The Telegraph’s article about “The slow death of the coalition of the willing” has been widely reported on by Russian social media and “Non-Russian Pro-Russians” alike in a celebratory tone. The outlet’s Diplomatic Editor and Europe Editor warned that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s resignation and the end of French President Emmanuel Macron’s final term next spring could create a diplomatic void that German Chancellor Friedrich Merz can’t fill. That could then upend European plans for Ukraine.
For background, the coalition of the willing (COW) refers to the collection of countries that are prepared to play varying roles in post-war Ukraine, with the E3 led by Britain, France, and Germany already committing to deploy troops after a ceasefire. With Starmer’s successor Andy Burnham assessed to be more focused on domestic issues while Macron’s could be much cooler on NATO, Merz might balk at leading such a dangerous effort, ergo why the Russian infosphere is exuberant after reading this article.
It’s premature to pop the champagne, however, since the COW can still cause a panoply of problems for Russian interests that keep tensions with the European members of NATO high in the post-war era. For starters, Trump 2.0 assembled a loose “cordon sanitaire” around Russia in the Arctic-Baltic through UK-led efforts, Central Europe through Polish-led efforts, along Russia’s entire southern periphery through Turkish-led efforts, and in Northeast Asia through Japanese-led efforts. This noose is expected to tighten.
In practical terms, the Arctic-Baltic, Central European, and Black Sea theaters will gradually merge into a single security space through the predicted expansion of the “military Schengen” for optimizing the dispatch of troops and equipment eastward. Closer security coordination between Sweden, Poland, Romania, and Turkiye is probable. Moreover, the embarrassingly underdeveloped “EU Defense Line” stretching from the Baltic States’ borders with Russia to Poland’s with Belarus will likely be prioritized.
The militarization of the EU as a whole and of the Weimar Triangle (France, Germany, and Poland) in particular will continue apace with the goal of “dwarfing” Russia’s military-industrial capabilities per the US’ National Defense Strategy’s vision for the European members of NATO. The potential expansion of France’s nuclear umbrella over the rest of the bloc per its new “forward deterrence” policy could precede Germany possibly going nuclear for maximally containing and indisputably threatening Russia.
Instead of recklessly risking World War III through the deployment of their troops to Ukraine after a ceasefire, the COW might instead more pragmatically strengthen European NATO’s overall military-security capabilities with a view towards ultimately outmatching Russia in all respects except for nukes. The “security guarantees” that its leading members already clinched with Ukraine throughout 2024 could then serve as tripwires for a major war in the future should Russian-Ukrainian hostilities resume.
Many of the same accounts prematurely celebrating the COW’s “slow death” might predictably declare that divisions with NATO will inevitably impede what was described above and thus create plenty of opportunities for Russia to politically pick apart this unprecedentedly militarized bloc. That’s almost certainly wishful thinking, however, so they’d arguably do much better to listen to former top Russian spy Andrey Bezrukov and thus prepare Russians for what might be decades of serious tensions to come.
