Real change in EU defense unlikely until Trump arrives and forces action — Colonel Grant

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer, arrived in Kyiv on Thursday to sign the United Kingdom-Ukraine Centenary Agreement. However, Starmer’s visit is likely about more than just signing another agreement – his predecessor had already secured a highly significant one. The backdrop to this visit includes the recent inauguration of the Trump administration in the White House and the curious connection of Elon Musk, ironically a bosom friend of Starmer. Broadly speaking, this signals a potential shift in the security landscape across the European continent.

It's interesting because it could go either way.

It could remain as it is now, with the war ongoing and Putin pushing forward, or there could be a dramatic change. However, a dramatic change would require America to take action.

At the moment, we have no idea what Trump will do or which direction he will take.

If you listen to the words of his new envoy for Ukraine, General Kellogg, it’s clear he is a fighting man with considerable experience. He is also a Christian man, so I am confident that Kellogg will want the war to end because of his moral values. However, as a good general, he will not want to see Ukraine thrown under the bus.

I believe Kellogg will think that if Putin doesn’t take action, whether that means pulling back, negotiating, or compromising, then Kellogg is likely to advise Trump that the U.S. must do more to support Ukraine.

What happens next, however, is not in the hands of Trump or Musk; it is in the hands of Putin.

Ultimately, it’s Putin’s decisions that will shape future relationships. If he chooses to continue fighting and pushing forward, it will create significant pressure on countries like Hungary, Slovakia, and Austria, as well as others who have been supportive of him. People will demand accountability, urging these nations to reconsider their stance if Putin has been given the opportunity to negotiate, and he chooses to perpetuate the war.

The situation is serious, especially considering that General Kellogg, the U.S. President's Special Representative for the Russian-Ukrainian War, was not nominated by the Republican Party but directly by Trump himself. This makes him a personal appointee, effectively carrying Donald Trump’s vision. 

Unfortunately, it seems clear that a diplomatic resolution is unlikely. Trump might attempt bold threats to deter Putin, but it’s doubtful they will succeed. Over the past three years, Russia's strategy has been a slow and deliberate build-up of forces and resources. For them, the stakes are strategic only if Trump applies pressure on Kyiv to make decisions detrimental to Ukraine. If the conflict continues to drag on, it is likely that Russia will move forward with its offensive plans.

All of what you said is absolutely right.

However, it will be extremely hard for Trump to push Zelensky without providing some sort of guarantees. I think Zelensky is not going to be happy to accept giving up territory without at least something that strongly resembles joining NATO.

I don’t believe the Ukrainian public is ready to accept losing parts of the country. Too many people have died for Ukraine to lose territory without Putin making a serious compromise and without Trump offering something significant in return.

So, I think we have some interesting times ahead starting Monday.

We are witnessing the fallout from the destruction of the global security architecture initiated by Putin. Meanwhile, Trump, even before his inauguration, is making provocative statements about Greenland, the Panama Canal, and other issues. As an elected president, he should refrain from such rhetoric, as it is evident how Putin might exploit it. Let us hope this does not echo the isolationism of a century ago and that Trump avoids retreating into such a stance.

I don’t think Trump wants to be an isolationist. Trump wants to go down in history.

We all know that.

He wants to be remembered as the man who made America great again.

The trouble is, he doesn't have the capacity to achieve this on the economic front because he doesn’t know how to do it. So, he’s resorting to loud gestures, whether it’s about the Panama Canal, Canada, pressuring Denmark, or similar actions. These are all symbolic outbursts. But remember, he also claimed he could stop the war in 24 hours, and now that timeline has shifted to six months.

I think we will just have to wait and see what policies he actually implements when he takes office on January 20th. Many of the things he has talked about previously are unlikely to work.

As you rightly pointed out, his approach is inadvertently encouraging Putin. Trump’s expansionist ideas align with what Putin desires, and unfortunately, they also appeal to Xi in China. If Trump isn’t careful, he may end up encouraging despots everywhere to seize more land, territory, or countries, just as he himself suggested with Greenland.

If we’re not cautious, we may be heading toward dangerous times, far more dangerous than what we are experiencing now.

