The disastrous meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance at the White House on February 28 has led to a stark moment of truth for the Western alliance. In the fallout with Zelensky and the end of U.S. support for the war effort, the Trump administration has not only shaken Ukraine. It has also called into question some of the bedrock assumptions that have undergirded the transatlantic relationship since World War II.
In European capitals, panic has set in. Some policymakers and analysts are speaking of the end of NATO, or the end of the West. They are terrified about U.S. intentions: Does Washington intend to actively undermine the long-term survival of Ukraine as a sovereign and free country? Is Trump trying to execute a “reverse Kissinger,” by charming Russian President Vladimir Putin into abandoning his marriage to Chinese leader Xi Jinping and making an unholy alliance with the United States? A huge chasm has opened in transatlantic trust—one that is bad for Washington’s global power projection and for its image as a benign hegemon, and potentially catastrophic for transatlantic cohesion and the vitality of NATO.
The challenge facing the West is daunting. But the alliance has endured strong doubts before. And there are powerful arguments—on both sides of the Atlantic—that might yet rescue the alliance and support a continued strong U.S. presence and involvement in Europe. And there is much that Europe itself can do to demonstrate why the United States is so much stronger with it than without it.
THE MINSK MISTAKE
In the early 1990s, there were voices advocating for NATO’s gradual dissolution after the end of the Warsaw Pact. Yet since Russia embarked on its path of revisionism over the past two decades—especially since 2014, when it seized Crimea and invaded the Donbas—NATO has not only endured but also continued to grow. And it has become stronger in terms of cohesion, membership, and deterrent power.
The Trump administration has introduced a fundamental trust problem: for the first time, European leaders are uncertain whether the United States remains committed to NATO and to the American leadership role in it.
But the story is more complicated. It is crucial to remember that Trump has played a vital role in Ukraine’s defense. Ukraine was able to fend off and survive Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 because the United States had started to supply Ukraine with lethal weapons, such as Javelin antitank missiles, during Trump’s first term. Without the Javelins, Russian forces might have succeeded in taking Kyiv within days, as originally planned. It is therefore not far-fetched to argue that Ukraine owes its survival in the critical days of the early spring of 2022 in meaningful part to the support of the earlier Trump White House. Why would Washington now wish to abandon this remarkable success story, a story of combined U.S.-Ukrainian determination and resolve to uphold and defend the sovereign rights of a free country?
The United States also knows well the dangers of leaving Europe to deal with Russia. After Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its invasion of eastern Ukraine in 2014, Washington decided to largely leave the confrontation with Moscow to the Europeans. The key vehicles for this were the so-called Minsk process—the talks aimed at a settlement for eastern Ukraine—and the so-called Normandy Four, the contact group of France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine that met between 2014 and 2022. Unfortunately, the Minsk and Normandy process failed, and an American leadership vacuum only encouraged the Russian side to escalate further, culminating in the invasion of February 2022.
The United States knows well the dangers of leaving Europe to deal with Russia.
These events are fatally reminiscent of events of 30 years ago, when the bloody war in Bosnia led Europe to proclaim the “hour of Europe,” which went nowhere. It was only through the active political and military intervention of the United States that this war was finally terminated and that peace was achieved, via the 1995 Dayton accords.
Neither the first Trump administration nor the Biden administration repeated the mistake made by the Obama White House in 2014: they did not leave the resolution of the Ukraine war to the Europeans but decided to lead a remarkable international effort to support Ukraine. The new Trump administration has decided to play a leading role again, this time in order to bring the war to an end after 11 years of conflict and annexation, and three years of a brutal full-scale invasion.
It is in Europe’s interest to welcome, in principle, this strategic U.S. engagement, which actually stands in the way of a larger shift in Washington away from Europe and toward China. But to be successful the two sides of the Atlantic must swiftly close the yawning gap of trust. If this can be done, the crucial challenge is then finding a way to secure and implement a viable Ukraine deal. First of all, Ukraine must participate and will need to make sure the result is fair and not a sellout. Without active Ukrainian and European participation, the Trump administration’s peace effort might fizzle out before it has seriously started. This is why it will be in the U.S. interest to quickly mend fences with Zelensky and the Ukrainian leadership after the White House confrontation on February 28.
IS AMERICA STILL A EUROPEAN POWER?
Looming behind the tension between Washington and Kyiv is Europe’s role in the security equation. The U.S. military presence in Europe has been strengthened in recent years, but it is far from being equal to the hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers in Ukraine and in Russia’s western military districts. And Washington has categorically ruled out U.S. boots on the ground in Ukraine. The Trump administration therefore needs its European partners and has openly said as much by requesting European forces to secure or enforce a possible Ukraine deal. In return, the Europeans should be resolute enough to confront Washington with their own requirement: adapting the American Revolutionary War slogan “No taxation without representation,” they must make clear that there will be no military deployment without participation in the peace talks. And Europe knows one thing: the deal, if it happens, is not simply about carving up Ukraine or securing a quick cease-fire. It is about a lasting and secure peace arrangement, about existential security issues for all of Europe.
An even bigger question is how to deal with Russia. So far, no meaningful signaling has come from Moscow regarding possible concessions. Predictably, the Kremlin has made maximalist demands and will prove very difficult to budge. It is an illusion to believe that a durable peace with Russia will break out simply by enshrining the line of contact in eastern Ukraine. Russia will come up with new, complex, and far-reaching demands, with strategic stability issues, regarding U.S. military installations in eastern Europe and will turn out to be an expensive and untrustworthy partner. Europe and the United States must steel themselves for a long and painful process.
Above all is the urgent need for a new kind of European leadership. In order to defend their strategic security interests and rebuild the frayed alliance, European powers must show that they are able to shoulder a more substantial burden that enhances the collective power of the alliance. France, Germany, Poland, and other like-minded neighbors should launch a major defense initiative, shaped around a core group of powers that are prepared to speak with one voice on security issues. This European Defense Union—the EDU—would agree on majority decision-making and include as close participation from the United Kingdom as possible. Major objectives would include building a consolidated and unified defense market and supply chain; the joint development, procurement, and maintenance of military equipment; and the joint training of military staff. France and the United Kingdom, as nuclear powers, would be encouraged to examine options for an enhanced EDU contribution to extended deterrence.
The best and most elegant way for the Trump administration to include both Europe and Ukraine—as well as European partners such as Turkey—in the peace deal would be to reestablish the tested and proven contact group format, introduced in the 1990s to create a sense of unity and common purpose under U.S. leadership. We might remind Washington that it should be proud of that innovative and successful diplomatic format—a U.S. invention. In Ukraine, it could provide the crucial ingredients needed to ensure that the war really ends.
Thirty years ago, the diplomat Richard Holbrooke wrote an essay in Foreign Affairs titled “America, a European Power”—without a question mark. Holbrooke foresaw that “in the 21st century, Europe will still need the active American involvement that has been a necessary component of the continental balance for half a century.” The essay ends with a prophetic assertion. “The task ahead is as daunting as its necessity is evident. To turn away from the challenge would only mean paying a higher price later.” Yes, Europe needs the United States to end the war in Ukraine permanently. But the United States will need Europe to successfully accomplish that task. Let’s hope that the Trump White House comes to recognize that reality.
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