With an electorate that doesn’t back higher defence spending, Healey’s promise to put troops in Ukraine looks like political grandstanding, writes Michael Martins

When I worked at the US State Department during Donald Trump’s first term, it was abundantly clear that most European leaders hoped to wait him out before opening their wallets. Why confront his demands for higher defence spending when Joe Biden might win in 2020 and take the pressure off? Strategic patience was cheaper than raising taxes or asking electorates to make sacrifices, while publicly criticising him and his brutish negotiating tactics would probably help their own polling numbers.

Fast forward to today, and defence spending across the continent has surged. On a per capita basis, some European states now outspend the United States.

Into this moment of flux and following of last week’s meeting between President Trump and President Putin, the UK’s defence secretary, John Healey MP, committed UK forces to be on the ground from “day one” of any ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine as a “reassurance force” and a........

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