As Trump's return threatens to end U.S. support for Ukraine, allies scramble to fill the gap
Ukraine and its allies, including Canada, want to keep fighting without U.S. assistance — but can they?
As Ukraine's allies gathered in Halifax on Friday for the International Security Forum, president Peter Van Praagh acknowledged the foreboding many felt following the election of Donald Trump.
"Judging from today's reports and traditional and social media, we might be forgiven for believing that Ukraine can no longer win the war against Russian aggression," he said. "This widespread forecast is not true."
"It was not true when all the experts said the same thing on February 24, 2022, the date Putin invaded, and it is not true now," he added, promising a conference that would "change this doom-and-gloom narrative."
The meeting represents one of the best chances for those still committed to Ukrainian victory against Russia to try to find ways to stymie Trump's declared intention of pushing Ukraine into peace talks that almost certainly would end with the loss of a large part of its territory.
Those allies face a difficult, perhaps insurmountable, task. But already, some of Trump's predictions about how the world and the war would respond to his election victory are turning out differently than he expected.
One of Trump's campaign promises was that he would end the Ukraine war before taking the oath of office.
"I will get it settled before I even become president," Trump claimed during his only debate with Vice President Kamala Harris. "If I win, when I'm president-elect, what I'll do is I'll speak to one, I'll speak to the other.
"They respect me. They don't respect [President Joe] Biden."
He repeated the claim in an interview on the podcast PMD: "I think the world's going to behave, and I think I will settle Russia-Ukraine while I'm president-elect."
But peace has not broken out. Instead, there has been a wave of escalation.
Far from quailing at the prospect of a Trump presidency, Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized the use of a new nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) called Oreshnik ('the hazel") in response to a Ukrainian missile attack on Russia.
Putin also went on national television to tell Russians that "a regional conflict in Ukraine previously provoked by the West has acquired elements of a global character," and marked the 1000th day since Russia's full-scale invasion by signing changes to Russia's nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.
The escalation has not surprised observers of this war, or of wars generally, said former Canadian defence official Andrew Rasoulis, now with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
"It's very predictable," he told CBC News. "As often is the case before wars come to an end and negotiations set in, the fighting sometimes can be heaviest at that point as both sides try to strengthen their positions before they actually sit down.
"Everyone is now doing positional fighting to strengthen their hand at these inevitable negotiations."
'We're not going to panic'
At the APEC and G20 summits in South America, Prime Minister Trudeau said Canada continues to see Ukrainian victory as the only acceptable outcome.
"Any victory on that issue by Russia, any demonstration that if you have a bigger army that you get to redraw lines on a map, would have devastating consequences, not just for Ukraine … but for the entire world," he said.
"How many countries have a neighbour that has a historical claim over this corner across the river where their citizens used to live, or that got rejigged a hundred years ago? How many conflicts have been averted because the world has agreed that you may not like the borders where they are, but they are where they are, and they hold?
"That is why it is so important that Ukraine wins this conflict, and that Russia loses."
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer brought a similar message to South America.
"We need to double down on shoring up our support for Ukraine and that's top of my agenda," he said in Rio de Janeiro. He didn't reveal that he had already given Kyiv the green light to fire British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles into Russia.
In Lima for the APEC conference, Trudeau conceded that if the incoming Trump administration is determined to abandon Ukraine, Kyiv's other allies will struggle.
"Let's also be very blunt — all of the allies in the world would not be able to replace a complete withdrawal from supporting Ukraine by the United States," he said.
But in Rio three days later for the G20, Trudeau said Canada remains determined to try.
"We're very aware of potential challenges with President Trump coming in, but we're not going to panic," he said. "We're going to continue to stay focused on getting the support to Ukraine to win this war."
If only money were enough
If money were the only issue, the remaining allies could probably find a way to outspend Russia — a country with a nominal GDP smaller than any of the G7 nations, including Canada.
But dollars and euros do not easily convert into modern, sophisticated heavy weapons systems of the kind Ukraine needs to fight a military superpower such as Russia.
