of an unholy alliance of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.
What is driving European politics at present is fear. Fear of who Russia might invade next if Ukraine were to collapse. Fear of what might happen if Trump were to abandon Nato and leave Europe to the mercy of Putin.
To adapt Dr Johnson’s adage: depend upon it, sir, when leaders fear they may be invaded in a matter of months, it concentrates their minds wonderfully.
And so last week, when some two dozen European leaders assembled in Paris for a Ukraine summit, their host, Emmanuel Macron, gave voice to the rising sense of panic about the looming threats from east and west.
“This is a European war,” he told the gathering. “Should we delegate our future to the American electorate? The answer is no, whatever their vote. We mustn’t wait to find out what the result [of the US Presidential election] is. We must decide now.”
But decide what, exactly? There’s the rub. The European Union has already promised Ukraine a package of aid worth €50bn (£43bn) over several years. That package required an extraordinary amount of bribery and arm-twisting to get it past Viktor Orban.
A growing body of opinion across the Continent believes that the war is unwinnable for Ukraine and a large minority is actively pro-Russian. There is simply no consensus in favour of stepping up EU assistance to Kyiv.
So Macron decided to cast any attempt to find consensus aside. Instead, he echoed Marshal Foch in 1914: “My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat, situation excellent. J’attaque!”
Macron declared: “There’s no consensus today to send, in an official manner, troops on the ground. But in terms of options, nothing can be ruled out.”
Ruling out sending ground troops, however, is exactly what all the major Nato allies immediately did – especially when the Kremlin warned that such a step would render war between Russia and Nato “inevitable”.
The Biden administration has been struggling for months to overcome a Congressional Republican block on $60bn in new military aid to Ukraine. In an election year, putting American lives at risk in a European war is out of the question.
The British were almost as quick to scotch the idea. “Beyond the small number of personnel in-country supporting the [Ukrainian] armed forces, we do not have any plans to make large-scale deployments,” Downing Street insisted.
But the most vehement attempt to shoot down Macron’s kite came from Berlin. Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, dismissed any such suggestion, now or in future.
“There will be no ground troops, no soldiers sent [to Ukraine] by European countries or Nato states,” he declared.
Robert Habeck, Scholz’s Green vice-chancellor in Germany’s centre-Left ruling coalition, was even more pointed: “I’m pleased that France is thinking about how to increase its support for Ukraine, but if I could give it a word of advice – supply more weapons.”
Habeck was referring to the notorious reluctance of Paris to pull its weight in Ukraine. The French military commitment so far has been just £500m, a fraction of Germany’s £15bn or the UK’s £7.8bn.
Yet Macron still goaded Scholz by alluding to his habit of buckling: refusing a Ukrainian request for military assistance, wavering under pressure from allies, and then handing it over anyway.
“Many of the people who say ‘never, never’ today were the same people who said ‘never, never tanks, never, never planes, never, never long-range missiles’,” Macron told an audience that included Scholz. “I remind you that two years ago, many around this table said: ‘We will offer sleeping bags and helmets.’”
The antipathy between Scholz and Macron is mutual but seldom has it burst into the open like this. No wonder Franco-German relations are worse than at any time since 1990, when François Mitterrand’s reservations about the reunification of Germany, like those of Margaret Thatcher, were brushed aside by Helmut Kohl.
Macron’s conduct was what we have come to expect from a man whose modus operandi is, in reverse of Teddy Roosevelt’s advice, to bellow loudly and carry a rather small stick.
But it is Scholz who, in his eagerness to rebut his rival, has done far more damage to the cause of freedom.
At a time of maximum danger when Ukraine is crying out for help, Scholz and Germany at large are hesitant. Cowed by Putin’s threats, propaganda and a deep-seated public reluctance to engage again in war, Berlin is desperate to draw a line in the sand regardless of what it may mean for Kyiv.
A shameful refusal
For months, a heated debate has raged in Germany over whether to supply Kyiv with its Taurus cruise missiles. Taurus has a range of 310 miles, nearly twice as far as the Anglo-French Storm Shadow and Scalp missiles, which have already been used to great effect by the Ukrainians. Bluntly, Taurus can hit Moscow – and Scholz is terrified of Putin’s possible retaliation.
