Weekend Update#120: The US Changes Sides?
Is this the week the post-1945 world ended?
Hi All,
OK—we are perilously close to the worse case scenario on Trump and Ukraine. It seems that those who were saying for a long time that Trump was a brilliant negotiator, that he would want to put Putin in his place, that he would get a good deal for Ukraine—all of it is being revealed as nonsense. Indeed, this was the week that Trump reached out to give Putin much of what the Russian dictator craved—asking nothing in return and before any formal negotiations started.
The European reaction seemed stunned—which is just as worrying. Look, this was a reasonably high percentage event and Europe should have been preparing some kind of response for over a year. However, European leaderships seems to have wilfully stuck their heads in the sand, and been living on hopes and dreams that Trump would be what he was not.
I’m not going to go into it in much detail, except to say that I have been trying to warn people about this for well over year. Instead of going through that, This week I took two earlier substack pieces out of paywall for anyone to read—pieces about what European states could/should have done to get ready for Trump or a US abandonment of Ukraine. Here are the links if you want to read them now that they are free.
In the end, we are where we are. Europe has done almost no preparation for what should have been a foreseeable event. Its an extraordinary indictment of European leadership.
What I will do in this update is run through the three main actors and their policy changes this week (USA, Ukraine and Europe). I wont discuss the war on the battlefield at all. The front line has witnessed only the smallest of changes anyway (Ukraine is still not collapsing), so that can wait a week.
Trump Moves Towards Putin
What Trump did this week was end the charade that he was a supporter of Ukraine, and came out openly to say that he was at best a mediator between Ukraine and Russia. However, I would say really that he admitted he was moving to being a supporter of making sure Putin gets a very good deal out of the war. Trump revealed the truth of where he stood openly to the press in the White House three days ago. He spoke of a very positive and long call he had had with Putin that morning—and made it clear that he was quite close to the Russian dictator. Here is the clip of him discussing the call.
Btw my understanding is that this call was only the latest of a number of calls between them. Trump and Putin have been aligning for a while—either in direct chats or through intermediaries. They only released the info now as they are getting ready to act. So actually this call changed little, it just revealed where things stood.
The Trump call was then followed up by one of the most (deliberately) offensive trips of a US delegation ever to Europe. The first to speak was Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was in Brussels for a NATO summit. Hegseth made the mistake of speaking the Trump policy exactly (he later had to backtrack a little—but what he said first was the exact policy). Hegseth said that Ukraine would have to give up territory, Ukraine would not be allowed into NATO, and that US forces would not be part of any security guarantee for Ukraine. Moreover, he was clear that any European forces sent to Ukraine as part of any peace deal would not be covered by NATO article 5 (which calls for mutual defense).
I included a link to Hegseth’s press conference in this piece of a few days ago.
In other words, it was practically the worst possible deal for Ukraine and best for Putin. Russia keeps what it has conquered, Ukraine gets no meaningful security guarantees, and the US begins to disassociate from Europe. BTW, Hegseth then doubled down on the US drawing down its forces from Europe. There was talk about re-deploying to China but that is mostly hot air, as Trump actually wants to work with China and President Xi. However, this excuse provides a convenient justification. Basically, Trump wants out of Europe—it just wants to get out in the most helpful way for Russia.
Hegseth’s open admitting of Trump policy was then followed up by VP JD Vance’s visit which made it clear that not only was the Trump administration moving away from its European allies, but actually that the administration would be delighted if more pro-Putin politicians took power in Europe. In a speech that could have been written word for word in the Kremlin, Vance blasted democratic Europe and threw out all the alt-right dog whistles. You can watch the whole speech here.
Vance’s argument that the openly pro-Putin Călin Georgescu should be president of Rumania was most sobering for those who actually believe in freedom. Georgescu is basically a Romanian Orban, and would be a catastrophic leader for Ukraine. The US is now actively arguing for the election of candidates who wish to sell out the Ukrainian people.
Vance then made his intentions clearer by reaching out and meeting the pro-Putin AFD party in Germany, who are in the midst of a tight election campaign and there is every indication that the AFD will come in second.
So after Hegseth outlined the worst possible deal for Ukraine, Vance basically called for all of Europe to come under Putin’s influence.
At this point all pretence was gone. Even the ostensibly pro-Ukraine Keith Kellogg gave a speech that was particularly ominous coming from him. Using some language that seemed anti-Putin, Kellogg actually was pushing for major Ukrainian concessions. Kellogg once again seemed happy to hand over Ukrainian territory—but even more worryingly, he said that European states (ie, Ukraine’s biggest backers) would be excluded from the US sponsored talks with Russia. He is deliberately isolating Ukraine from its friends—the only purpose of which would be so that the US and Russia could bully Ukraine into taking a bad deal.