As Canadians know well, modern military procurement is a multi-year process, which makes modern warfare something of a come-as-you-are affair. Countries burn through weapons faster than they can produce new ones.
While Canada has given generously to Ukraine, about two-thirds of its assistance has been in the form of money, loan guarantees, technical assistance, training and humanitarian aid.
Two-thirds of U.S. assistance, on the other hand, has been in the form of military hardware.
Europe's assistance, too, has skewed more to the financial side, but European allies have also contributed collectively even more military assistance than the U.S.
Can they keep that up? Will it be enough?
The U.S. defence industry is vastly larger than that of any other western country.
Money earmarked for Ukraine has flowed to arms production facilities in 70 U.S. cities, where it buys equipment like the Abrams tanks made in Lima, Ohio, or the 155mm shells made at a plant in Scranton, Pennsylvania that Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited in September.
Ukraine's other allies also make arms, but Europe has had to rely heavily on its retired and surplus stocks to arm Ukraine.
Those stocks are not yet exhausted. Many European countries still have large numbers of stockpiled or retired armoured vehicles that could be refurbished and sent to Ukraine.
Canada delivers NASAMS
On Thursday, at the Commons defence committee, Defence Minister Bill Blair announced that Canada had delivered new air defence equipment to Ukraine that it ordered in 2022, the first year of the conflict.
Canada purchased the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS) from U.S. manufacturer Raytheon for about $400 million. "We have been able to deliver, at long last," he told committee members, "and I think it's going to make a difference because it will enable them to protect communities."
That deal with Raytheon points to ways other countries might continue to leverage the capacity of the U.S. defence industry, even if the Trump administration itself is determined not to chip in.
Blair spoke more about how the NASAMS deal came together on Friday, at the Halifax International Security Forum.
"We put the money on the table and said, 'OK, we'll do this'. We went to industry, they told us to get in line and it would probably take four or even five years to deliver on those systems.
"Fortunately, the United States stepped up and said, 'We have bigger buying power and perhaps a more advantageous position in the contract.' They said, 'Join us.'
"And it still took two years."
Blair said western leaders will have to lean on their defence industries to scale up and speed up. "All of us recognize that we need to work more closely, more effectively with industry to make sure that we can meet the moment," he said.
Potential new suppliers
There is also the possibility that, as the U.S. departs the scene, new players — albeit smaller ones — might step up. One example is South Korea.
South Korea has been building up its defence industry for years, with the goal of becoming a world player. Its strategic decision to focus on armoured vehicles was sometimes derided as outmoded, but the rush of international orders following the Ukraine invasion has silenced the critics.
Until now, South Korea has adhered to a strict policy of not supplying arms to countries involved in active conflicts, including Ukraine.
South Korea's defence and foreign ministers visited their Canadian counterparts in Ottawa this month. South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol met with Trudeau in Peru last week.
Canadian officials privy to those meetings say that North Korea's decision to send troops to fight on Russia's behalf has been received in Seoul as an almost existential threat to South Korea's own security.
South Korea is sending signals it could soon be ready to supply Ukraine directly.
Japan also fears the effect that exposure to modern Russian training and doctrine could have on the North Korean military, and dreads the possible quid pro quo Moscow might give Kim Jong-un in return for its intervention. Japan, like South Korea, has so far given only money and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
While these nations could never replace the U.S. as a source of weapons, they could theoretically help to mitigate the loss of American support.
Ukraine's DIY approach
Finally, there's Ukraine's own defence industry, an antiquated Soviet relic that has modernized and shown a talent for innovation since the 2022 invasion.
This week, 12 European countries joined with Ukraine in a new defence cooperation group focused on promoting that industry and linking it more closely to defence industries throughout northern Europe.
The Northern Group-Ukraine includes Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland, the Baltic countries, the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands and Poland.
Canada is also pursuing initiatives to grow Ukraine's domestic industry, Blair said Friday.
"This is a critical moment in the Ukrainian-Russian war," he said. "We have to make sure that we remain united and strong in our support of Ukraine to achieve the appropriate, right outcome for the Ukrainian people, which is victory."
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