US secretary of state Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff left their meeting with the Russian delegation in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday mildly pleased with how the discussions went. Witkoff, who has fast become one of president Donald Trump’s most trusted emissaries, called the session “positive, upbeat, constructive”. Washington and Moscow agreed to establish a mechanism through which long-term disputes between the two countries – of which there are many – can be worked on. Ending the war in Ukraine is first and foremost.
The meeting sounded more constructive than the one the Europeans held among themselves in Paris a day earlier. The last two days have resembled a split-screen, with the Americans on one side getting down to the business at hand and the Europeans still trying to come up with a common position about the war on the other. The summit hastily organised by French president Emmanuel Macron was meant to be a unifying moment for the continent and an opportunity to make big decisions. But outside a family photo-op, where some of the delegations looked less than happy to be there, the suited heads-of-state appeared to leave with as many questions as they came with.
We hear a lot these days about security guarantees for Ukraine. If there is anything the Trump administration and the Europeans can come to a consensus on, it’s that such assurances are critical if the West wants any diplomatic settlement to last for more than a few weeks or months. But Europe shouldn’t assume that the US military will be underwriting this security guarantee; the US, after all, has other priorities around the world, the most important of which is crafting an effective balancing strategy against China in the Indo-Pacific.
The problem, however, is that European governments seem to be treading water. Some, like Germany, don’t want to discuss a European-led reassurance force in Ukraine at all; the response of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who could very well be out of a job by next week, was openly hostile. Poland is one of Ukraine’s most vocal supporters and has been throughout the conflict, but it remains uninterested in deploying its own troops to the country to enforce a hypothetical ceasefire. Italy, Spain and Denmark are reticent as well, with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni appearing to question whether other security arrangements are more likely to be effective.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was on the opposite side of the table on this issue, making it plain in these pages that he is willing to deploy British soldiers on Ukrainian soil if that is what is required to keep the peace. Starmer, however, maintained that the US would still need to play a central role. As the PM made clear on Monday, a “US security guarantee was the only way to effectively deter Russia” from re-starting the war again.
Read between the lines and it becomes clear what Starmer was getting at: without the Americans, Europe simply doesn’t possess the strength or the political will to meet the biggest moment in European security since the height of the Cold War. It’s a remarkable indictment of the continent’s defences and reaffirms an ingrained belief held in US foreign policy circles, both among committed transatlanticists and those more sceptical of the status-quo, that Nato is totally dependent on US military backing to survive.
Of course, this is a conclusion that the Trump administration made long ago. Trump, after all, was yelling about the inability of the Europeans to protect themselves without American largesse years before he ran for president. Taking Europe by the lapels and shaking them to get their act together was a feature of his first administration, even if he did very little policy-wise to actually change the status-quo – the US military presence in Europe was roughly the same in January 2021 as when he entered office.
Yet if Europe is praying that Trump’s second administration will follow in the footsteps of his first, it’s making a potentially huge mistake. Trump 2.0 is less than a month old, but it doesn’t take a genius to grasp that European security – or more accurately, protecting Europe like a helpless child in a cruel, at times dystopian world – is not at the top of Trump’s list of priorities.
Senior US officials, from defence secretary Pete Hegseth and vice-president JD Vance to envoy Keith Kellogg, used the multi-day event in Munich last week to drill home a single point: the US can’t be everywhere and be expected to do everything for Europe just because it always has done. It was a stern message that rubbed polite society the wrong way but a message that had to be delivered regardless.
European governments will likely use the weeks and months ahead spending whatever diplomatic capital they have left to enlist Washington in any security arrangement for Ukraine. What they should do instead is heed the words coming out of the president’s mouth. Because on this issue, he means what he says.
Daniel DePetris is a defence writer
US secretary of state Marco Rubio, national security adviser Mike Waltz and special envoy Steve Witkoff left their meeting with the Russian delegation in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday mildly pleased with how the discussions went. Witkoff, who has fast become one of president Donald Trump’s most trusted emissaries, called the session “positive, upbeat, constructive”. Washington and Moscow agreed to establish a mechanism through which long-term disputes between the two countries – of which there are many – can be worked on. Ending the war in Ukraine is first and foremost.
The meeting sounded more constructive than the one the Europeans held among themselves in Paris a day earlier. The last two days have resembled a split-screen, with the Americans on one side getting down to the business at hand and the Europeans still trying to come up with a common position about the war on the other. The summit hastily organised by French president Emmanuel Macron was meant to be a unifying moment for the continent and an opportunity to make big decisions. But outside a family photo-op, where some of the delegations looked less than happy to be there, the suited heads-of-state appeared to leave with as many questions as they came with.
We hear a lot these days about security guarantees for Ukraine. If there is anything the Trump administration and the Europeans can come to a consensus on, it’s that such assurances are critical if the West wants any diplomatic settlement to last for more than a few weeks or months. But Europe shouldn’t assume that the US military will be underwriting this security guarantee; the US, after all, has other priorities around the world, the most important of which is crafting an effective balancing strategy against China in the Indo-Pacific.
The problem, however, is that European governments seem to be treading water. Some, like Germany, don’t want to discuss a European-led reassurance force in Ukraine at all; the response of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who could very well be out of a job by next week, was openly hostile. Poland is one of Ukraine’s most vocal supporters and has been throughout the conflict, but it remains uninterested in deploying its own troops to the country to enforce a hypothetical ceasefire. Italy, Spain and Denmark are reticent as well, with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni appearing to question whether other security arrangements are more likely to be effective.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was on the opposite side of the table on this issue, making it plain in these pages that he is willing to deploy British soldiers on Ukrainian soil if that is what is required to keep the peace. Starmer, however, maintained that the US would still need to play a central role. As the PM made clear on Monday, a “US security guarantee was the only way to effectively deter Russia” from re-starting the war again.
Read between the lines and it becomes clear what Starmer was getting at: without the Americans, Europe simply doesn’t possess the strength or the political will to meet the biggest moment in European security since the height of the Cold War. It’s a remarkable indictment of the continent’s defences and reaffirms an ingrained belief held in US foreign policy circles, both among committed transatlanticists and those more sceptical of the status-quo, that Nato is totally dependent on US military backing to survive.
Of course, this is a conclusion that the Trump administration made long ago. Trump, after all, was yelling about the inability of the Europeans to protect themselves without American largesse years before he ran for president. Taking Europe by the lapels and shaking them to get their act together was a feature of his first administration, even if he did very little policy-wise to actually change the status-quo – the US military presence in Europe was roughly the same in January 2021 as when he entered office.
Yet if Europe is praying that Trump’s second administration will follow in the footsteps of his first, it’s making a potentially huge mistake. Trump 2.0 is less than a month old, but it doesn’t take a genius to grasp that European security – or more accurately, protecting Europe like a helpless child in a cruel, at times dystopian world – is not at the top of Trump’s list of priorities.
Senior US officials, from defence secretary Pete Hegseth and vice-president JD Vance to envoy Keith Kellogg, used the multi-day event in Munich last week to drill home a single point: the US can’t be everywhere and be expected to do everything for Europe just because it always has done. It was a stern message that rubbed polite society the wrong way but a message that had to be delivered regardless.
European governments will likely use the weeks and months ahead spending whatever diplomatic capital they have left to enlist Washington in any security arrangement for Ukraine. What they should do instead is heed the words coming out of the president’s mouth. Because on this issue, he means what he says.
Daniel DePetris is a defence writer