Europe’s hasty peacekeeping plan offers Ukraine hope
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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Today with me, Alex Dibble and Toby Gillis. European nations are discussing in detail how they could send troops to Ukraine as part of a potential peacekeeping mission.

A meeting in Paris was hastily arranged after the very tough talk from the US at last week's security conferences. But this meeting did not include 20 European Union leaders...

So, as the United States and Russia meet in Saudi Arabia to discuss a potential peace deal, could Europe be fracturing? Our guest today is Jamie Shea, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges at NATO. Jamie, if France, the UK and Sweden can get enough support for this peacekeeping mission, what does boots on the ground look like, do you think, in that regard?

Well, it's very difficult to know before you see what the peace plan is. You know, cast your mind back to the years in the Balkans in the 1990s when we had things like the Dayton Peace Agreement, you know, very detailed plans which defined very clearly

clearly the obligations of the different parties, you know, disarm, take away heavy weapons, remove troops, create a buffer zone. That made it easier in those days for NATO to come in and organize a peacekeeping force because there was a firm agreement and NATO could hold the feet to the fire of the different parties to respect that agreement. But of course, the problem here in Ukraine is that you could have a very flimsy peace agreement, nothing much more

more than a ceasefire. The Russians have anything up to 750,000 troops at the moment in Ukraine. They could put more in over the coming weeks. Imagine, therefore, a European force has to go and hold the line between a million Russian troops, heavily armed, configured for the offensive,

and then just a couple of kilometers on the other side of the line, still a Ukrainian force of 350,000, 400,000 troops, also heavily armed, with the prospect of incidents happening

firing at each other every single day. And how do you deal with that situation? So I think the allies, the Europeans who want to contribute to the force, obviously have got to start their planning. You know, it's already overdue because that's going to be very detailed. You know, what's going to be the mandate? What kind of equipment would they need? Who's going to contribute? You know, for how long and all of that kind of thing. But on the other hand, what I think is equally important is that the Europeans will

really get involved in the military implementation side of this deal so that they can really spell out what they would require. For example, support from the United States is going to be the key factor to be able to do the job with a reasonable margin of safety and success.

How intrinsically linked do you think the outcome of these initial US-Russia talks are in Saudi Arabia to whether Donald Trump might support a European peacekeeping mission on the ground in Ukraine?

Well, it also works the other way, Toby, if you don't mind me sort of reversing your question, because the more the Europeans sort of show that they're willing to and can put this peace implementation force on the ground, the more they can say to Trump, look, without our implementation force, Mr. President,

president, your deal is worth nothing. You know, it could collapse at the first violation of the ceasefire. Nobody's going to believe in it. Putin will challenge it. It won't be the last Russian invasion of Ukraine. You haven't given Ukraine security guarantees. And I think Trump is mindful of the fact that he's not going to win the Nobel Peace Prize if that's the outcome of his efforts. He's going to be seen to be the loser, not the winner. So I think it works the other way. The more the Europeans, and this is why I think Keir Starmer over the weekend,

you know, flagged up the notion that the UK would contribute. And in Paris today, I think France and the UK, you mentioned Sweden, will be seeking other contributions. The more they can show that the Europeans really are willing and able to do this, the more they can say to Trump, hey, you can't do this without us. We're absolutely key to this. Your success depends on us and therefore let us into the peace talks. If that is the route that this ends up going down, that European boots are on the ground in Ukraine...

how does that not become NATO entering the fray, at least in Vladimir Putin's mind?

