It’ll take more than a ‘reassurance force’ to fill the US-sized hole at the coalition summit

There’s a terrible sense of poignancy – if not doom – around all the meetings of the “coalition of the willing”, impressive as the grandiloquent words, the formidable roll call of nations and the glittering array of military uniforms might be.

The latest gathering is today, and it’s fair to say they are making progress in constructing a “reassurance force” to help preserve the peace in Ukraine, albeit a peace that doesn’t seem imminent. To be brutally frank, and with the best will in the world, these capable, dedicated ministers and generals may be wasting their time.

At the Nato headquarters in Brussels, no less, some 30 countries, including the great majority of those in Europe, are gathering under the joint chairmanship of the UK defence secretary, John Healey, and his French counterpart, Sebastien Lecornu, to further plan the logistics of such a “force” (which may not ever be authorised to use force, though we shall see).

It seems natural that the coalition should be led by Britain and France – without being chauvinistic, given that these are the two nuclear powers on the continent, as well as being UN permanent security council members, and possess the biggest and most experienced militaries. Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer have provided exemplary leadership – both cooperative and intelligent – to this grouping.

Its membership has mostly had to lie outside Nato, sadly, because America has no interest; and outside the European Union, because Europe doesn’t have an army – though it does have Putin sympathisers (Viktor Orban in Hungary) – and because crucial powers such as Britain and Norway aren’t members of the bloc.

It also has the support of countries such as Canada, Japan, Australia and South Korea – all far away from Europe. They are part of the 50-nation Ukraine Contact Group, also meeting this weekend. It is, if you like, the traditional Western alliances brought together – minus America.

The coalition of the willing (COTW) is asymmetric, informal, and not bound by any treaty organisations – but that’s no reason for it not to be effective. Countries do what they can, whether militarily, financially, or politically. Thus, a country such as Canada could contribute “boots on the ground”, while Poland, just next door to the conflict and now building one of the largest armies in Europe, feels that it must reserve its troops for its own vulnerable border.

Japan and South Korea have the comparative advantage in manufacturing and technology – useful for all in this trade war. Fair enough. Each brings to the effort what they are able to. The important thing is the commitment to Ukraine, and to the collective security of Europe – alongside the shared fear of Russian domination and American abandonment.

It could work. The COTW could be incorporated into a peace settlement. It could have rules of engagement, and be present at the invitation of the government of Ukraine – not imposed on it. The relationship with Nato Article 5 obligations could be clarified, for instance to make clear that America need not respond if the COTW troops are attacked.

The COTW’s role, and the scale of its forces on the ground, in the air and in the Black Sea, could be codified. Europe and its partners have the financial and industrial strength to make it work – even without the vast strength of the absent Americans. Starmer and Macron have repeatedly tried to get the White House to make even the tiniest, most tokenistic commitment to providing a “backstop” security guarantee for Ukraine. They didn’t get it, and they won’t.

But even that isn’t the biggest problem. The problem is American resistance to the whole idea. The danger is that if Vladimir Putin doesn’t like the COTW reassurance force – and everything suggests that he hates it – and obstructs Donald Trump’s peace deal, then Trump will agree. The best Putin will accept so far is a conventional UN peacekeeping force, ie the kind of thing that so recently proved useless and was humiliated by Israel in Lebanon. No Nato members, under any flag, will be allowed in. If nothing is agreed, Putin will carry on, likely with Trump’s acquiescence – because it seems to me that Trump is basically a coward.

So there will be no peace deal for the COTW to uphold, and thus the “reassurance force” will find itself redundant before it even turns up for work. Trump and Putin will in effect impose a settlement on Ukraine that leaves it a puppet state; or Trump will just cut the aid to Ukraine, Elon Musk will turn off the Starlink satellites the Ukrainian army relies on, and Putin will grind on with his war. Would the COTW send troops into a live conflict anyway? No. Public opinion would not allow it.

All the other problems with the COTW are real, but they will pale into insignificance if Trump decides it’s not in America’s interest and that it will get in the way of his peace settlement.

How, for example, would the COTW function if Marine Le Pen or her proxy became president of France? She doesn’t believe in it, and her pro-Putin instincts are well known. What if Russia rigs a Ukrainian election and the new leader tells the COTW to go home?

And, on those rules of engagement, would the French, the British, the German public really support a war with Russia if Putin invaded and destroyed the “reassurance force”? Or took its soldiers hostage? Would we use a nuclear deterrent? Could we cope with seeing the coffins of British soldiers arrive back at RAF Brize Norton from the bloody Battle of Kyiv – another futile war, like Iraq or Afghanistan, to live through?

How willing, in other words, will the coalition of the willing turn out to be?