EU Nations Scramble To Ally With Ukraine, The New World Military Power

Russia has stepped up security all around the Kremlin following a series of Ukrainian drone attacks. Ukraine is now recognized as a major military power that could help protect the European democracies being threatened by Moscow. (Photo by Alexander NEMENOV / AFP via Getty Images)

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As the U.S. wavers over its future defense of NATO allies, a new rising power could, remarkably, take the lead in helping protect European nations facing Russia’s escalating drone incursions and threats of nuclear war: Ukraine.

While some of the Western powers, behind the scenes, predicted Ukraine would quickly fall when Kremlin troops, tanks and missiles crashed across the border, and even offered to airlift its leaders to a safe EU haven, President Volodymyr Zelensky and his embattled democracy have since engineered a sensational turnaround, says one of the globe’s top scholars on this world-watched conflict.

Peter Dickinson, who chronicles the ever-evolving war between the militaristic Russia and the once-pacifist Ukraine, says more EU players are now shifting their predictions on which side will emerge as the ultimate champion in this David and Goliath contest.

With its hyper-tech slingshots—in the form of leading-edge fighter drones and drone-killing interceptors—Ukraine has been pelting its gigantic foe so fiercely that Kremlin commander-in-chief Vladimir Putin has retreated into a labyrinth of underground bunkers that stretches across Russia, says Dickinson, an eminent scholar on defense technologies and strategies at the Atlantic Council, one of the leading internationalist think tanks in Washington, D.C.

Dickinson, who also heads the Council’s influential magazine UkraineAlert, which charts the unfolding of the war, and the shifting alliances, that could reshape the future of the European democracies, told me in an interview that Zelensky has pushed forward the astonishing build-up of a technologically sophisticated fighting force that is now one of Europe’s most formidable.

With its explosively expanding forces, now almost a million-strong and greater than the combined armies of France, Germany, Italy and Britain, Dickinson predicts Ukraine could become the leading protector of Europe, and spearhead a united defense against Russia, where would-be neo-Tsar Vladimir Putin dreams of recreating the Russian empire.

Ukraine’s sensational rise, and attractiveness to the European powers, he says, are playing out even as the U.S. equivocates over its future adherence to the mutual defense provision mandated in Article 5 of the NATO treaty.

“Ukraine is now widely seen as indispensable for the future of European security.”

“European leaders are acutely aware that they face a long-term threat from an expansionist Russia and know they can no longer rely on America to provide security guarantees.”

With Russia’s skyrocketing provocations and the changing of the guard across the continent’s military chessboard, Dickinson says, “Ukraine is absolutely crucial to the defense of Europe.”

Ukraine’s burgeoning might is reflected in part by its astonishing air force of remotely piloted and AI-enhanced drones, which have blasted strategic bombers and airfields, weapons factories and petroleum centers across Russia, including targets around the Kremlin seat of power and Saint Petersburg, Putin’s onetime stomping grounds until he scurried off into his warren of underground air-raid shelters.

Ukraine’s meteoric rise and metamorphosis stand in striking contrast to its position a dozen years ago, he says, when Russian troops invaded the Crimean Peninsula almost unopposed.

The pacifist liberal democracy had only a tiny standing army, and had already voluntarily relinquished its massive stockpile of Soviet-era nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles in exchange for pledges by Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom to respect and safeguard its international borders.

To mount a collective defense to an irredentist Russia, bent on restoring the gigantic imperial or Soviet unions of times past, defense scholars across the West have floated proposals to create a new European army as an alternative to relying on a potentially divided NATO.

“The idea of a European army has been around for a long time,” Dickinson says, but it has been repeatedly stymied by a widespread fear of delegating the power to declare war and deploy troops to a commander-in-chief based in Brussels.

“Declaring war is the ultimate sovereign act of any government – this right would not be handed over to Brussels lightly by any EU member state.”

“The entire European Union model is built on the principles of consensus and unanimity – it is by definition a slow-moving institution that leans towards compromise and moderation.”

“In contrast,” he adds, “military action calls for strong leadership and timely decision-making.”

“The concept of a European army will remain unrealized unless the EU can transform itself into a federalized superpower rather than the current collection of loosely bound sovereign states.”

While freezing moves toward forming an EU super-army, he says, “Steps are already underway to integrate Ukraine into Europe’s security architecture.”

“A number of individual European countries have signed security pacts with Ukraine formalizing military cooperation and support in a more long-term format, while the EU has underlined its support for the Ukrainian war effort.”

“Ukrainian instructors are now training troops in a number of European countries,” he adds, “and the list is expected to grow.”

Some EU nations have already set up joint ventures to co-produce Ukrainian drones and interceptors to prepare for a future face-off with Russia.

“In the coming years, it is expected that Ukrainian defense tech companies will work with European partners on a wide range of production and development projects in both Ukraine and the EU,” he adds, with a focus on accelerating the build-up of “drones, missiles, and anti-ballistic missile defense systems.”

At the same time, Dickinson told me, this expanding defense collaboration will boost Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union.

That could ultimately provide an alternative to Ukraine’s quest to join NATO, with its promise of a collective defense to any armed attack.

The Treaty on European Union contains its own mutual defense clause, which states: “If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power.”

Atlantic Council scholar Peter Dickinson says: “It is striking to note that nobody now questions the importance of Ukraine’s role in European security.”

“This reflects the remarkable transformation the Ukrainian military has undergone over the past five years.”

While minimizing the chances of the European Union quickly adopting a federal government structure based on the U.S. model, with a powerful president presiding over a superpower army, Dickinson says that calculation could change in the face of “an historic catalyzing event – presumably a major war.”

He says “a stronger EU with more powers is possible, but it will need to emerge through careful and gradual steps over many years.”

At the moment, he says, “Russian aggression in Ukraine is already fueling an unprecedented rearmament drive across Europe.”

“European countries are likely to intensify bilateral and multilateral military cooperation, including with Ukraine, in order to counter the Kremlin threat at a time when existing NATO security guarantees are no longer seen as being unequivocal.”

“This process is now well underway and will continue to gain momentum in the coming years as Europe seeks greater security autonomy.”