Kellogg also let slip the profound change in US policy, saying that the US would not run the talks as a backer of Ukraine, but as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine. So, the US has just abandoned a democratic state to start pushing it to make major concessions to a dictatorship.
And there was more. You could say that the last few days were really a series of the Trump administration making concession after concession to Putin—asking nothing in return and isolating Ukraine and Europe more and more. Trump, for instance, on February 13 called for Putin to be readmitted into the G7—almost as a little gift for the Russian dictator. There was certainly no quid pro quo mentioned for this very important step to rehabilitate Putin’s international standing.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio also had a detailed call with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov which seemed very productive for Russia. The US description of the talk was short and bland. However the Russians were more revealing, basically saying that the discussions included plans to get rid of some US sanctions on Russia—what were termed US "unilateral barriers" on doing business with Russia.
Oh, and plans for a Trump-Putin in person meeting were accelerated—so that the two friends could get together soon and make sure their ducks are in a row. A Trump team now is preparing to embark to Saudi Arabia to meet with a Putin team.
In sum, the week has seen the end of the US as a defender of democracy and supporter of Ukraine. From that point, the big story was how Ukraine and the rest of Europe would react.
Ukraine Finally Understands
I cant get angry at Ukrainians having expressed some hopes for Trump. The Ukrainians are desperate for US help and since Trump’s election have been trying to put the best face on events. And they did try hard. The Ukrainians over the past weeks and months have used whatever they can to get to Trump. The have tried flattery to appeal to Trump—Trump is the strong man who can bring peace! They have tried to use money—Here Trump, you can have access to our rare-earth minerals if you help save or democracy! They have even used strategic bargains—Hey Trump, if you help us, Ukrainian forces can be redeployed to allow US forces to withdraw more from Europe.
The only one that had any appeal, btw, was money. Trump demanded $500 billion in rare earth minerals from Ukraine—but not for future support, but as payment for past support. Its typical mafia tactics—trying to squeeze money from a desperate source.
However, just in the last 24 hours, the Ukrainians seem to understand how useless all these efforts were. Trump has no real interest in helping them at all (the rare-earth resources question is typical—in many ways Trump would rather get access through Putin than Ukraine).
Also, the Ukrainians finally realized that Trump was trying to subordinate Ukraine to Russia for Putin’s sake. This subordination would involve getting rid of Zelensky and installing a pro-Russian government in Ukraine (I will write a piece about that this week). If you look at what has changed in the last few weeks—its the US demanding the Ukraine run elections soon—and that is exactly the Russian position.
So yesterday morning Zelensky openly admitted that the game was up for Ukraine and the USA; that the USA was not a reliable defense partner for Ukraine—or indeed all of Europe. He then called for the creation of a European army to defend the free countries of the continent from Putin—one that would be able to operate without US interference.
You can read the whole Zelensky speech from this link.
Here is arguably the key section of the address. Fascinatingly, it starts with Zelensky referring to Vance’s speech, and pointing out the growing differences between the US and Europe. He then goes onto say that the US might very well be acting against the interests of European peace and security.
Yesterday here in Munich, the U.S. Vice President made it clear: decades, he said, decades of the old relationship between Europe and America are ending. From now on, things will be different, and Europe needs to adjust to that.
Ladies and gentlemen!
I believe in Europe. And I’m sure you believe too. And I urge you to act – for your own sake, and for the sake of Europe – people of Europe, your nations, your houses, your children, and our shared future. For this Europe has to become self-sufficient – united by common strength, Ukrainian and European.
Right now, Ukraine’s army, supported by global aid – thank you so much – is holding back Russia. But if not us, then who will stop them? Really! Let’s be honest – now we can’t rule out the possibility that America might say “No” to Europe on issues that threaten it.
Many, many leaders have talked about Europe that needs its own military, and army – an Army of Europe.
And I really believe that time has come. The Armed Forces of Europe must be created.
This is important. It also provides some clarity. In a desperate (and I think wrong-headed) attempt to make a last minute appeal for US aid, Zelensky had said just a little while earlier that Ukraine could not survive without the US.
That is not true—Ukraine can survive, and I would argue win the war, but it needs the full backing of most of Europe to do so—and that means that this last section might be the key to seeing how this all plays out.
Is Europe Understanding?
