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The one reason Trump won't abandon Ukraine | Michael Clarke war Q&A

How would Donald Trump react if Russia rejects the ceasefire plan? Security and defence analyst Michael Clarke has answered your questions on the Ukraine war - read or watch his answers below. You can also submit a question for next week's Q&A.

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What happens if Putin says no to ceasefire? Michael Clarke Q&A
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This week's Q&A is over - but you can still read or watch the whole thing

Our latest Q&A with Sky News' security and defence analyst Professor Michael Clarke has finished - scroll down to read his answers to your questions, or watch the full video on demand.

Apologies if we didn't get to your question - we'll be back with another Q&A next week and the question form is already open above.

'We hate conscription' - but would Britain use it?

NM:

Is conscription in the UK now more likely?

Michael Clarke is direct to the point on this - no.

"I can promise you, we're not," he says, adding the reserve forces - which stand at around 30,000 now - need to be increased.

"We need to think differently about reserves, about reserve service, about making that attractive to people both in lifestyle terms as well as for the sake of patriotism and the skills that they would gain," Clarke says.

"But it's not going to be conscription."

In fact, the roughly 350-year-old British army has only had conscription for a total of 25 years over its history, Clarke explains.

"So we had it in the First World War, we had it in the Second World War, and that went on until 1959, 1960. We hate conscription. We don't use it, but we have had a citizen army," he says.

"So, in the First World War we mobilised 2 million men - 2 million - and some of those were conscripted, but most of them were Kitchener's citizen army."

And with that, our latest Q&A draws to a close.

Does Trump risk showing weakness at the highest level if he allows Russia to say no?

John:

Does Trump risk showing weakness at the highest level if he allows Russia to say no?

Michael Clarke says Donald Trump is running the risk of looking like "an absolute fool" in front of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He says Trump has the business style of a property magnate but it's not the way Russians like to negotiate.

"It's not the way diplomacy tends to work in reality. It does on TV series, but not in reality," he says.

"Putin is very, very clever and he's cunning. He's not a terribly bright man, but he is cunning."

Clarke adds that the danger for Trump is that he will push for a quick deal which "looks good for the first couple of weeks and then falls apart".

He says that for that to happen to Trump so early in his second term would not go down well with a man who cares so much about he is viewed by history.

"He really worries now or thinks a lot about how he wants to be a historic president - and the chance that he will look a fool in front of Putin is not inconsiderable."

It's already more than 50 days into Trump's presidency - recap what he's done with the video below:

'Trump has the same technique as a mafia boss'

Jed:

Is Donald Trump way smarter than everyone thinks?

"There's logic to it, he likes to be unpredictable," Michael Clarke says.

He explains Trump likes to "frighten" people.

"We owe him the respect of being the elected president of the US, and that's considerable respect, but he has the same technique as a mafia boss," Clarke explains.

"He wants to be feared, he wants to insult people near to him to show how powerful he is."

Clarke adds that Trump sees power as a "personal thing" and says the US president "doesn't see it as institutional".

"The power is him, Trump, and it's not the presidency as such," he says.

"It's not American institutions, he doesn't like institutions. He particularly doesn't like international institutions."

'No dictator has stopped being a dictator because people were nice to them - the chance of a conflict is high'

Sebastian:

Has Trump now increased the risk of a wider European conflict in the coming years? Is Trump gambling with World War Three?

Michael Clarke says Donald Trump is not gambling with World War Three, which is unlikely "for all sorts of reasons".

But there is the chance of a more general European war, a risk that is now "considerably greater".

"If Trump sticks to this policy of essentially withdrawing from European security affairs, if the Russians and some other forces think that the Americans effectively withdraw, then the chances of a militarised conflict in the next five years are very high," Clarke adds.

"And my sense of it, and I don't want to sound too dramatic about this, is that the road we're on will bring that about."

'Where are we going to dig our toes in?'

Clarke adds: "We can't avoid it. We can only choose where. So where are we going to dig our toes in?

"Are we going to dig our toes in over cable cutting in the Baltics, or over massive cyber attacks on our societies, over the invasion of Moldova?"

He points out the UK waited until the Polish crisis of September 1939, before "we dug our toes" against Nazi Germany, despite several escalations in the years leading up to that.

"That's not a great way to conduct policy if you think you're dealing with a voracious dictatorship," he adds.

"When people talk about this, I say, give me an example in the last 3,000 years of recorded history of a voracious dictator who stopped being a voracious dictator because people were nice to him.

"They can't - just one example would be nice."

'Longest peacekeeping line in history': The problems with enforcing peace - and why troops could get dragged into fighting

Katie:

Is there any scope for a peacekeeping force from anywhere else in the world rather than a European country?

So far, there have only been a few European countries that have offered to put troops on the ground in Ukraine as part of a potential peacekeeping force to protect a deal to end the war.

Michael Clarke begins explaining that peacekeeping forces, in a traditional sense, involve troops "standing on a border, observing what is happening and being prepared to hold the line".

But he says there are two main issues with a peacekeeping force acting in Ukraine.

Two problems - distance and numbers

Firstly, he says it would have to be the "longest peacekeeping line in history by a long way", with the Ukraine-Russia border stretching around 700 miles.

"There's no peacekeeping line in the world that's that long," Clarke says.

"You need however many troops to police it, and most estimates are in the region of 100,000-110,000. You need three times that number available, because for every unit that's there, you need a unit preparing to go in."

He says the alternative is a force of "maybe 50-60,000" placed centrally with lots of mobility across four centres that can reach points of breakdown quickly.

"You need 300,000 troops available from somewhere, but where could the somewhere be?" Clarke asks, adding "that's not Europe".

