FRUKUS
The security guarantee that could stabilise Europe...
16 February, 2025
The question the world is asking: how can Ukraine, and therefore Europe, be secured? The following is a credible plan to do it...
Aim: A security guarantee that can achieve stability beyond the current US administration – and be upheld, and enduring, even through potential weak future US Presidencies.
Newly elected Republican President Eisenhower’s armistice has stood the test of time in Korea – 71.5 years and counting. What shape could a security guarantee for Ukraine take, fronted by Europe, to get President Trump’s forthcoming agreement into the league of such company – enduring for decades to come?
• The 1953 Korean Armistice Agreement was remarkable in that it combined a US security guarantee with (clause 13d) restrictions on weaponry that could enter South Korea.
• This deterred further invasion, without provoking the North/China.
• Separate a security guarantee (which should be robust, and is in itself non-provocative) from infusions of further weaponry (the aspect of NATO that is intolerable to Russia – for anyone who understands the Cuban Missile Crisis, understandably so). Here, emulate clause 13d of the Korean Armistice.
• Continual recurrence of conflict will come about without this – as the Budapest Memorandum and Minsk agreements have shown. Investors and reconstruction funds are unlikely to come in at scale without a security guarantee, and 8+ million Ukrainians now abroad will be less likely to return.
The 1953 Armistice Agreement reads:
“Cease the introduction into Korea of reinforcing combat aircraft, armored vehicles, weapons, and ammunition… [weaponry] may be replaced on the basis of piece-for-piece of the same effectiveness and type… Every incoming shipment of these items shall be made to the Military Armistice Commission and the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission [then comprising Sweden, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia and Poland].”
This demonstrates how to grant a robust security guarantee while being sensitive to the other side’s desire for arms restrictions for a country on its border (Russia not wanting long-range missiles pointing directly into its territory). An equivalent Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Turkey, India, Brazil…) should be put together today.
Important to note: the US did renege on clause 13d four years later, in 1957. But the clause effectively did the job of getting stability in place.
Backing the security guarantee:
FRUKUS
• An alliance of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
• In the acronym, the US deliberately coming last. This should be fronted by Europe. And the US is to backstop it only for seven years.
• After seven years, US involvement sunsets. Poland (which spends a commendable 4.1%+ on defense) and Germany replace the US, and it becomes “Friends of Ukraine and the US”.
Crucial: Germany and Poland should NOT be included at the outset. As, with the sunset, it will subsequently be perceived as the US “stepping out”, and a great diminishment of the guarantee. Rather, as the late Dr. Kissinger would surely have attested, the equilibrium needs to be maintained. Poland and Germany stepping in (in seven years, in the place of the US) is the best means Europe has of achieving this. (The “Weimar Triangle” already exists between France, Germany and Poland.)
• Preserving some minimal US backstop following the seven years, the US does now have a small (~10,000 troop) permanent military base in Poland. Established in 2023, Garrison Poland might prove to be one sensible thing enacted by President Biden.
• France ought to feel powerful (having felt snubbed by the US and UK with the 2021 AUKUS deal). The US to use this arrangement to light a match under Europe getting its own defense-industrial base on track – without totally undermining stability.
• President Macron to be thoroughly briefed and involved in advance by the US. (He’s still, quite understandably, annoyed about not getting even a phone call prior to both AUKUS and the Afghanistan withdrawal.)
• From the American view: France and the UK have been the most vocal supporters of Ukraine’s defense, at various times suggesting they wish to send their own troops, and wishing to extend NATO membership to Ukraine. They should back up their words by signing a robust security guarantee for Ukraine.
• The United States should not be the only country in the world capable of underwriting a credible security guarantee. The UK and France are both nuclear powers and, with support from Poland, Germany and Ukraine itself, the alliance ought to be able to deter Russia.
Here’s Stephen Bryen, former US Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (September 2024):
“Russia has a population of 147 million and a GDP of $2 trillion. Per capita the average income of a Russian is $14,391. In 2023 the Russian defense budget was $84 billion.
Europe, without the United States, has a population of 742 million [5x Russia], a GDP of $35.56 trillion [17.5x Russia] and a per capita income of $34,230 [2.4x Russia]. Europe’s overall defense spending is $295 billion, far [3.5x] higher than Russia.
…What is hard to understand is how Europe can spend $295 billion annually for defense and not be able to field well equipped fighting forces?”
I’m by no means advocating an “EU army”. But European countries ought to unify their procurement demands and buying power through a single defense marketplace. (There are economies of scale to be had, and duplicative redundancies to minimise.) There are startups in the UK working on creating just this, that the British government ought to rally behind.
Bryen goes on:
“If Russia was an actual threat, and if the Europeans were really committed to their own defense, then Europe could easily assemble a military force comparable to, if not bigger than, anything Russia could muster.”
