Europe needs a plan for Ukraine to win.

The Trump Whitehouse is an unreliable partner in almost every endeavour. There can be no-one left in the world that doubts the basic truth of that statement. What is still proving more difficult for some people to accept however, is that even a future Democrat-occupied Whitehouse will in all likelihood still consider European security to be something Europe now needs to provide for itself. Even if the upcoming mid-term elections do prove to be the corrective the U.S. clearly needs, and Europe finds itself working once again with a more rational U.S. government, that will not change the basic ask from America. Europe needs to be able to defend itself and it's own interests, without waiting for a permission slip from the U.S. Congress that may never come.

The focus we need, the immediate task to complete, is the the defence of our eastern flank by ensuring Ukraine wins.

The peace talks will go nowhere, they are simply a Russian distraction tactic. For as long as Putin thinks he can grind Ukraine down by using Trump to keep the U.S. on the side-lines, then he will continue to drag the talks out and waste everybody's time. He tries to ignore a Europe that he imagines is too indecisive to threaten him. There is only one part of that calculus that we Europeans can influence. It is time to stop worrying about Trump's latest random outburst, or new war, and instead focus on giving Ukraine what it needs to win.

What is a Ukrainian victory? Pushing the invading Russian force back inside its own borders and then holding that border secure, as an EU member, under a European nuclear shield.

What then is required of the UK and Europe and it's coalition of the willing, to achieve this aim? It is clearly not a question of building a "European Army" with a single flag. It’s about Industrial and Intelligence Autonomy from the US and Scaling up current production rates to those needed to allow Ukraine to fight off Russia.

1. What we can do right now:

• Total Financial Mobilization: Shift from "donating" old stock to multi-year contracts that give European defence firms the guaranteed "order book" they need to scale up production lines. As well as being a shot in the arm the euro tech sector could do with, it is the signal to Russia that their US distraction tactic will not work for long.
• "Made-in-Europe" AND "Buying Off-the-Shelf": It is not an either or, we must do both. Prioritizing "Made in Europe" makes perfect sense for medium and long term contracts and orders, to develop the strategic autonomy the continent requires. But for immediate needs, "made-in-Europe" can by definition only be applied to things we currently produce. For the rest, we must be less fussy. If South Korea has shells and Turkey has drones, Europe should be the financier of a global procurement spree for Ukraine, bypassing the US bottleneck.

2. The Urgent Development List:

• Independent Euro controlled Nuclear shield: The nuclear deterrent is of first order priority. If the world order continues to fray as the age of crisis begins to envelope the world, then it becomes more likely, as the conflicts in Ukraine and Iran both demonstrate, that countries without a nuclear shield are likely to find themselves facing greater threats than ever before. With the US no longer reliable, Europe must provide it's own. Britain and France can provide the beginnings of a European nuclear shield, but it must now be made fully independent of the US and as fully comprehensive as needed to deter Russia, China and the US.
• Deep Strike Capabilities: Europe lacks the independent satellite and long-range missile infrastructure to support Ukraine (and itself) without US "targeting" data.
• The Integrated Air Shield: A pan-European drone and missile defence layer that doesn't rely on the "Patriot" umbilical cord.