Ukraine may require 10 or more years of international security assistance to deter Russia from conquering further into Europe, according to one European official.
At least 10 years of some form of assistance may be required to build deterrent capabilities adequately, even if the fighting in Ukraine does not last that long, said Czech national security adviser Tomas Pojar.
“We have to really have it long term, and I think that the flow of weapons to Ukraine has to be there for 10 more years,” Mr. Pojar told reporters in Washington last month.
Europe Must Fund Long-Term Military Modernization
Mr. Pojar said that European nations would need to do better than they had in the past to invest in their defense adequately but that the United States’s continued leadership was paramount to ensuring that happened.If the United States were to suddenly pull back from supporting Ukraine’s defense, he said, Europe would have difficulty maintaining unity in providing it.
“War again has proven that there needs to be and there is indispensable American leadership,” Mr. Pojar said.
“If there is U.S. leadership, we Europeans will follow, and we will do our job. If the U.S. gives up or changes course, we Europeans will not be able to follow as strongly as we are doing now.”
To that end, Mr. Pojar said that setting up long-term procurement mechanisms to ensure security assistance through multiple administrations is vital to preventing Russian aggression from reaching further into Europe.
“I think it’s becoming more and more important to sustain it and to sustain it long term,” he said.
“I think what we can see is not planning of deliveries for tomorrow but basically setting up systems for deliveries in many months and years ahead, including joint projects, joint production in Ukraine and outside of Ukraine, to sustain it for the long term.”
Mr. Pojar added that the hope of some for a negotiated settlement to the war—in which Russia kept control of some or all of the Ukrainian territory it currently occupies—was rooted in a false belief about the nature of the Russian threat.
Russian leadership, he said, seeks to conquer.
“I think that it’s a wrong bet to say okay, we will give them part of the territory, and then they will be satisfied. They will not be satisfied and, by the way, they are openly saying that,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, likewise, has said that the purpose of the war is to force the demilitarization of Ukraine, which would essentially subsume the state into a vassal of Russia.
Mr. Pojar’s homeland of Czechia is on that list. He believes this situation underscores the need for European nations to fund their own defense more seriously and not overly rely on the United States for support.
“I think Trump and Obama and all your presidents were right when they said that Europeans should spend more on their own defense. It should not be a burden [on] U.S. taxpayers,” he said.
Russia Seeks to Outlast US Funding
Whether U.S. leadership persists in defending Ukraine and Europe with it remains an open question.Three contenders for the Republican presidential nomination—former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy—have vowed to cut off U.S. support for Ukraine and push for peace with Mr. Putin.
That fact is not lost on Mr. Putin, Mr. Pojar said.
“Putin is not going to be ready to stop within a year,” Mr. Pojar said. “He’s definitely waiting for the results of your elections here.”
For its part, U.S. leadership agrees with the sentiment.
Assistant Secretary of State James O’Brien told a Nov. 8 hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Mr. Putin is “playing a waiting game.”
“He thinks that if he can wait for our elections or for Ukraine to get tired, that then he can survive,” Mr. O’Brien said.
“Putin says that if we walk away, Ukraine falls in weeks.”
Mr. O’Brien pointed to Russia’s increasing efforts to work directly with the Hamas terrorist group, Iran, and North Korea as a reason for the United States’s continued support of Ukraine.
The type of instability being created by Russia in Eastern Europe, he said, was the same type that “forced America into two world wars” and needed to be dealt with swiftly before it expanded.
“If we turn our backs here, we are turning our backs on those who would confront us around the globe,” Mr. O’Brien said.
To date, the European nations have provided about $20 billion more in Ukraine aid than the United States, though the continent’s combined GDP is smaller than that of the United States. European nations have also taken in the vast majority of 6 million Ukrainian refugees, and the European Union is considering a $60 billion proposal for four years of Ukraine funding.
The future of that package, however, will largely depend on whether European leaders believe that the United States is investing similarly.
“If we fail to provide the assistance, that will call into question for [Europe] whether their efforts will be enough and whether they should go forward,” Mr. O’Brien said. “Our allies need to know that we are with them.”
