Starmer and Macron's Plan Shows Europe's Weakness

Even at the British Empire’s peak there were limits to its military might. When Prime Minister Lord Palmerston threatened to dispatch an expedition to protect Denmark from Prussia in 1864, the latter’s “Iron Chancellor” Bismarck called his bluff and sneered he would send a few policemen to arrest it. The Royal Navy might have ruled the waves, but before World War I the volunteer British army was dwarfed by the vast conscript machines of the continental European powers.

Today the disparity between UK military ambition and hard-power reality is greater still. The navy is a shadow of its former self and the army’s manpower has been reduced to 71,000 — the US Marine Corps alone is 180,000-190,000 strong. Last week, however, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron committed to sending up to 15,000 troops combined to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire in its four-year war with Russia, according to the London Times.