Panic never helps in an emergency. Europeans are learning to take Donald Trump’s pronouncements not at face value but as theatrical preludes to negotiation. Demanding Ukraine’s natural wealth as a repayment for past help, accusations of “dictatorship,” and depicting the victim of aggression as the perpetrator: all are horribly unfair. But the arm-twisting, lies, and insults are more scene-setters than denouements.
It is quite possible to imagine that by the year-end a mineral-resources deal locks the US administration into Ukraine’s future, while European countries provide the physical and verbal security guarantees for credible deterrence and a durable ceasefire. Fired up by a battlefield cocktail of hope and fear, the Europeans may also start taking much greater responsibility for their own defense, with the Americans providing an interim backstop. The US-Russian rapprochement, like so many in the past, may fizzle out. Donald Trump’s presence at the May 9 victory parade on Red Square could prove a photo-op, not a policy. In the months that follow, Vladimir Putin’s regime may get the sharp edge of the Trumpian tongue. Domestic pressure from bond markets, big business, Congress, and the voters may curb the administration’s recklessness. In retrospect, we may look back on these early weeks of 2025 with a shudder, but not as the beginning of utter catastrophe.
The risk and costs are still colossal. Even Ukrainian patriotism has its limits. If betrayal and defeat loom, political, economic, and social implosion could doom Ukraine, sending millions of refugees to Europe. Worse, the method may emerge from the policy-making mayhem. Some would-be Kissingers in Washington want a game-changing new deal with Moscow, in which the Americans would give Russia a free hand in Europe in return for the Kremlin ending its partnership with Beijing. That will fail, but at a horrible price.
Already the immediate, irreversible damage is to trust. The transatlantic relationship resembles a long-standing marriage, punctuated by rows and intermittent exasperation, by squabbles about money and other irritants, but underpinned by decades of shared values, sacrifice, and achievements.
Suddenly, the assumptions behind that marriage have changed. One spouse suddenly decries that past as a swindle. They use previously unimaginable invective, cruelly mistreating relatives (Ukraine) and proclaiming selfishness as a virtue. For the other spouse the world just turned upside down. Even if these horrible words and behavior cease, they may be repeated. Who believes now that Europe’s costly, American-bought high-tech weapons will definitely work in wartime? It is all too easy to imagine President Trump saying, in some future crisis, that he will not allow US-made missiles and warplanes to be used to attack Russia. That trustquake and its aftershocks, not whatever deal is cooked up over Ukraine, is the real legacy of the past weeks.
The transatlantic couple are not yet divorced. They are still sharing the same house but with increasingly separate lives. The trust and generosity (naïveté in cynics’ eyes) that once lubricated the relationship is giving way to a bean-counting, transactional approach: buy your own groceries, don’t touch my stuff. Both sides will be poorer, unhappier, and less safe.
For now, the Europeans are the most exposed. They know that the Kremlin can be ready to fight again within a couple of years of a ceasefire, while they need a decade to fill the gaps in their defenses. Bridging that gap will require perilous improvisation.
But the US will be the loser too. That now-wrecked marriage involved great costs but reaped even greater benefits. Not least, NATO allies (mostly) showed up uncomplainingly to fight and perish in American wars. They did not send an invoice.
That era just died.
Edward Lucas is a Non-resident Senior Fellow and Senior Advisor at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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