US void could lead to peacekeeping soldiers having to fight

Clarke says there's also another issue.

While troops from India, Indonesia and South America could technically help make up the numbers required, "they would probably end up fighting".

"Any force that tries to back up this thing without the Americans will find itself involved in shooting," he says.

"And that could go very wrong. If the Americans are there behind it, they might not have to. 

"But if the Americans are not behind it, they probably will have to."

Do peacekeeping forces usually work in dangerous areas?

When asked how well peacekeeping forces holding the lines in hot conflicts actually do, Clarke says "variably".

"They did quite well in some parts of the Bosnia crisis. 

"But remember Srebrenica, when 8,000 men were marched off to be massacred while the Dutch peacekeepers - who stood there and let it happen because they didn't have any orders - they weren't sure what they should do. 

"So if we try and stop this, they'll be shooting. There's lots of civilians. And so they stood there thinking that we don't have any authority to do anything else and surely they wouldn't massacre all these men and boys. 

"Well, they did, and the Dutch have been beating themselves up... ever since."

Poland is a 'serious military player' - but no European state could stand up to a 'competent' Russia on its own

Susan Potter:

If NATO was out of the equation how would the militaries of some of those eastern European countries stand up to Russian military aggression ie Poland? Is the Polish army better prepared than Ukraine for example?

Michael Clarke says the Poles are a "serious military player".

"They've reinvested in an awful lot of equipment and their air force is pretty good," he explains.

Clarke says Poland has increased its defence expenditure and their equipment purchases "quite dramatically" in the last three or four years "because they feel it".

"They know what it feels like," he says. 

"They've been partitioned three times in history by Russia and France together. So they know what Russian pressure feels like - one of the issues for Poland is that there's no natural geographical boundary."

But Clarke adds: "No European state on its own could stand up to even a half competent Russian invasion."

Clarke also poses the question of where does Russia finish and where does Poland start?

"That's been a historical conundrum for about a thousand years," he adds. 

"So for the Poles, it's not obvious."

'Biggest US moral shift in 70 years'

European states "won't go" for a new world order in which the US, Russia and China decide what to do and what not to do.

But the US is determined to make a strategic change - the "biggest strategic change in the last 70 years and the biggest moral shift in the last 70 years".

"They're [the US] giving up on leading the democracies," Clarke adds.

"They seem to be giving up on quite a lot of democracy at home. They're going in for straight managerialism of the economy, and they don't mind who they partner with if they also go in for managerialism of the world economy.

"And that's a big, big moral shift as well as a political shift."

'I'm convinced the Russians would move in': The other nations vulnerable to Russia and why

Howard:

If each side is able to keep the territory they currently hold, where does that leave Putin's purported ambitions for other former Soviet states? Is any country other than Ukraine really vulnerable to an invasion?

Yes - Moldova, which is to the west of Ukraine, is vulnerable because there is already a Russian enclave there, Michael Clarke says.

Georgia is also vulnerable, with more than 100 days of demonstrations against its pro-Russia government ongoing.

"If those demonstrations looked as if they were about to unseat the Georgia Dream government, I'm convinced the Russians would move in and take Georgia," Clarke says.

"And they already occupy two areas of Georgia going back to 2008 - South Ossetia and Abkhazia."

Other states that would be vulnerable to pressure would be the states around the Baltics

"Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania... you've only got to ask any of their foreign ministers," adds Clarke.

Finland may also be a target.

"They would certainly target to see if the Russians could put a little hole in NATO consensus by creating a crisis that NATO doesn't respond to very effectively," Clarke says.

"And therefore showing everyone else in nature that, actually, 'NATO can't defend you.... [they want to say] look what's happening in the Baltic states, NATO is pathetic'."

What are ZelenAG百家乐在线官网y's red lines?

Anonymous:

What are ZelenAG百家乐在线官网y's red lines for peace?

Speaking today in Kyiv, Volodymyr ZelenAG百家乐在线官网y said he "would not forget" about the Ukrainian territories annexed by Russia and said they represented an important red line in peace talks.

Michael Clarke says the Ukrainians won't transfer legal rights to those territories over to Moscow "this side of the 22nd century".

What ZelenAG百家乐在线官网y is concerned about and will be "bound to ask for" in peace talks are promises over prisoners of war and kidnapped children.

"The Ukrainian prisoners are being very ill-treated, and that's well documented," says Clarke.

"A lot of them have been executed. That's well documented as well. It really gets under the skin of the Ukrainians that their prisoners are so badly treated."

He adds that there are 19,000 Ukrainian children on record as having been kidnapped since the full-scale invasion began.

"The real figure is almost certainly higher than that and will get a lot higher," Clarke says. "So ZelenAG百家乐在线官网y worries about children, and they worry about the humanitarian aid that is available. 

"It'd be very easy for the Russians to make life really difficult for those Ukrainians who don't want to cooperate with Russian passports, and really pressure them. And he wants some guarantees about that."

What would the ceasefire mean for occupied regions?

Callum Smith:

What will this ceasefire mean for those in the occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson?

"It might mean a bit of calm and the end of barrages from artillery going backwards and forwards and drones, so it might be very welcome to them," Clarke says.

But Clarke says the Ukrainians "will never give up their legal title to those lands, nor should they, because that's the legal basis of Ukraine going back to 1991".

"The sensible thing for the Russians to do would be for them to say, 'any Ukrainians who want to leave and go to the rest of Ukraine are free to do so, and we'll facilitate it in a humane way'," he explains.

"'We won't kick you out. Leave if you want to'... by the end of June for example. 

"And then the Russians will bring in their colonists, their own Russians, who will be given lots of tax incentives to come in. It's exactly what they did in Crimea after 2014."