2025 In Review: The Year The US Changed Sides
Amongst many stories, one stands out
Hi All,
Writing this end of year piece has been daunting. There have been so many developments during this past year which changed so much about the Russo-Ukraine War and the world in general that focussing on one seemed impossible. For the war, there was the growth of UAV technology over the battlefield, the broadening ranged-weapon war into Ukraine and Russia, the disjointed European decision making process on aiding Ukraine, the growth of Chinese support for Russia, etc. Internationally there was massive developments from the Trump tariff-war, the weakening of US alliances in Europe and Asia, the improvement of China’s position, the war(s) in the Middle East, etc etc.
However when you step back and look at things from a broad perspective, one thing towers over the others.
2025 was the year that the USA changed sides.
In 2024 the US was a strong (and growing) supporter of Ukraine and an opponent of Russian aggression. In 2024 the US worked hard to organize and support its NATO allies, it was increasingly committed to helping Taiwan and was working assiduously to increase its friendships/alliances throughout the Indo-Pacific region.
In 2025 all of that ended. The US ended direct support for Ukraine and provided a great deal of diplomatic support and cover for Russia. It weakened, perhaps fatally, much of its alliance structure around the world. It entered trade wars with its friends and economically enhanced states that it used to see as its competitors. The USA even ended up codifying this new international reality in its 2025 National Security Strategy, which named European democracies as the great problem and handled Russia and China with kid gloves, arguably kindness. The changing of sides was being proclaimed from the rooftops.
And yes, this is the USA—not Trump. People need to constantly acknowledge this truth. The American people clearly voted for Trump after Jan 6th 2021, after years of him praising Putin, after him attacking Ukraine and talking about undermining NATO. None of what he is doing now should have been a surprise. And since the 2024 election the US political system has enabled Trump. The Republican Party has refused to stand up to him when it could and instead has written him basically a blank check to remake the US position in the world. So this is an American choice, made by the US people and put into place by the US political system. No more comforting deceptions, please.
Looking at the Russo-Ukraine War, we can see just how dramatic and impactful the US switch has been. It has determined where the war has gone and where it is going. It has changed things diplomatically, economically and militarily. It has put Ukraine in a far worse position than it would have been otherwise and helped Putin/Russia a great deal, providing the latter protection and time to wage the war-crime riddled strategy that defines their war effort. To understand just how profound this change has been, it might be helpful to break things down into their constituent parts.
The Changing of Sides
Though it took the Biden Administration much longer than I would have liked, by the end of 2024 it was providing Ukraine with a great deal of support. Overall, by the time the Biden Administration left office, it had provided Ukraine with approximately $130 billion of military and economic aid. It had also provided Ukraine with increasingly robust diplomatic support, said Ukrainian membership of NATO was a question of when not if, supported Ukrainian territorial integrity, called for the prosecution of Russian war criminals and even said seized Russian assets should be used to support Ukraine.
All of that was ended relatively quickly by the Trump administration. US aid, as Trump boasted about in front of Zelensky on Sunday, is over. The US is only selling small amounts of military equipment (at high profit margins) to European states, allowing them to pass on material to Ukraine. The US has ruled out, seemingly into perpetuity, Ukrainian membership of NATO, has called for the cessation of not only conquered lands, but unconquered part of Ukraine to Russia. It has called for an amnesty for Russian war criminals, the return of Russian seized assets, and even restrictions on Ukrainian sovereignty going forward.
Overall, the US was treating Ukraine as a partner by the end of 2024 and is now treating that country as an annoyance to be put in its place in the US quest for better relations with Russia.
The US has changed sides.
Military Implications
The ending of new US military aid to Ukraine tells only part of this sad story. The Trump administration was also deliberately inconsistent in its operations. At times it stopped the delivery of already appropriated Biden-era aid and at other times it slow-walked the delivery of the small amounts of aid that it allowed the Europeans to purchase. It stopped intelligence sharing at other times and has reduced it overall.
The effect of this erratic and dangerous behavior on Ukraine in the midst of a war was significant. The Ukrainians had constructed much of their military systems on US systems made available to it under Biden. For instance the most important layer of Ukrainian anti-air defense, the layer that is focussed on taking out the best Russian cruise and ballistic missiles, is based on US-made and armed Patriot systems. There is no other replacement at hand. By reducing the supply of Patriot ammunition and systems at different times, the Ukrainians were left with severely denuded defenses during the year. This has empowered the Russians, who were seeing their ranged attack options increase due to more production, to launch more deadly and effective assaults on Ukrainian cities, power generation, even military production.
