It is commonplace to accuse politicians of being out of touch. There is often some truth in the charge, and our elected representatives take it on the chin. One of the least likely politicians to face this charge has always been John Healey: the defence secretary has been one of the most sensible and pragmatic ministers in Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet – not a high bar, admittedly. And yet there are signs that he has succumbed to the Ministry of Defence’s corrosive habit of dealing with the world as it wants it to be, not as it is.
Our armed forces are in no position to deploy significant numbers of troops to Ukraine
We all watched the news from Friday’s summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Anchorage. However you try to frame the encounter, it was at best a huge disappointment for the US president. His Russian counterpart conceded nothing and his armed forces continue to pound Ukraine’s cities. Meanwhile, his pre-conditions for any kind of negotiations remain the maximal aims with which he began the war: Ukraine must cede territory to Russia, rule out membership of Nato indefinitely and, in practice, allow the Kremlin a veto over its foreign policy.
And yet, John Healey can’t be accused of being a pessimist. ‘In the circumstances of a ceasefire we’re ready to put UK boots on the ground in Ukraine,’ he told the BBC on Friday, shortly before the talks began. ‘They are ready to go, they’re ready to act from day one. The military plans are complete.’
This is, of course, the ‘coalition of the willing’ which Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron have worked so hard to assemble. But there is one problem: it may indeed be ‘ready to go’ – although this is doubtful – but there is no ceasefire nor any prospect of a ceasefire, and Russia has violated previous pauses in the fighting with impunity.
Secretary of state Marco Rubio was downbeat in the wake of the summit. ‘There remain some big areas of disagreement,’ he admitted to ABC’s This Week. ‘We’re not at the precipice of an agreement, we’re not at the edge of one.’
President Trump, for whom consistency is something that applies to other people, seems to have decided a ceasefire is no longer important, despite having previously stressed what a priority it was. He casually edited reality on his Truth Social platform in his characteristic and odd way:
It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a peace agreement, which would end the war, and not a mere ceasefire agreement, which often times do not hold up.
Where does this leave the coalition of the willing? Starmer and Macron are now all dressed up with nowhere to go. They have made an enormous play of their genuinely tireless efforts in constructing the coalition, but its only purpose is to monitor, police or help implement a ceasefire in Ukraine. It is now plain to any rational observer that there will be no ceasefire in the foreseeable future, because it is not an approach which suits Putin and he now knows that Trump has little intention of putting pressure on him to bring it about.
That may prove good fortune in a heavy disguise for Starmer because there is another consideration. Our armed forces are in no position to deploy significant numbers of troops in a safe and sustainable way to Ukraine.
The size of the coalition’s anticipated deployment is unknown but has been a moving target: in February, President Zelenskyy talked about needing a force of between 100,000 and 150,000. At the time, the Ministry of Defence carelessly allowed the idea to circulate that the UK might contribute 20,000 troops.
In March, Starmer talked about 30,000 troops. The following month, the chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, consulted with his military colleagues in the coalition of the willing about generating a force of 64,000, and was told that not only was that utterly unrealistic, but that less than half that number, even 25,000, would be extremely challenging.
Once again, UK ministers are trumpeting an idea that by definition cannot come to fruition. Without a ceasefire, putting boots on the ground in Ukraine is impossible; even if there were a ceasefire, the UK does not have the resources, especially in terms of artillery and logistics, to assemble anything more than a battlegroup of maybe 1,000 soldiers. Even our current commitments are stretching us. For context, Russia is estimated to have 600,000 soldiers in and around Ukraine.
John Healey seems to have retreated into a comforting game of ‘what if?’, supposing that every eventuality he wants has come to pass and is then telling the media what the UK would do. Increasingly, though, he is talking not about potential outcomes but doors which have already closed. What if Russia agreed to a ceasefire, what if Putin moderated his demands, what if Russia and Ukraine could find an acceptable long-term settlement? As Jake says in the closing pages of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, ‘Isn’t it pretty to think so?’
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