By Anatol Lieven, Responsible Statecraft, 2/18/25

European summits are not usually the stuff of poetry, but the latest one in Paris was worthy of Horace: Patrturiunt montes; nascetur ridiculus mus — “Mountains will be in labour; and give birth to a ridiculous mouse.”

President Macron of France called the summit in response to what he called the “electroshock” of the Trump administration’s election and plans to negotiate Ukraine peace without the Europeans. The result so far however appears to have been even less than a mouse — in fact, precisely nothing.

Macron presumably hoped that the leaders of the other major European states would rally behind his own proposal of French and European peacekeeping troops for Ukraine (an idea already categorically rejected by Moscow). Keir Starmer of the UK did indeed make such an offer, only shortly afterwards to say that no European guarantee of Ukrainian security would be credible without what he called a US “backstop.”

Since Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had already publicly ruled out any such U.S. guarantee, Starmer thereby implicitly admitted that his offer of British troops was empty. British parliamentarians have also demanded a vote on the dispatch of British troops. In the meantime, on leaving the Paris meeting, Chancellor Olaf Scholtz of Germany said that a discussion of European troops for Ukraine is “completely premature” and “highly inappropriate” while the war is ongoing. Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland (one of Ukraine’s strongest supporters) ruled out Polish troops altogether:

“We do not plan to send Polish soldiers to the territory of Ukraine. We will … give logistical and political support to the countries that will possibly want to provide such guarantees in the future, such physical guarantees.”

Macron has also emphasized something that makes much more sense: namely that the Europeans need to build up not only their own armed forces, but also the military industries that supply them. In an interview with the Financial Times, he said that:

“We must also develop a fully integrated European defense, industrial and technological base. This goes far beyond a simple debate about spending figures. If all we do is become bigger clients of the US, then in 20 years, we still won’t have solved the question of European sovereignty.”

This is indeed extremely necessary — though it is clear that Trump expects that higher European military spending will be spent on U.S. weaponry, and is prepared to bring pressure to bear to make sure this is the case. But Macron’s interview also brought out the acute difficulty of such European integration. He urged European countries to buy the SAMP-T air defense system, which he said is better than the U.S. Patriot missiles system that several countries are presently using.

For all I know, he may be right about that; but it is surely no coincidence that the SAMP-T is made in France and Italy. The real proof of Macron’s commitment to the integration of European military industries would be if — for example — he agrees to give up production of France’s Leclerc main battle tank in favor of buying Germany’s Leopard tanks for the French army.

The UK exemplifies this problem. With one of the very few professional fighting armies in Europe, it is critical to any independent European defense. But while it has excellent soldiers, its weapons systems have been plagued with breakdowns and deficiencies, largely because the wider British industrial base is now too limited to support an efficient military sector. On the other hand, precisely because British industries have shrunk so far, military industry is critical to maintaining what is left of British technological expertise. Give this up to the Germans? Really?

The kind of radical increases in military spending being demanded by the Trump administration and advocated by Macron and Starmer will also require some combination of increased taxes and savage cuts to social welfare, health and infrastructure budgets, at a time when these are already under intense pressure from economic stagnation, and as a result the discontent of ordinary people is rising steeply.