So far, Scholz has absolutely refused to hand over the missiles, leaving not only Nato allies but even his own supporters exasperated.
Last month the Bundestag voted in favour of delivering “long-range missiles” to Ukraine – including all three of the ruling coalition parties. To spare their Chancellor a vote of confidence, the resolution did not name Taurus, but there was no disguising the fact that his foot-dragging is costing Ukrainian lives.
Scholz has given all kinds of justifications for his intransigence on Taurus, but in explaining himself last Monday he let slip vital information that has infuriated his Nato allies.
“[Taurus] is a very long-range weapon. That which the British and French do in the way of target control and accompanying target control, cannot be done in Germany,” Scholz said. “German soldiers can at no point and in no place be linked with the targets that this system [Taurus] reaches. Not even in Germany.”
In Whitehall, Scholz’s comments were greeted with outrage because they inadvertently suggested that British troops were helping to aim and launch Storm Shadow – and were thus engaged not only in training but also in battle.
For a German chancellor, of all people, to disclose such sensitive intelligence was “completely irresponsible”, according to Norbert Röttgen of the opposition Christian Democratic Union. Many others have echoed him.
An MoD spokesman swiftly denied that British personnel in Ukraine had been involved in missile launches. True or not, this denial suggests that British involvement isn’t necessary. Nor, indeed, would Taurus require German troops to operate it. So Scholz’s excuse is bogus.
The episode highlights the contrasting German and British attitudes to war. Having quietly trained and equipped Ukrainian soldiers for years before February 2022, the British are now giving Zelensky the tools to finish the job – and perhaps also risking their own lives.
Meanwhile, Germany’s formidable Taurus missiles are withheld, even as the Russians rain down death and destruction on Ukraine. For many Germans, this contrast is shameful.
In his annual address in Moscow last Thursday, Putin himself seized on the issue of Nato troops on the ground, capitalising on the loose talk by both Macron and Scholz.
“There has been talk about the possibility of sending Nato military contingents to Ukraine,” he said. “The consequences for possible interventionists will be…tragic.” By way of explanation he added: “All this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and the destruction of civilisation. Don’t they get that?”
The main destination for this sabre-rattling by Putin was Berlin. He intends to intimidate Scholz: sending Taurus to Ukraine would be treated by the Kremlin as crossing a red line. Yet the British have already crossed that line. So far civilisation has survived.
Not only does Scholz show every sign of being susceptible to this kind of intimidation by Putin, but he probably also believes that his own political survival depends on not angering the Russian bear.
The respected Körber Foundation’s latest poll finds that just 38pc of the electorate want Germany to be more strongly engaged in international crises, while 71pc are opposed to their country playing a military leadership role in Europe.
Two thirds (66pc) still agree that Ukraine should receive military support, but of those only just over half (54pc) are in favour of restoring Ukraine’s lost territories, while 41pc merely want Russia to be held in check.
Röttgen accuses Scholz of focusing on next year’s German election at the expense of Ukraine. He presents himself as the Friedenskanzler – “the peacemaker Chancellor” – who can act as an honest broker between Russia and Ukraine. Most Germans just want to be kept out of war at all costs.
Berlin knows that Taurus missiles would be a major addition to the Ukrainian arsenal, enabling them to retaliate against attacks on major cities such as Kyiv and Kharkiv. But their very effectiveness renders them “escalatory” in German eyes. Scholz prefers to follow rather than lead public opinion.
A reluctance to confront Russia is deep-seated. Successive governments led by chancellors Kohl, Schröder and Merkel were culpable for leaving Germany economically dependent on Russia.
Angela Merkel staked Europe’s future on détente with Putin. She knew he was no Gorbachev, but had little inkling that she was dealing with a mini-Stalin. Yet when Putin showed his true colours by invading Georgia, it was she who kept Ukraine out in the cold by blocking the country from joining Nato.
The Germans do not share the responsibility for protecting Ukraine as the US and Britain do, both of whom signed the 1994 Budapest Memorandum along with Russia. In return for promises not to use military force against Ukraine, Kyiv handed over its nuclear arsenal to Moscow, trusting in “security assurances” that proved worthless.
However, Berlin has a moral duty to support Ukraine given its historic mistake on Nato membership.