London-even before the extraordinary office of the Oval office among Presidents Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, relations between Washington and Europe were dramatically dishonored.
Now, after Friday’s diplomatic implosion between Trump, Zelenskyy and vice president JD Vance, it is not clear what the return path could be for the transatlantic alliance built in the last 80 years.
The European leaders aligned to support Zelenskyy in an effective rebuke for Trump, who told his Ukrainian counterpart that he was being “disrespectful” and “games of chance with World War II” defending his country against the invasion of Russia.
“The dignity of Zelenskyy honors the courage of the Ukrainian people,” the European president, Ursula von der Leyen, published in X. “Be strong, be brave, be brave. You are never alone, Dear President Zelenskyy. We will continue working with you for a fair and lasting peace.”
Friedrich Merz, the probable next leader of Germany, wrote that “we should never confuse aggressor and victim in this terrible war.” While the French president, Emmanuel Macron, said it was essential to respect the Ukraine “fighting for their dignity, independence, for their children and for the security of Europe.”
Perhaps the most surprising, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the European Union, Kaja Kallas, said that “today it was clear that the free world needs a new leader. It depends on us, Europeans, take this challenge. “
Not everyone agreed, of course. Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, published that during the “Difficult” Oval Office meeting, Trump “bravely put on peace.” And other observers criticized Zelenskyy on the other hand in the exchange, saying that he would unnecessar and publicly increased the temperature with a much more senior negotiation partner on which it is based.
But for the supporters of Zelenskyy, these European figures so passionately defend Ukraine because they see it as much more than an internal conflict in the frigid fields of Eastern Europe.
Putin’s invasion is part of a much larger hybrid war, they say, from the Ukrainian battlefield to cyber attacks on Western democracy. They fear that giving Kremlin a symbolic victory in Ukraine can only be emboldened to Russia to expand this assault elsewhere. Doublably, when they accuse Trump of undermining the alliance by covering his allies and approaching Putin, widely vilified in Europe as a war criminal.
This strength of feeling explains why transatlantic relationships were splinning before Friday’s iniphematic scenes. In fact, during the last weeks, there have been increasing signs that European powers have finally decided to free themselves from their dependence on the postwar period of the United States.
“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve the independence of the United States,” said Merz after his party of the Central Right Christian Democratic Union won the German elections on Sunday. He questioned whether the June Summit of NATO would still see the alliance “in its current form or if we will have to establish an independent European defense capacity much faster.”
It was an amazing statement of a conservative American, indicating not only one willingness to spend more in defense, a common demand of Trump, but a desire to do so alone.
“I never thought I would have to say such a television program,” he said.
There are innumerable uncertainties about how all this could work. Would the new military independence of Europe mean spending parity with the United States within NATO? Macron and Starmer, for example, say they don’t want to reduce their cooperation with Washington. Or would American participation in the continent decrease or would even disappear completely?
Anyway, the scale of the challenge is vast. The US army is so deeply rooted in Europe that its elimination would leave “huge holes” in air defense, military satellites and cyberspace, said Sven Biscop, director of the Egmont Institute, a group of experts in Brussels.
Since World War II, the United States agreed to protect the military in decline in Europe against Russia about the understanding that in return he has been able to spread hard and soft American power through the continent and beyond. Disregarding this symbiosis will take hundreds of billions of dollars, probably with the position of European taxpayers already wrapped in a crisis and costs of cost of living to public services.
The combined defense budget of the EU last year, $ 457 billion, was eclipsed by that of the United States, $ 968 billion. The total of Russia, $ 462 billion, was also larger, despite its much smaller economy, since it has restructured its entire economy in a war base since Ukraine invaded three years ago.
It will take “at least 5 years” for Europe “to completely deter Russia without any contribution from the United States,” said Luigi Scazzieri, deputy director of the European Reform Center, a group of experts in London. “I can probably get something that fills a large part of the vacuum in 2-3 years, but only very urgently.”
Regardless of these practical mountains, Merz’s comments showed a “understanding that we are in a new era of transatlantic relations,” said Sophia Bestch, a fellow of major Europe at Carnegie Dotment for International Peace, a group of Washington experts.
The Trump Administration “no longer recognizes the shared community of values, the shared interests and presents a very ‘great power competition’ vision, where Europe is a parallel and Russia player is the same,” Besch said.
The German leader leader is far from being alone. He has a traveling companion in Macron, who for years has argued that Europe needs to end its Washington dependence. “We are experiencing a historical moment,” he said Monday in response to Merz’s Oberturas. “It can lead to an unprecedented Franco-German agreement.”
Biscop believes that these leaders should form something similar to a European “war cabinet around which to organize this new autonomy. He joins them, he believes, he should be British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, NATO general secretary Mark Rutte, and von der Leyen of the EU.
“They need agility and need to move fast,” he said. “Even faster in Ukraine, because Americans and Russians are already negotiating.”