There will be time for excoriating post-mortems later—holding European leadership to account for its appalling denial of reality over the last year. However, now is not the time for that. In the last 24 hours, there are signs that no matter how much they tried to create a Trump that didnt exist, and base their future security on such a non-existent figure, European leaders are waking up the fact that not only is the US abandoning Ukraine, but that the US represents a threat to the future of democracy and freedom in Europe.
I mean—its not hard to miss. What have European leaders seen in the last 72 hours?
US policy makers saying Europeans will be excluded from talks about ending the most important war in Europe since World War II
US policy makers saying a democratic European state (Ukraine) should cede territory to a dictatorial aggressive one (Russia) and at the same time get no security guarantees worthy of the name.
US policy makers saying that European democracy as a while should become more alt-right.
US policy makers reaching out to far-right political parties to support their efforts in vital elections.
US policy makers saying that they are going to reduce US commitment to the security of Europe through NATO.
Taken together these constant blows seem to have led to at least a partial understanding that Europe might need, for the survival of its very freedoms. Starting with the Polish government, major European states said things that they had been reluctant to say before.
The Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, started the chorus by calling for European states to develop their own stance on Ukraine—independent of that of the USA. He said on his twitter account:
Europe urgently needs its own plan of action concerning Ukraine and our security, or else other global players will decide about our future. Not necessarily in line with our own interest. This plan must be prepared now. There's no time to lose.
The German government and leading opposition party, both stung by Vance’s embrace of the AFD, called for the US to end meddling in European political affairs. It was pretty weak stuff actually—but it was from the Germans so its something.
More importantly, French President Emmanuel Macron called for an emergency European leaders summit on monday to come up with a coordinated European response to this week’s developments. We know this because the Polish Foreign Minister announced it.
Crucially, Macron is extending the invite list for the meeting to the UK, and has asked Prime Minister Starmer to attend. Signs are that Starmer will be there. This matters because not only is Macron trying to integrate powers outside of the EU, the British have been the most obsequious in their efforts to butter up Trump. Just Saturday morning it was being reported that the Starmer administration was about to throw more love bombs Trump’s way.
These developments of the last 24 hours are still far from sufficient to say that European leaders understand the true risk Europe is in from a US-Russian alignment. But at least heads are being pulled out of the sand.
Is this the week the post-1945 world ended?
This is arguably the most important week in European history since 1991 or even 1945. It is conceivable that the NATO alliance is breaking down in front of our eyes. The US no longer sees itself as needing or wanting to exert much force to defend Europe and moreover, the US seems more eager to work with Putin than its traditional allies.
Its hard to say how this will work itself out. I have been thinking for a while now that the end of NATO might be a good thing for Europe, allowing Europeans to rebuild their own defenses, invest in their own high-tech defense industries, and defend their own democracies without being subverted by the USA. It wont be easy and it will require a great deal of investment—but it might be for the best.
If the US is no longer interested in defending freedom and democracy, Europeans will have to do so—at least for themselves. I will mourn the end of the US-European alliance, as I think it was an excellent vehicle for security and prosperity on both sides of the Atlantic. However, if it needs to go, so be it.
There's a big silver lining to Trump. He's brutally honest, unlike most politicians. Sure, he tells dozens of lies every day. But he's refreshingly honest about who he is, and that's why he won two out of his three elections. He's not a hypocrite. He does not even try to pretend to be a good man. He does not go to church, does not quote the Bible, does not do good deeds, does not even hide his cruelty (in fact it's a big attraction for many voters). Unlike some others, the Trumps never put on a show in which Trump would say in pained voice that he strayed in the past and Melania would say that despite deep hurt from his totally unexpected unfaithfulness she fully forgave him because their love for each other is greater than all that. His defense against accusation of rape was not "I would never do that!" but "she's not my type". That was actually a lie, but a very revealing one.
Imagine if Trump was more circumspect about his dealings with Putin. Imagine if Vance smoothly delivered a bland speech full of platitudes about shared values and importance of alliances, only very gently chided the Europeans with a sole example of a praying abortion protester, denounced Russian aggression and atrocities (while sadly acknowledging the necessity of making unspecified compromises), and afterwards had polite conversations with Scholz and Merz. All that would have provided enough of a fig leaf for Germany and virtually all countries to the west of it to pretend that Trump's difference with his predecessors was more on style than substance, that all would be back to normal when Vance was elected president (or replaced Trump even sooner), and that Europe just needed to try to along with Trump.
But no, Trump, Vance and Musk did not even try to hide their sympathies for Putin and fascists. The Europeans can't pretend anymore that everything is OK. They may not yet do anything about it, but they can't complain later that they were deceived. Whatever happens now, is on them.
On Election Night I had a feeling that we no longer live in post-WWII world but in pre-WWIII world.