I think we're a tad ahead of ourselves in speculating on a European effort to guarantee Ukraine's defense without America. But the exercise applies to European or broader Western (including America) policy. Ambiguous Western guarantees for Ukrainian security will at best force Russia to conquer Ukraine with smaller bites over a longer time period. The West may only be guaranteeing a decent interval to avoid responsibility for Ukraine's destruction as a state.
Can Europe turn Ukraine into a European Taiwan?
Despite the absence of formal treaty obligations guaranteeing automatic military intervention, Taiwan benefits significantly from strategic ambiguity underpinned by robust defense and economic commitments from the United States.
Europe’s potential model could involve similar ambiguity—offering explicit military aid, extensive intelligence cooperation, economic support, and rigorous training programs without formalized collective defense obligations. Such an approach might serve as a potent deterrent against Russian aggression while remaining cautious enough to avoid triggering direct confrontation.
Granted, the author is talking about security guarantees rather than weapons selection. Even on its own, limited and ambiguous Western security guarantees will simply mean that Russia has to carry out a series of "take and talk" land grabs at Ukraine's expense. The West will find limited success in stopping but not rolling back a land grab is good enough for limited security guarantees.
Worse, the false "porcupine" model is rampant on that weapons issue. I expect a Taiwan security guarantee model would inevitably bleed into the weapons angle. Especially as Europe contemplates paying for such a security guarantee with weapons. The temptation for cheap silver bullet weapons will be too strong to resist. Meaning Ukraine would lack the ability to roll the Russians back.
Whether the issue is weaponry or guarantees, Taiwan is not the right model for Ukraine, even aside from lacking the 100 mile-wide anti-tank ditch Taiwan has. Hell, as I wrote in Military Review, Taiwan could use an Asian version of Ukrainian resolve and conventional capabilities to drive the PLA into the sea.
If all Ukraine can do is inflict casualties while slowly losing territory, that is a recipe for more war and eventual Ukrainian defeat. But it does provide the West with a decent interval. So there's that.
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NOTE: I made the image with Bing, after several frustrating attempts to get past its overly censorious terms of use for generating "violent" images. Which makes being a defense blogger more difficult. But still, it's a relatively minor annoyance for the capability it does provide me.