There is a significant risk that the United States might retreat from its leadership role in maintaining stability on the European continent. If this happens, the burden will fall on the UK, France, Germany, and Poland to make critical decisions and perhaps convene their general staffs. After all, Russian expansion, driven by its criminal logic, has no incentive to halt.

Well, the European Union says it is going to take the lead, but one has to remember that the European Union has virtually no military staff. It's essentially just "two men and a dog." Politically, they can claim to take the lead, but militarily, they simply cannot.

Britain is supposed to be taking the lead militarily on behalf of NATO in the region, but it is not doing a very good job at the moment. This is primarily because the British defense forces are weak to begin with, and secondly because they are still in the middle of a defense review conducted by the Labour Party.

That defense review has yet to provide clear outcomes or direction for British defense policy. From what we can see, it does not appear that the Labour Party is willing to allocate more funding to defense.

This leaves us in a difficult situation. Britain is supposed to lead but lacks sufficient defense capabilities. Poland probably does not want to take the lead because it is focused on its own defense.

As for Germany and France, in my view, both are struggling with their political and military strategies. There is no clarity from either country. In Germany, this is partly due to Chancellor Scholz’s leadership, and in France, Macron seems to make decisions based on whoever has his ear at the moment. Tomorrow’s decision could completely contradict today’s.

So, in many ways, we are in a bit of a mess. Ukraine may suffer from this disarray until Central Europe, and likely Northern Europe, push Central Europe to start taking the Russian threat more seriously.

War is the mass killing of people, but it demands more than just human resources – it also requires significant technical resources. We are aware of the mobilization capacities of the United Kingdom, France, Poland, and our own. It is imperative to expand the defense procurement efforts across the entire European continent. War is not only about manpower and funding; it is also about the equipment that money can buy – tanks, artillery, aircraft, and other essential military assets.

The problem at the moment is that all the free equipment has already been given.

That’s the real issue. Now, we are relying on companies like Rheinmetall to actually produce more. However, European defense companies still have not scaled up to the level necessary to meet the demand. This is primarily because, no matter how large these companies are—whether it’s BAE Systems or Rheinmetall—they rely entirely on contracts from governments.

These companies haven’t been given the funding required to significantly ramp up production of defense equipment. While they are no longer operating at peacetime levels, they are only at what could be called "peacetime plus." They are not working at wartime capacity.

In Europe, there is no serious wartime mobilization, with the possible exceptions of Finland and Sweden. Everyone else is still acting as though life can go on as normal, pretending that it’s fine to go skiing or carry on with everyday routines. If countries are pushed by Trump to allocate 5 percent of GDP to defense, many will settle for 3.5 percent and pretend they are doing enough.

Too many countries are, frankly, burying their heads in the sand like ostriches.

Until Trump comes in, makes noise, and forces action, I don’t think we’ll see real change. For example, the 100-year defense agreement with Great Britain sounds impressive, but what does it come with? Where are the tanks? Where are the guns? These agreements might look good on paper, but they don’t help the frontline fight.

Europe needs a change of gear.

In the context of a potential situation without an agreement, a frozen conflict, I want to hope for the deployment of peacekeepers. However, I am not aware of any European country, aside from France, which often makes symbolic commitments, that has confirmed its readiness to send a 10,000-strong contingent to secure what would essentially become a demarcation line. Could Keir Starmer, for instance, confirm that London is prepared to deploy 20,000 riflemen? Is there any indication that European countries are genuinely willing to commit their personnel to stabilize the situation? While the French president has made such statements, it seems this would require a collective decision.

I don't think we can stabilize the situation. There’s not going to be stabilization unless Russia stops – completely stops.

Either Russia stops or there will be no foreign troops involved. You’re not going to see Britain or France sending troops in. If Russia doesn’t pull its troops out and simply creates a new border, so to speak, then you might see someone come in to police the border. But they won’t police the border if they have to fight.

So, again, I go back to my first point, which is that all of this depends on Putin.

We can have all the shouting we want, all the wonderful speeches we want, but it doesn’t mean anything if Putin doesn’t intend to stop.

That’s the big issue. We can talk about a peace line, but personally, I don’t see there being a peace line because Putin believes he is winning. As long as he believes he is winning, he will keep going. He’s not going to stop for anybody.

