Triple summit in Brussels confronts limits of West’s will to defend Ukraine

There is a scene in the movie version of The Lord of the Rings in which the leader of the Ents, Treebeard, informs his Hobbit friends Merry and Pippin that, regretfully, his arboreal companions have decided to stay out of the conflict with the evil Saruman and his rampaging Orks. They are not ready to risk everything for Middle Earth.

The two hobbits are crestfallen. The Ents were their only hope. 

But then Treebeard sees what has been done to the trees on the edge of the forest. Acting on orders from Mordor, the Orks have hacked them down, leaving only their blackened stumps protruding from the scorched earth. He is shocked. Unable any longer to keep silent, he roars his defiance and issues a rallying call. “The Ents,” he says, “are going to war”. 

For Middle Earth, read Ukraine; for Merry and Pippin, the leaders of Poland and the Baltic states; for Saruman and the Orks, Putin and the Russian Army; and for the Ents, Nato and the European Union. 

Except, of course, that neither Nato nor the EU is about to go to war. Not this time. Nato would like to. It is itching to. But it is fearful of the consequences and hiding behind the legalism that Ukraine is not actually a member of the Alliance. The EU, meanwhile, is constrained by the fact that it has no armed forces under its command and no structure in place to order an advance or even establish the objectives. 

On Thursday, in Brussels, Nato and the European Council held summits under the effective chairmanship of the US President, Joe Biden. Japan’s prime minister Kishida Fumio was present, attending a parallel summit of the G7. Fumio is known to favour Japanese rearmament to counter the growing threat posed by Russia and China to the post-war world order. His participation marks an important shift.

What comes out of the triple summit is in a sense less important than its symbolism. More weapons and ammunition were promised. That was always a given. Both the US and Europe, led in this instance by the UK, confirmed that no effort would be spared in arming the Ukrainians in their valiant (and thus far surprisingly successful) fight against the Russian invaders. 

Biden, who has only latterly shown signs of recognising the true enormity of what is happening on Europe’s eastern frontier, is at last sounding as if he is ready to channel FDR, not Donald Trump, on the international stage. 

Boris Johnson, like Q in the Bond movies, fancies himself as the armourer, providing weapons so far unmatched in the conflict. Germany’s Olaf Scholz, having turned off Nord Stream 2, can only play catch-up on the arms front, while France’s Emmanuel Macron is holding his cards close to his chest, still hoping against hope that there is a special place for him at the far end of Putin’s negotiating table. 

The most interesting players on the European side are in fact from the continent’s eastern fringe, led by the Polish duo, President Andrzej Duda and his prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki, both of whom, having previously been dubbed traitors to the European ideal, stand resurrected as heroes of the resistance. 

Duda and Morawiecki, backed by the leaders of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, have called repeatedly for a No Fly Zone to be established over Ukraine, as demanded by the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. They will have made the case for this in Brussels, only to hear Biden, however reluctantly, ruling it out lest it lead – horror of horrors – to Americans fighting Russians.

Just as there are generals in the Kremlin who must wish fervently that Putin had died of a heart attack on February 23, so, no doubt, there are generals in Washington who would jump at the chance to take on Russia in the field. But Biden, as the 79-year-old Leader of the Free World, is more concerned with getting his country ready for a future confrontation with the Chinese – hopefully not on his watch – than with risking World War III for a nation that in recent years has caused his country and his family no end of trouble. 

Those in Brussels lobbying hard for a more active western participation in the present conflict will have been forced to listen to the argument of the peaceniks, even appeasers, whose overarching concern is that Kyiv and Warsaw, perhaps even Berlin, should not end up like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

Where this line falls down is in its future application should Russia follow up its invasion of Ukraine with an attack on Poland or the Baltic states. Why would the same reluctance to test Moscow over its intended takeover of Ukraine not apply equally to an invasion of Nato states? The US and its partners would be contractually as well as morally obliged to declare war and have said so in no uncertain terms. 

But what if Putin then threatened to deploy the diabolis ex machina of tactical nuclear weapons? Would we call his bluff and carry on or would we feel that the prospect of a full-blown nuclear war trumped all other considerations? Who would want to go down in what remained of history as the man who invited Armageddon. So much for “mutually assured” destruction, the concept that underpinned peace between East and West throughout the Cold War. Mutuality would end up one-sided. It would be the one – in this case, Putin – who was prepared to risk everything who ended up holding the whip hand. 

All of these matters will have been discussed in Brussels, where the contribution of Hungary’s maverick prime minister, Viktor Orban, will have been keenly awaited. Orban, facing a combative general election, has tried to play it both ways on Ukraine, sympathising with its people in their distress while refusing to put the blame for what has happened on his longtime friend and mentor, Vladimir Putin. Whereas Poland – until last month on the same page as Orban in their feud with Brussels – has emerged as Zelensky’s most respected ally, Orban looks destined to be remembered as a two-time loser. 

All that was certain to come out of Thursday’s triple gathering in Brussels was an expression of the West’s continuing resolve to stand by Ukraine in its hour of need, coupled with a determination to cripple the Russian economy through ever-tighter sanctions and the hope, devoutly expressed, that Putin and his cronies should someday stand trial in The Hague for war crimes. 

Much beyond that – most obviously any form of No Fly Zone – would come as a genuine surprise. Joe Biden, in particular, may be ready to go the extra mile for Ukraine, but he would need to go further than that if there is to be any realistic hope of an early ceasefire or Russian retreat. 

It could be that it will be Ukraine itself, re-armed to the teeth, that decides the issue. The performance of its army and air force, as well as the resilience and courage of the Ukrainian people is beyond praise. But from its allies, expect talk of the long haul and justice to come rather than justice today.