Keeping the West united in support of Ukraine

Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has galvanized a global wave of support for Kyiv. Now, the temptation is great to antagonize Europe over its level of assistance, especially as Washington needs to focus on China, bringing back the old charge that the European Union shies away from true heavy lifting. Yet, allies should be wary about letting military hardware deliveries alone set the tone.

The habit has already kicked in of branding graphs and numbers ranking each Western country in terms of the financial amount of weaponry delivered so far to Ukraine. While this tactic is not without benefits to put the pressure on European governments to increase their deliveries to Ukraine, this narrow, quantitative approach is both insufficient to capture the reality of the support and risky for its pernicious effects: It may downplay solidarity among the allies, play negatively on domestic public support, and dismiss other major, necessary efforts.

To start with, anyone willing to make an inventory of the delivered weapons by Western governments is confronted by an initial double difficulty: For one, some countries are reluctant to communicate on how much and what they deliver. It is the case for instance of Italy . Such a choice can be driven by different factors: skeptical public opinion, tactical sensitivity or concern of escalation.

Second, the difference between what is pledged and what is actually delivered can be substantial (the United States delivered 24% of what has been pledged, while Poland or France are at 100%). Looking at pledges can be thus misleading as long as they have not been fulfilled. In addition, the delivery of many Western-made weapons means additional training that represents specific costs, albeit less visibly so.

Direct support to Ukraine hides other mechanisms of solidarity among European nations. The EU is financing the delivery of military equipment to Ukraine through the European Peace Facility up to €2.5 billion (U.S. $2.51 billion). Each member state contributes to the budget according to a gross national income distribution key , meaning that even member states unwilling or unable to send national military equipment to Ukraine might end up contributing substantially by financing the instrument.

While there is no communication so far on countries which applied for reimbursement, some European countries may decide not to seek it as part of their national effort to support Ukraine. It is thus critical to consider the European Peace Facility as a whole when assessing the European support to Ukraine. Furthermore, Germany agreed to compensate states that delivered Soviet-era equipment by donating tanks (negotiations ongoing ), a potentially significant, indirect effort from Germany.

While European military stockpiles are depleted, solidarity is again at play with the new €500 million instrument incentivizing joint procurement of weapons for countries. Meanwhile, support to Ukraine must be balanced with the imperative to preserve the capacity for NATO to protect its members.

A critical point when looking at the military support delivered to Ukraine is to consider not only its financial value of the equipment but its operational value: scarce ammunitions, the level of operational availability and the issue of repairs can limit operational effectiveness of the delivered weapons. As warfare evolved since Feb. 24, so did Ukrainian needs, and state-of-the-art weapons are the ones now able to make the difference on the battlefield. For example, Caesar howitzer and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System fill a key need for the Ukrainian army.

Still, Europeans are not the decisive military partner Ukraine needs, and they can do more, especially at the EU level . Yet, the delivery of weapons is but one type of support among many others: diplomatic, humanitarian, economic and financial. In that regard, Central and Eastern European countries tend to take the greatest share compared to the size of their gross domestic product. Less known, Portugal ranks at the same level of the United States (as of Aug. 3, 2022, per the Ukraine Support Tracker ). Second, imposed sanctions on Russia hurt more European economies than the American one (in 2021, Russia was the EU’s fifth-largest trade partner and the United States’ 26th in 2019).

Europeans are doing a heavy lift, in solidarity with Ukraine and in close coordination with the United States. Risking trans-Atlantic unity over chosen paths of support is not an option we can afford.

Marie Jourdain is a visiting fellow from the French Armed Forces Ministry at the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center. The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author. She can be found on Twitter at @MarieJourdain10 .

俄罗斯对乌克兰的残酷入侵激起了全球对基辅的支持浪潮。如今，人们很容易因为欧洲提供的援助力度而激怒它，尤其是在华盛顿需要集中精力应对中国之际，这又让人想起欧盟不愿承担真正重任的老生常谈。然而，盟友们应该警惕，不要仅仅因为军事装备的交付就定下基调。

目前已经出现了一种惯用伎俩，即制作图表和数字，根据迄今为止西方国家向乌克兰提供的武器数量进行排名。虽然这种策略并非毫无益处，可以向欧洲各国政府施压，促使其增加对乌克兰的武器供应，但这种狭隘的量化方法既不足以反映实际支持情况，也存在潜在的有害影响：它可能削弱盟友之间的团结，损害国内公众支持，并忽视其他重要的、必要的努力。

首先，任何想要清点西方政府交付武器的人都会面临双重难题：一方面，一些国家不愿透露交付的数量和种类，意大利就是如此。这种做法可能出于多种因素：公众舆论的怀疑、战术上的敏感性或对局势升级的担忧。

其次，承诺与实际交付之间存在巨大差异（美国仅交付了承诺的24%，而波兰或法国则完成了100%）。因此，在承诺尚未兑现之前，仅凭承诺本身可能具有误导性。此外，交付大量西方制造的武器意味着需要额外的培训，这会产生一定的成本，尽管这些成本不太明显。

对乌克兰的直接援助掩盖了欧洲各国之间其他形式的团结机制。欧盟正通过欧洲和平基金为向乌克兰提供高达25亿欧元（约合25.1亿美元）的军事装备。每个成员国都根据国民总收入分配比例向该基金出资，这意味着即使是那些不愿或无力向乌克兰提供本国军事装备的成员国，最终也可能通过为该基金提供资金而做出实质性贡献。

虽然目前尚未公布哪些国家申请了补偿，但一些欧洲国家可能出于支持乌克兰的考虑，选择不申请补偿。因此，在评估欧洲对乌克兰的支持时，必须将欧洲和平基金作为一个整体来考虑。此外，德国已同意通过捐赠坦克（谈判仍在进行中）的方式补偿那些向乌克兰提供苏联时期装备的国家，这可能是德国做出的一项意义重大的间接努力。

尽管欧洲军备储备日益减少，但团结精神再次发挥作用，一项新的5亿欧元机制旨在激励各国联合采购武器。与此同时，对乌克兰的支持必须与维护北约保护其成员国的能力这一迫切需求相平衡。

在评估对乌克兰的军事援助时，一个关键点不仅在于装备的经济价值，更在于其作战价值：弹药短缺、作战可用性以及维修问题都可能限制所交付武器的作战效能。自2月24日以来，随着战争形势的演变，乌克兰的需求也随之改变，而如今，最先进的武器装备才能在战场上发挥决定性作用。例如，“凯撒”榴弹炮和高机动性火箭炮系统就满足了乌克兰军队的一项关键需求。

然而，欧洲人并非乌克兰所需要的决定性军事伙伴，他们还可以做得更多，尤其是在欧盟层面。不过，武器援助只是众多支持方式中的一种，其他支持方式还包括外交、人道主义、经济和金融援助。就此而言，中东欧国家往往占其国内生产总值比例最高。鲜为人知的是，葡萄牙的援助份额与美国相当（根据乌克兰援助追踪器2022年8月3日的数据）。其次，对俄罗斯实施的制裁对欧洲经济的打击远大于美国（2021年，俄罗斯是欧盟第五大贸易伙伴，而2019年则是美国第二十六大贸易伙伴）。

欧洲人正在为声援乌克兰、与美国密切合作付出巨大努力。为了选择支持方向而冒着破坏跨大西洋团结的风险，是我们无法承受的。

玛丽·茹尔丹是法国武装部队部驻大西洋理事会欧洲中心的访问学者。本文观点仅代表作者本人。她的推特账号是@MarieJourdain10。