Given the reality of the above figures, with a few years of runway to prepare, Europe should be well capable of looking after itself.
Further points:
• Unlike NATO, FRUKUS does not come with: joining NATO’s integrated military command, housing Western military bases in Ukraine, joint military exercises, Foreign Legion troops, or Western long-range missiles stationed on Ukraine’s soil – all opposed by Russia. (No peaceful resolution is likely to be achieved with these.) Thankfully, Ukraine has a far more formidable defense-industrial base than the Republic of Korea had in 1953. It’s not had the luxury of US/UN troops to hold off the aggressor.
• The 1994 Budapest Memorandum was an empty promise. FRUKUS is not a replication of either the 1994 or Minsk agreements – neither of which were actual security guarantees (which Ukrainians must realise, and no less a scholar than Hoover’s Professor Stephen Kotkin makes clear).
• FRUKUS to apply only to territory that Ukraine controls, behind truce lines (as per the Korean Armistice). Hopefully President Trump and his team can apply creative deal-making to reacquire some territory diplomatically – or at least reestablish it as autonomous.
• If Ukraine attacks Russia, the security guarantee is void, and FRUKUS will not support Ukraine. Any “false flag” attack would leave Ukraine without allies.
• A US security guarantee requires two-thirds Senate approval. There are learnings from the Korean example to emulate here, too. And having it sunset after only a few years should make it easier to pass.
An important lesson from history:
The wording of NATO’s Article V was the object of heated negotiations. Europeans wanted members to commit themselves to “military and other action”, while US diplomat George Kennan proposed only “such action as may be necessary”. Eventually, a compromise was reached. In the event of an attack, members will assist the relevant country “by taking forthwith… such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force”.
This Article V wording should be emulated by FRUKUS.
“Not since the ratification of the United States Constitution have so many men spent so much time drafting and debating so few words.” - NATO Research Division, April 2016
A real security guarantee, that replicates Article V, but without NATO membership or NATO troops in Ukraine. [We have a separate plan for securing Ukraine’s border – using neutral UN troops, though funded via a levy on one set of Nord Stream pipelines, to be repaired and turned back on.]
Ukraine, we realise you feel emotionally scarred
In the words of President Zelensky to Lex Fridman (January 2025):
“USA, Britain, Russia, France, China. Did anyone come? [Speaking about the Budapest Memorandum assurances.] No. Did anyone reply to these official letters, recorded by diplomats? Did anyone conduct consultations? No. And why not? They didn’t give a fuck.”
In a 2023 interview, former President Bill Clinton expressed his sense of personal guilt about the 1994 Budapest Memorandum: “I feel terrible about it, because Ukraine is a very important country.” The US is not entirely blameless here.
We intend for Ukraine to have a real Article V security guarantee, from the UK, France, Poland and Germany.
In exchange, following seven years of peace ensured by FRUKUS, Ukraine is to lower its conscription age to 18 (presently at age 25) to further boost collective European deterrent credibility.
Finally:
• A clear restriction on Western weaponry that can enter Ukraine, especially long-range weapons such as the US HIMARS and ATACMS, and the British-French Storm Shadow/SCALP EG – assured by a Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission (Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Turkey, India, Brazil…) – and a recommitment for Ukraine not to host foreign military bases. Advisors and mercenaries, including contractors, to leave the country. (No “stay-behind” intelligence.) Put a new UK + French military base in east Poland instead: “Fort FRUK.”
• The US and Russia, as part of their wider settlement, to begin talks to re-join the Open Skies Treaty, so that the Baltic states have better aerial visibility of any future Russian troop build-up. This would give Europe better surveillance than flying Typhoon fighter jets over Ukraine, be welcomed by all sides (including Russia), be vastly cheaper than flying military aircraft over Ukraine ad infinitum, and less provocative/at risk of accident and escalation.
• The possibility of further countries which back the security guarantee to be shut-down explicitly in the founding agreement, so there is no risk of FRUKUS becoming a backdoor to “NATO 2.0”. The countries noted are sufficient.
• A clear mechanism for disputes created between FRUKUS and Russia, managed by parties that maintain relations with both sides (Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Turkey, India, the Holy See…) – to reduce the potential for escalation (a false-flag attack or the like).
• Moldova and Georgia (both non-NATO, both not yet EU members, with very small armies) are remaining points of vulnerability in Europe, near to Russia. They might ask for coverage under FRUKUS, too. Worth dealing with all in one go – either bringing in, or ruling out.
FRUKUS is to be pronounced like “ruckus”. It intentionally sounds like “don’t eff with us”. It needs British, French, Polish and German heads of state to build it at speed, with Ukraine, to convey deterrence.
Edward M. Druce is a former 10 Downing Street Special Advisor, having worked with the Chief Advisor to the Prime Minister, 2020–21
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