For all the fear, loathing and chronic suspicion in the talks in Munich, Paris and Riyadh in the past few days, it is likely there will be a ceasefire in Ukraine by summer. However shaky the agreement, it will involve oversight by an international force in which British troops will take a leading role.
This is likely to be the most complex and difficult peace mission of modern times, I have been told, privately, by one of the UK’s most successful commanders in three recent wars. The mission is doubly dangerous because a European peace force will be up against Russia, which has nuclear weapons and is prepared to deploy them.
Any armistice in Ukraine is likely to be toxic. It is not clear if it would seal a frozen conflict – like the agreement at Panmunjom in 1953, which stopped the war in Korea, but to this day has produced no lasting peace treaty. More likely it will be a deal like those in the Caucasus, in and around Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, semifreddo conflicts with regular flare-ups. A bad Ukraine settlement could condemn the region to bouts of guerrilla warfare for a decade to come.
A European force would be led by France and Britain – the two European nuclear powers. It would have to be a coalition of the willing, a cliché not deployed so far by the armchair strategists. It should work to UN practice – though a bid to get a UN mandate would likely be vetoed out of sight by Moscow and Beijing.
Could the force work, and are British forces up to the challenge of making a realistic contribution? The media commentary to date has not been too positive. The British Army could not field 20,000 troops, as it is hollowed out, short of recruits and in the throes of a major overhaul.
Unveiling this major overhaul of the Ministry of Defence and the Defence Staff – the biggest since the MoD was launched in 1957 – John Healey, the defence secretary, this week said he was confident that the UK’s forces could play a major role in Eastern Europe. The task was vital for the security of Britain and the democratic world.
The contribution isn’t just a question of the hoary old cliché of “boots on the ground”. Critics have said that the British Army, now at just under 70,000 fully trained soldiers, couldn’t supply a force of 20,000 troops for a long period. It shouldn’t have to. More likely it would contribute a large headquarters, a mechanised infantry brigade of up to 7,000, an air wing of RAF Typhoon aircraft, and a brigade of Apache attack helicopters.
Similar blocs of forces could be deployed by France, the Nordic countries, and the East Europeans. It is likely that Germany would also deploy a large brigade, once the dust has settled from the upcoming election and the pro-Russian catcalls from the hard right and hard left have faded.
The force will have to monitor a front of about a thousand kilometres – plus the Black Sea – in which the British and French navies are likely to lead. The heavily patrolled DMZ between the two Koreas stretches only 250 kilometres – roughly a quarter of the Ukraine front line.
The latest chapter in the Ukraine crisis, galvanised by Donald Trump’s grapeshot diplomacy – based on the dubious ploy of hug the enemy, insult the friend – has put UK defence, its funding and reform, centre stage in British politics. The Armed Forces, and the whole procurement process, are in need of reform after a decade and more of neglect. The Government’s election manifesto promise of an uplift of funding from 2.3 to 2.5 per cent of GDP had become something of irredeemable promissory note. Rachel Reeves’s Treasury had said that the target couldn’t be met before 2030 – at the earliest.
This has now changed. The Strategic Defence Review, due to report within weeks, will deliver reform and will need funding. The reshaping of the MoD is under way, giving new powers to the Chief of the Defence Staff, who now operates as the senior operational commander alongside the Permanent Secretary. Alongside them are two new senior figures, the National Armaments Director, charged with making sense of the chaotic defence procurement jungle, and the Chief of Defence Nuclear – much needed in the new era of nuclear proliferation and threat.
The main work of the defence report was due to be signed off by its three directors, Lord Robertson, General Richard Barrons, and Dr Fiona Hill, on St Valentine’s Day – last Friday. The proposals are now due “to be shuffled in shoals of paperwork across Whitehall”, according to one defence chief.
Meanwhile, in phase two, the MoD has already weighed anchor on reform of its own structure and the new Military Strategic Command. Finally, in phase three, the Prime Minister has charged Jonathan Powell, the new National Security Adviser, to mark the SDR homework, before his final decision and publication.
Beyond the debate about money and munitions, there is little mention of the most critical element – personnel and recruiting. Britain, like many major allies, America included, faces a recruiting crisis.
Fewer young men and women are willing and able to join the armed and security services. In part, this is due to demographic wintering across the developed world – humanity as a whole is getting older. In part it is the new sense of anxiety and foreboding that pervades public and media discourse in these distracted times.
In a generation or two, there could be no question about UK peace missions in Europe, or anywhere else. There just won’t be the manpower and womanpower available.