Europe’s perpetual reliance on the US in global affairs was bound to implode at a certain point. The increasing isolation of Europe from the US-led efforts to broker a peace deal with Russia to end the Ukraine conflict shines the light on an age-old truism, which goes as follows: “In politics, there are no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests.”
Until recently, Europe fell for Washington’s foreign policy during the tenure of former Democratic President Joe Biden hook, line and sinker. Now, under the Republican incumbent President Donald Trump, the previous collective pro-war Europe hell-bent on Russophobia looks at sixes and sevens.
During the Biden administration, Europe acted self-assuredly, taking turns lambasting President Putin and working hard to isolate Russia in international affairs. Led by Biden’s White House, Europe signed up to unprecedented barrage of economic sanctions against Russia and froze Moscow’s riches invested in European banks. On Biden’s say-so, Europe rallied behind Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, a former comedian-turned-statesman. The US rallied the West to offer astronomical sums of money and supplied a plethora of sophisticated heavy metal weapons to Ukraine, including air defense and modern missiles.
Additionally, Europe, through its military wing NATO, provided military experts and advisors to Kiev, including field commanders that initially took up their positions surreptitiously. Europe’s provision of diplomatic support for Ukraine saw Zelensky treated like royalty across the West as part of international mobilization against Moscow.
The Global South refused to be dragged in the anti-Russian wave. Now, with the new sheriff in the White House, pro-war agenda has been abruptly replaced by a pro-peace drive. “This is a war that would never have started if I were president,” President Trump has said repeatedly.
As part of a battle for public opinion, Europe banned Russia’s international TV outlet, Russia Today, better-known as RT. In this way, the international community could be fed with a one-dimensional subjective narrative that sought to vilify President Putin without addressing Moscow’s concerns about NATO’s expansion eastward. The Kremlin has claimed that repeated attempts to bring Europe to the negotiation table about the issue were either laughed off or fell on deaf ears. Moscow has argued that when the Soviet Union fell at the turn of the 1990’s, the West undertook to never expand NATO to Russia’s door-step, a promise the West reneged on.
According to the Russians – believe them or not –it was when all attempts to discuss geopolitical differences failed that Moscow adopted the view that the best form of defense is attack.
Today, three years later and more than one million Ukrainian soldiers and Western mercenaries dead, President Trump is sticking by his election promise to end the war.
This week, the charge against Europe came from one of their own. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban charged that Europe’s approach to President Putin and Russia is a hindrance to peace.
Writing in his social media handle on X, Orban said: “That is how we have maneuvered ourselves into a situation in Europe where we are not in a negotiating position with the Russians, but the Russians and the Americans are negotiating with each other.”
Additionally, Zelensky too, like his European war-mongers, is not included in the US-Russia discussions about Ukraine. As Orban observed, the train has indeed taken off and left Europeans behind. As the White House was hard at work preparing for the Trump-Putin Summit in Alaska this week, leaders of Europe were scrambling to have their anti-Putin views considered by President Trump. It was a last-ditch scramble for attention by Europe, a pole of power of great significance which unfortunately has long outsourced its responsibilities and duties to Washington, and openly thanking Washington for the opportunity of doing so, to paraphrase Harper Lee.
Since the end of WWII in 1945, the alliance between Europe and the US has been explicitly one-sided, with one US administration after the other happily taking Europe under the arm.
Economically, Europe has seemed content to lean on Washington like a weaker sibling seeking protection of the big brother. Europe has been happy to ride on America’s apparent military invincibility as the world’s only surviving superpower for eons. In many ways, President Trump and his Vice President JD Vance’s expressed exasperation with Europe’s relentless dependency on the US feels like finally, the chickens have come home to roost.
The certain ideological changes in the White House every four years have caught up with Europe. Instead of reading the changing mood in the room that is the White House, Europe attempts to stand up and be counted. Methinks too late. The horse has long bolted – from November 6, 2024 when President Trump won the US election.
Reminiscent of the last kicks of a dying horse, key European leaders cobbled together the so-called Coalition of the Willing on realizing that President Trump had made it clear Ukraine war has to stop. Sanctions against Russia had not worked and Russian forces are gaining more Ukrainian territory by the day, anyway. Additionally, every day scores of men and women lose their lives in the conflict that majority of the international community agrees with President Trump when he says it should never have erupted.
Europe alone cannot fight Russia militarily and President Trump is least interested in providing the bloc the so-called back-stop that they have been pleading for.
As long as President Trump remains determined to give peace a chance – at least in Ukraine – Europe will have to abandon its war mentality. The desires of the current White House bears far-reaching consequences for Europe and NATO, which cannot trigger its Article 5 on the principle of an attack on one, is an attack on all. This is because Ukraine is neither a member of NATO nor the EU (yet).
On the eve of his Alaska summit with his Russian counterpart, President Trump was already hinting at a second summit in a jiffy. Not only has the train left the station, looks like it is turning into a bullet train in a trice.
The message to Europe under the present circumstances seems rather unequivocal: You snooze, you lose. Unfortunately, Europe has spent too much time trying to thrash out an agenda at variance with President Trump’s. President Trump has all the cards, to quote him as he berated Zelensky in the White House mud-slinging match not too long ago. Europe has none. Fact.