This US switching of sides has one easily confirmable concrete effect. In 2025 through mid-November, Ukrainian civilian casualties were up by 27%. It has probably gone up since then and much of this increase would have been because of the way the US weakened Ukrainian anti-air defense.
The implications on the battlefield were also significant. Ukrainian air defense was weakened there, allowing for more effective Russian air attacks for significant periods. Ukrainian supplies of 155mm ammunition were restricted allowing for more Russian advances, etc.
The US went from Ukraine’s most important military backer to an unreliable, arguably destructive, actor.
Diplomatic Implications
The changes that the US brought here could be seen as even more dramatic. Though people talk deceptively about the US through the Trump administration trying to bring “peace” to Ukraine, that is a dishonest word game. The Trump administration is trying to force Ukraine to take a deal that will weaken the country as a sovereign state and make it permanently unstable and open to Russian interference. At the same time it is offering Russia massive rewards that were never on offer before the US switched sides.
The changes are stark. Now the US wants Ukraine to surrender the Donbas to Russia, even unconquered areas. It wants to recognize legally Russian control of conquered areas, it wants Ukraine to be permanently forbidden from joining NATO, it wants restrictions on Ukraine’s future armed forces both in terms of size and capabilities. It even wants to force election on Ukraine faster than the Ukrainian constitution would allow. None of this was US policy before it switched sides.
For Russia the US is offering huge diplomatic support. The Putin regime has not only been rehabilitated in US eyes with red-carpet welcomes in Alaska, it has been offered immunity from future prosecutions and the welcome prospect of returned assets when a deal is reached. No wonder that Russian voices are now giddy with excitement at the new US policy.
In some ways the change diplomatically is so profound that people cannot grasp it. Any deal reached now with the US threatens to be a catastrophe with a weakened and limited Ukraine and an emboldened and protected Russia. The best that the US now offers to Ukraine is now far far bleaker than the worst that would have been on offer last year.
Time Implications
The US changing sides has provided Putin with one other massive gift. That is the time to fight the war that he wants free from the worry that the US will take steps to stop him. All the year we have seen this ridiculous play acting by the US government. It has threatened, postured, huffed and puffed, saying that this time it is about to get tough on Putin. Sanctions were coming, Tomahawks were on their way, Trump was warming to Ukraine—all of it was about to happen.
At times it was only two weeks away.
Yet it never happened. All of this playacting had massive implications for the war as it gave Putin protected time. It made the Ukrainians spend massive amounts of time and effort working with an administration it could never hope to switch. Even worse, it kept Europeans wondering if the US administration might actually change sides back when it never would. This has limited aid for Ukraine and kept the Europeans being good little boys in doing what the US wanted. The whole spectacle we have witnessed with the Europeans in the end not using seized Russian assets to help Ukraine, at least partly because of US influence, showed just how important this process has been.
Here we are in 2025, and the US is still giving Putin time, always more time. The Mar-a-Lago pantomime is just the latest iteration of this. What the US government has done is punt negotiations further down the road, until Putin wants to take them seriously. It protects the Russian dictator in the interval. Putin must be pinching himself. The US government is allowing him to fight the war he wants, as he wants it, with no fear of US force being used to harm him. Then, if he wants a break, all he has to do is go to the US government and ask them to get him the best deal they can.
Conclusion
The importance of the US changing sides stretches far beyond the Russo-Ukraine War. It is a challenge to the survival of liberal democracy and the rule of law itself around the world. It has left other democratic states leaderless and divided. It has emboldened Russia and China and it has made working with them far more attractive a prospect for others. It has upended the world order more than anything else since 1945, with the possible exception of the collapse of the USSR.
Of course not all is lost. Democratic forces have a chance to fight back. As I wrote in this Foreign Affairs piece published in September, the remaining democratic forces that do not want to go down the dark road that the US is now on, can act now to preserve themselves. They still have important reservoirs of strengths. However, before they can use this strength, they must acknowledge the reality of the new world. The US has changed sides, is not their friend and in many ways is out to subvert their futures as the US becomes an ally of authoritarians and dictators.
Acknowledging the reality of the new world is the only way to fight it. For this reason there really is only one story that defines 2025. The USA has changed sides. How the rest of the world reacts to that will define the future.