Well, indeed, we had a situation in Kosovo back in 1999 that NATO entered with a force called KFOR. It wasn't called NATO, it was called KFOR, Kosovo Force. And Milosevic, who was the one who at the time gave in and agreed to that peacekeeping force being deployed, he knew it was NATO, but to save face, it wasn't called NATO, it

was called KFOR. And indeed, Russia participated then. Unthinkable, of course, today. So I agree with you that Putin will not want the idea of immediate NATO membership for Ukraine, which the United States seems to have ruled out now in any case, and certainly will not want the thing to have too much of a kind of NATO flag

being waived up front. But I think it will be NATO in anything other than name. It would obviously have to be planned through the NATO command structure. It will have to use the NATO logistics system. It will use NATO communication standards, NATO satellites, NATO interoperability

NATO integrated ballistic and air defense. To the extent that the Americans also provide a backup role in terms of logistics, intelligence, reinforcement, that will also, of course, increase the NATO involvement. I mean, how can you plan this force if you don't use

the 3,000 military planners at shape in the NATO command structure. So I think at the end of the day, some sleight of hand will be devised, which will allow sort of Putin to claim it's not NATO. But as far as the Ukrainians are concerned, in terms of their belief in the force, the credibility of the force, it will be NATO. And I think that's going to be sort of, in terms of semantics, an interesting thing to look out for.

Jamie, Donald Trump is difficult to predict. As and when the Europeans present their idea to him, how much do you think his response would be, I don't know, almost literally down to which side of the bed he got out of that morning? Trump and J.D. Vance, who spoke so sternly about Europe last week, are just so difficult to read, aren't they?

Well, they are. It may be encouraging that at least, you know, the people who Trump has sent to Saudi Arabia are Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, who has come up with the most conciliatory language so far on Europe, NATO. You know, he's a NATO supporter. He hasn't used the rather sharp, bitter language that we got from the Defense Secretary Hegseff in Brussels last week. And he's also sent Mike Waltz.

The National Security Advisor, again, is seen to be one of the more pragmatic sort of people in the administration. I think it's also useful, by the way, that Trump has not met Putin directly for the first meeting, but is having this kind of Sherpa, as diplomats like to call it, meeting first, you know, to scope out the ground of Russia's willingness to, you know, move ahead, not just negotiate for the sake of negotiating, but really to move ahead, really to have a peace agreement.

So it's a little bit better than when Trump went into meetings totally unprepared with the North Korean leader, you remember, Kim Jong-un, in his previous administration.

You're right. I mean, it's going to be a rough ride. We'll have to wait and see how we get on. But so far, the lesson seems to be, you know, when you push back very firmly against Trump, he does think again and moderate the tone. But we've got to be united. And the levers of influence that we do have, like, hey, you can't implement your peace deal without us, are levers that we have to play intelligently and effectively.

Jamie, just finally, if Europe decides boots on the ground are the way to go in Ukraine, has there been enough defence spending in recent years to actually afford that at this stage?

Well, it's going to require budgetary shifts. For example, if Europeans spend 5% of their GDP on defence, which Trump has been calling for, that would represent 750 billion euros more of defence spending. And I'm talking just for the EU here, not for the UK a year. For Germany, it would be half of German federal spending. And therefore, can you do it? Yes, but only if you

put less money into pensions, into social welfare education. But the Europeans think that in order to sustain American support for NATO, in order to defend themselves, this is an existential sacrifice that simply has to be made. I don't know. The jury is still out there. Yes, it can be done, but not without that

trade-off and costs. Others will point out that, of course, during previous periods of danger, defence spending was around 6% to 7% of GDP. Do we now need to go back to an earlier paradigm? This is not going to be easy. The other thing, of course, is to get a large number of countries involved so that you can do rotation. If the burden falls, you know, on the UK and France, with others, you know, providing only a couple of percents of the troops,

budgetarily speaking, that's going to be more difficult. So even those countries that don't participate should cough up in terms of the funding.

Okay, Jamie Shea, the former NATO Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges, thank you very much for joining us. Now this meeting in Paris is, as we mentioned, part of a rather frantic European response to Donald Trump going it alone in negotiations with Russia. We covered in Friday's episode with our Defence Editor Larissa Brown the confusion and

and chaos that that move is causing. Do listen back to that. But for now, thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. See you tomorrow.