{"id":1899,"date":"2025-02-17T15:48:29","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T15:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/?p=1899"},"modified":"2025-02-17T15:48:31","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T15:48:31","slug":"starmer-says-ready-to-deploy-british-troops-in-harms-way-in-ukraine-against-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/2025\/02\/17\/starmer-says-ready-to-deploy-british-troops-in-harms-way-in-ukraine-against-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer Says \u2018Ready\u2019 to Deploy British Troops \u2018In Harm\u2019s Way\u2019 in Ukraine Against Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer declared his willingness to deploy British troops to Ukraine \u201cin harm\u2019s way\u201d to deter Russian aggression hours before he is set to join an \u2019emergency summit\u2019 on the matter in Paris on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The United States and Russia are meeting to discuss the Ukraine war in Saudi Arabia this week, but European leaders have not been invited to send delegations. Apparently prompted by being left behind in this regard, and likely too by the Trump White House\u2019s suggestion that European nations actually decide<\/a> what they are actually capable of doing on Ukraine, European leaders are meeting in Paris today for an \u201cemergency summit\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upping the stakes for other attendees before the meeting began, the British Prime Minister threw his weight behind French President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s now long-floated plan to deploy European contingents directly to Ukraine to face down the Russians, saying he was now \u201cready\u201d to deploy the British Army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Announcing the policy change in an op-ed in the Daily Telegraph<\/em> of London, UK PM Starmer wrote that the matters on the table are \u201cexistential for Europe as a whole\u201d and that peace in Ukraine is only workable if Russia is sufficiently deterred from ever launching another invasion. Ukrainian President Zelensky also makes this a key demand of peace talks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a passage clearly meant for Washington after Trump\u2019s emissary to the European defence elite, Vice President JD Vance scorched the increasingly illiberal continent for failing to underwrite its own defence and fearing the opinions of its own voters while forcing mass migration for them, Starmer wrote as if a truism that: \u201cEurope and the United States must continue to work closely together\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

European nations must spend more on their defence spending to take on \u201ca greater role in NATO\u201d, Starmer said, noting: \u201cWe have talked about it for too long \u2013 and President Trump is right to demand that we get on with it\u201d. Strident words, perhaps, but somewhat ironic given Starmer appears to be set on a course for more military cuts for the UK armed forces in a coming spending review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The British Prime Minister wrote of his decision now to join the Macron plan to deploy to Ukraine in the future:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The UK is ready to play a leading role in accelerating work on security guarantees for Ukraine\u2026 being ready and willing to contribute to security guarantees to Ukraine by putting our own troops on the ground if necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do not say that lightly. I feel very deeply the responsibility that comes with potentially putting British servicemen and women in harm\u2019s way. But any role in helping to guarantee Ukraine\u2019s security is helping to guarantee the security of our continent, and the security of this country.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Exactly how many soldiers would be needed to form a credible deterrent against any future Russian aggression in Eastern Europe is unclear. Some estimates have spoken of 100,000, and that might be difficult for Europe\u2019s hollowed-out military budgets despite it being a fraction of the million-man army talked of by President Zelensky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soldiers aren\u2019t everything, and a great deal of other systems would presumably have to be forward-deployed to enforce a truce in Ukraine, not least among them air systems, including combat jets and air defence missiles. President Zelensky has previously said if Ukraine won\u2019t be admitted into the protective umbrella of NATO \u2014 a difficult prospect if a peace deal sees Russia continue to occupy what the UN recognises as rightful Ukrainian land \u2014 it getting its own nuclear deterrent would be an acceptable alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A problem for Sir Keir\u2019s suggestion of a \u201cleading role\u201d in a European deployment to Ukraine is the state of the British Armed forces, which, while retaining its proud traditions and high level of training, has very much been reduced to a peacetime-size force. The United Kingdom barely spends two per cent of its GDP on defence \u2014 good for the free market and welfare, less good for credible deterrence \u2014 radically down from the five per cent of the late Cold War and even ten per cent in the 1950s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer declared his willingness to deploy British troops to Ukraine \u201cin harm\u2019s way\u201d to deter Russian aggression hours before he is set to join an \u2019emergency summit\u2019 on the matter in Paris on Monday. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","wpcat-1-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1901,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1899\/revisions\/1901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfawbn.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}