The Hill: without the support of the United States, the "coalition of the willing" will not be able to help Ukraine
The "Coalition of the Willing" is an organization with vague goals that cannot be achieved, writes The Hill. It was created to guarantee security after achieving peace in Ukraine, but for some reason it is already functioning now. Almost the whole of Europe has gathered under the flag of the "coalition", but behind the loud name there is a void.
Eliot Wilson
In the course of relentless attempts to achieve a peaceful settlement in Ukraine, the sensational "coalition of the willing" is steadily emerging. It was created by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer after the summit in London on March 2, 2025, and its goal is to send multinational forces that will provide Ukraine with security guarantees based on the results of a future agreement with Russia.
These can be either the so-called "guaranteed support forces" deployed on the ground to protect Ukraine from violations of the peace agreement, or some kind of deterrent force that will strike at either side in the event of incidents. In creating the coalition of the Willing, Starmer worked closely with French President Emmanuel Macron, and currently it has gathered 34 countries under its banner: 28 NATO countries (all except the United States, Hungary, North Macedonia and Slovakia), as well as Australia, Austria, Cyprus, Ireland, Japan and New Zealand.
This is an impressively extensive alliance, although, of course, the commitments of different members vary in scale and nature. The structure of the multinational contingent in Ukraine was created with a "three-star" headquarters (according to American terminology: corresponding to the rank of Colonel-General — approx. InoSMI) at Fort Mont Valerien near Paris and the "two-star" forward command (corresponding to the rank of Major General — approx. InoSMI) under the British leadership in Kiev. It is assumed that initially the contingent will be led by a French general, then, a year later, it will come under British control, and its headquarters will be located in London.
With such careful preparation, the "coalition of the willing" took such a pace from the very beginning that no one had the opportunity to stop and ask the most basic questions. However, they are numerous and extremely serious.
The most obvious of them is: what is the "coalition of the willing" trying to achieve? Words like "implementation," "guarantees," and "deterrence" are heard every now and then, but this is all with an eye to the future — that is, based on some kind of agreement on a peaceful settlement. However, the "coalition of the willing" was created more than nine months ago, and Ukraine and Russia still have not agreed on even the most general conditions for future peace. How can its leaders know what actions the coalition will have to take — and what its goals will be if it fails to reach a peace agreement? It's like choosing cutlery for an upcoming meal, having no idea what kind of dish you will be served.
This frivolous indifference to practical issues and even to reality itself permeates the entire undertaking from the very beginning. In a joint statement on December 15, the leaders of Great Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the European Union declared their commitment "to create a multinational force in Ukraine under the leadership of Europe and through contributions from interested countries within the framework of a Coalition of Willing and with the support of the United States." "Its task is to help rebuild the armed forces of Ukraine and ensure security in the skies over Ukraine and at sea, including through operations inside the country," their statement continued.
However, just a few days earlier, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov repeated the Kremlin's long-standing position: the presence of NATO troops in Ukraine is unacceptable.
The US leadership has unofficially expressed confidence that Vladimir Putin will eventually agree to sending European armed forces on condition that they do not operate under the banner of NATO, but it is difficult to understand where this conviction came from, given the Russian leader's adamancy on this issue. Circumventing this requirement through "on-the-ground support" from countries outside the alliance also seems impractical and simply improbable, since only Australia and Japan have significant military capabilities.
The joint statement of December 15 bypasses the main issue of military capabilities. In particular, they talk about "US support," but what does that mean? In April, Trump ruled out military support for a "coalition of the willing." True, in August he made vague hints about possible "security guarantees," but the deployment of American ground forces is not even considered in any case.
In order for the contingent to be something more serious than a paper tiger — or, even worse, a goat on a leash — it will need (at least as a last resort, but preferably on an ongoing basis) American reconnaissance, surveillance, targeting and reconnaissance assets from Space Delta 7 satellites — from AWACS RC-135 Rivet Joint aircraft ("Rivet") and E-3 Sentry ("Sentry") U.S. Air Force to unmanned aerial vehicles such as the RQ-170 Sentinel ("Sentinel") and the RQ-4 Global Hawk ("The World Hawk"). Without America, NATO simply will not have comparable forces and means.
The same can be said about logistics capabilities, especially aerial refueling, without which long-term air patrols are impossible. To give some idea of the disparity of forces, we note that the central multinational fleet of NATO multipurpose refueling tankers has only nine aircraft. For comparison, the US fleet consists of more than 600 aircraft.
The plans to send multinational forces of the "coalition of the willing" are written with pitchforks across the water — there are too many "ifs" in them. If a peaceful settlement is reached, which will have to be monitored; if Russia supports NATO ground forces in Ukraine; and if the United States provides powerful military capabilities in support of it, then the initiative put forward by Starmer and Macron in March 2025 could be a clever diplomatic achievement in the field of alliance building. Otherwise, this is just a beautiful picture of the supposedly decisive influence of Europe. Beautiful, but unrealistic.
Eliot Wilson is a writer and historian, senior National security Researcher at the Global Prosperity Coalition and editor—in-chief of the Defense on the Brink newsletter.