Based on the enemy’s resources and its medium-term plans, we understand that the Russian Federation has deployed approximately one million personnel to the front line for support. Recruitment and training efforts are ongoing. I regularly communicate with our military, and their assessments of the Russian forces vary. There are both well-trained and poorly prepared units. However, the enemy is well-resourced, with supplies of food, footwear, and a number of Iranian, Chinese, and Russian drones. 

On the one hand, we recognize that the enemy lacks the capacity to introduce anything fundamentally new. However, they are leveraging their substantial mobilization resources, which far exceed our own, with additional support from North Korea. 

When assessing the situation on the front line, it is clear that the enemy is concentrating its forces in specific areas, aiming to break through where our defenses are weaker. 

We acknowledge that the situation may necessitate further critical decisions. For now, though, it appears that the enemy is relying on a strategy aligned with the Marxist principle of turning quantitative changes into qualitative outcomes. This is a deeply painful process, encompassing the destruction of military facilities, logistics, and oil refineries. The enemy is suffering significant setbacks from our actions but continues to advance despite heavy losses.

You’ve got to separate those things completely. I mean, the first thing is, on the frontline, Russia still has resources, and it’s going to get more from North Korea, I’m sure. So I don’t see them running short of resources, but I also don’t think they’re going to break through.

They could break through, but the problem is that they’ve lost so much capacity, especially leadership capacity. A breakthrough would actually require doing something quite well, and I don’t think they can do that at the moment. I think they can just keep doing what they’re doing, which is hitting the Ukrainian frontline, using numbers to go around and through, and just killing Ukrainians at a steady or faster rate that is too difficult for Ukraine to match. That’s what they’re doing now, and they’re doing it very well. They’ve been doing it for two years, and they keep doing it. And yes, they are getting more drones, because the Russian defense industry is geared for war.

Nobody else on the European side, including Ukraine, is geared for war. Ukraine is still not geared for war. Ukraine is still playing at war. We still have too many people on the frontline who are not good enough, including generals. I’m sorry, but that’s the reality. And we still don’t have a very good logistics system.

Until we sort all these things out, Ukraine is going to move backwards at some stage. We’ll have to put competent colonels and brigadiers into senior positions, and then, I suspect, we will start moving forward again – if we can sort out the logistics and the defense industry.

But there’s still a lot to do, and unfortunately, Zelensky still doesn’t seem to understand that the power to win the war lies in his hands. He needs to stop choosing friends and start choosing competent people. We need competent people, not friends, in power.

How, for instance, do we determine the competence of a high-ranking officer or manager? It is clear that the Biden administration might recommend one candidate, while the Trump administration might suggest a completely different one. Meanwhile, there are military teams, for example, that have a thorough understanding of which generals are the most capable, who is competent, who is less prepared, who is bold, and who is more cautious. This raises the question of how all these factors function within the broader system and, consequently, what criteria should be used for evaluation.

It’s very simple. In this day and age, you need generals who, first of all, speak English.

If they can’t speak English, they can’t communicate properly with their peers and allies. They also won’t be able to read the latest defense literature or access historical information. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that they must be people who others can follow and trust, and who have proper military expertise. This often means people who have studied abroad, not just those who have gone to college. There is a huge difference between how the West trains its officers to fight and what skills and tools they provide them, and people who’ve only learned the norms of Soviet-style fighting. These things are completely different.

So, you’re looking for people who can be trusted, who trust their subordinates, and who don’t bully them. They should be people who go to the frontline to understand what is happening and base their entire approach to battle on reality. Not on maps, not on pieces of paper, and not on positive reports, but on real-world conditions. This means they need to be trusted enough so that their subordinates can tell them the truth.

At the moment, truth is severely lacking in many parts of the frontline because people who speak the truth get dismissed or fired.

So, for generals, the key is truth. How do people assess them? Are they trusted? Do they know their business? Are they professional and competent? And can they foster a culture of truth in their organizations, or do they try to shape the truth to fit what they want to believe?

Thank you, Colonel, for this conversation. I’d like to remind our audience that Glen Grant, a retired British Army Colonel and renowned military expert, has been working with us.

We are going to win, and I see the selection of General Drapatyi as Army Commander as a good first step. Let us hope that it is just the first step, and that we see many more people like Drapatyi move into positions of authority very, very quickly. We cannot afford to wait too long.

Thank you very much, sir.