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The writer is a senior fellow at the Stimson Center and author of ‘Oil, the State, and War’
European leaders have finally shed their distaste for the George W Bush-era phrase “coalition of the willing”. As they repeatedly convene to discuss ongoing support for Ukraine, their choice of name is both unfortunate and ironic. Europe’s leaders were once too weak to stop the US’s coalition from invading Iraq. And thus far, all their new coalition has done is highlight that it’s too weak and too indecisive to actually help Ukraine.
The coalition of the willing sounds impressive. Since February, meetings involving 30 nations have been held in Paris, London and elsewhere to discuss how to fill the vacuum left by the US pullback, and to “reassure, support and protect Ukraine”. In early May, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and their German and Polish counterparts travelled to Kyiv, where they proposed a 30-day ceasefire and promised to “ratchet up pressure on Russia’s war machine”.
In practice, though, the coalition remains paper thin. Europe is keen to provide Ukraine with replacements for missing US supplies, but it’s struggling to procure the weapons Kyiv needs fast enough and at a reasonable cost. Many of the commitments made will take years to appear on a battlefield. And even the promised punitive sanctions on Russia for rejecting a ceasefire amounted to little more than additional EU designations of ships transporting Russian oil.
The biggest problem for the coalition is the question of post-ceasefire troop commitments, originally envisaged as a peacekeeping force to deter a future Russian invasion. Since the idea was broached, the number of troops under discussion has dwindled from over 100,000 to approximately 20,000. The proposed deployments are no longer even focused on frontline deterrence; leaders are instead debating a token presence to guard infrastructure or ports, with no agreement on who will supply the troops.
This failure arises from several problems. First, European armies will struggle to fight — and may not have anything to fight with. They have, for the most part, chronically underfunded their militaries, hollowing out their capacity for complex operations; this has been further compounded by aid to Ukraine since 2022, which saw many European states strip their military stockpiles to the bone.
Second, there will be trade-offs. Romania and Poland — among Ukraine’s most vocal supporters — both publicly announced they would not send any troops to Ukraine. This is the result of growing concerns among European states about the Trump administration’s commitment to Nato. Any troops stationed in Ukraine, after all, cannot be used to defend the homeland. As governments struggle to prepare for a future in which European defence is not provided by Washington, the choices will be starkest for those closest to Russia.
Finally, there is a lack of political will. Europeans in general remain more supportive of Ukraine than Americans — although opinions diverge substantially across the continent. In France, 67 per cent of respondents would support sending French troops to Ukraine after a peace deal, while a slim plurality of Germans (49 per cent) would support deploying Bundeswehr peacekeepers at that point. Only 43 per cent of Britons, however, would support sending troops, even after a potential ceasefire.
There is a gap between European leaders’ assertions of support for Kyiv and what they can actually contribute. There’s also a gulf between their statements and what their populations are willing to bear. Indeed, there’s little honest debate about troop deployments because leaders don’t want to admit that French, British, or German troops would be sent to Ukraine as a “tripwire” force designed to deter Russia by pulling these states into any potential future war.
Starmer, Macron and their counterparts clearly want to signal strength and support for Ukraine by suggesting that Europe can fill America’s shoes. By constantly shifting the goalposts — downsizing potential troop deployments and issuing mostly empty threats to Russia — EU leaders have instead signalled their weakness.
It would be better to drop the posturing — and the plans for Nato-style security guarantees to Ukraine that would require US backing.
Instead, the coalition of the willing should focus on areas where it can make a difference: supporting Kyiv in building its own postwar military, bolstering Europe’s defence industrial base and planning postwar reconstruction. Thus far, these areas have mostly played second fiddle to doomed troop deployments. But they are as important, and — more importantly — they are feasible.
