Trump’s refusal to help NATO allies has left Britain no choice but to make plans to conscript says GENERAL RICHARD SHIRREFF

‘Action this day.’ That was Winston Churchill’s phrase, stamped across urgent memos in the Second World War, for orders where even a few hours’ delay could be fatal.

Crisis on the same scale faces us now, if we are to avert a potential World War III. With the prospect of armed conflict against Russia looming, Britain and Europe have been abandoned by our largest ally, the United States.

President Donald Trump’s loud-mouthed defence secretary Pete Hegseth has made it clear that, in the event of further Russian aggression in eastern Europe, America will not get involved – even if the country under attack is a Nato member, such as one of the Baltic states.

In effect, Hegseth has taken Nato’s essential principle of mutual defence, known as Article 5, and shredded it.

Europe’s reaction has been near panic. The first signs of fracturing emerged on Monday, as Germany, Italy and Poland all baulked at the idea of collective action.

As Nato’s former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe, I have often seen first hand how shaky co-operation can be within the alliance. Once, both the German and French ambassadors walked out of Nato’s North Atlantic Council, after some typically direct comments from Danish Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen over the best way to handle Libya’s dictator Colonel Gaddafi.

But I have also seen how, despite initial differences, consensus can be achieved.

For everyone’s sake, Britain must bring Europe together. But we must also take ‘action this day’ to defend ourselves.

For everyone’s sake, Britain must bring Europe together. But we must also take ‘action this day’ to defend ourselves, writes GENERAL SIR RICHARD SHIRREFF

A generous assessment of Donald Trump’s motives for threatening withdrawal from the 80-year-old transatlantic peace pact is that he is using shock tactics to galvanise Europe into spending more on defence, but it would be suicidally naive to believe that he doesn’t really mean it

Though many will find it unthinkable, we must be prepared to call up our reservists – and make plans for conscription. Trump has left us no other choice.

A generous assessment of Trump’s motives for threatening withdrawal from the 80-year-old transatlantic peace pact is that he is using shock tactics to galvanise Europe into spending more on defence.

There is no doubt that for decades Britain and the continent have been content to ride on the coat-tails of America, ignoring our obligations and relying on US taxpayers to cover the cost of our safety.

But it would be suicidally naive to believe that Trump doesn’t really mean it or that, if European freedom faced another threat as it did in the 1940s, the US cavalry would once again come galloping to our rescue.

We have to assume we’re on our own, in a world of dizzying geopolitical change – where Russia and the US can hold talks to decide the fate of Ukraine, a sovereign nation, without giving their president, Volodymyr Zelensky, or any other European leader so much as a seat at the table.

To realise that and still do nothing to protect ourselves is worse than madness. It is surrender without a bullet being fired.

Yet this week has been punctuated by gunshots as one European government after another shot themselves in the foot.

Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni worries more about migrants than Russia. Poland is understandably apprehensive about the threat posed by Russia and has to focus on defending its own border.

Germany’s foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, meanwhile, promised to increase spending on security but refused to discuss sending German troops to join any peacekeeping force in Ukraine.

For Germany, the issue of deploying its soldiers outside its borders is a sensitive one, but it has to overcome its emotional hangover from the Second World War.

Sir Keir Starmer is right not to wait. He is flying to Washington to meet Trump next week, knowing that the Pax Americana is over and that Europe must go it alone

We have to assume we’re on our own, in a world of dizzying geopolitical change – where Putin and the US can hold talks to decide the fate of Ukraine

French President Emmanuel Macron held a summit of European leaders in Paris this week but Chancellor Olaf Scholz left early, complaining that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer was ‘premature’ and ‘highly inappropriate’ in talking about a peacekeeping task force for Ukraine.

‘I am even a little irritated by these debates,’ he said, adding that we should wait for the outcome of US-Russia talks.

But Starmer is right not to wait. He is flying to Washington to meet Trump next week, knowing that the Pax Americana is over. The only option is for Europe to go it alone, and that will require Britain’s leadership. That cannot happen if Britain does not step up to the mark with a significant increase in defence spending.

We cannot do it on our own. That is as true today as it was two centuries ago, when Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger made his last and greatest speech. ‘Europe is not to be saved by any single man,’ he warned. ‘England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example.’

He was talking about defeating Emperor Napoleon, but Vladimir Putin’s monomaniac ambitions are just as dangerous.

Our first and most urgent step is to ensure Ukraine has the means to defend itself. This means adopting Estonia’s proposal for every European member of Nato to give 0.25 per cent of national GDP to a Ukraine defence fund for four years, which would generate about 150 billion euros.

That demands full European unity. Failing that, we must build a coalition of the willing – primarily those in northern Europe. We might be able to do this through the Joint Expeditionary Force – the UK-led alliance of North European NATO members – to implement a potential ceasefire.

French President Emmanuel Macron with Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz at a security summit of European leaders at the Elysee Palace in Paris

Our first and most urgent step is to ensure Ukraine has the means to defend itself and, failing that, build a coalition of the willing – primarily those in northern Europe (file photo)

But that would mean sending 10,000 British soldiers. Another 10,000 would have to be training for deployment, with 10,000 more returning and recuperating. That’s 30,000 men and women – almost half of our entire land force when there are just 70,000 in the whole British Army.

And they would have to be fully equipped with all the capability for fighting: tanks, artillery, full air support and long-range missiles – or the Russian meat grinder could simply roll over them.

From a standing start, can Britain do all that? I don’t believe so, not without compulsory mobilisation of the reserves. Paying for this would demand moving the whole economy onto a war footing.

And sustaining it would be impossible in the long term without conscription to build up the Army’s strength. Whatever the political difficulties, this will be inevitable if Russia attacks British peacekeepers or launches an attack on a Baltic ally.

If successive governments had heeded the warnings, instead of hiding behind the US, we might not need these drastic measures. Now we face the consequences.

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