8.10.25
It’s always good to keep the field open for the most optimistic outcomes, but US President Donald Trump’s meeting with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, has all the hallmarks of yet another capitulation. Russia is demanding that Ukraine cede territory it hasn’t even lost and that it gives up areas that were taken from it. The apparently endless circularity of Trump’s deadlines, followed by weak retreat seem to have now reached their apotheosis of a potentially monumental betrayal of Ukraine in Alaska. However, there is no need to wait and speculate on what Trump may or may not try to agree with Russia. The US is not the only world power with a vast GDP and military capability that can defend Ukraine. Europe now faces an historic test of its resolve, its courage and its credibility. Before Friday, Europe must surely step in and offer guarantees to Ukraine, indeed to the world, that it will arm and support Ukraine until victory and that the concession of territory, or any other degradation of Ukraine, will not be an acceptable outcome of the Alaskan meeting. Europe must make clear to Trump that either he delivers an agreement that ends the war on favorable terms to Ukraine, or both he, and the US, will be rendered irrelevant in the subsequent developments. Europe has the ability and wherewithal to take this posture, but will it do so? Its behavior does not give much hope.
Europe has stepped up its support for Ukraine in recent months, but it still lacks that edge, that urgency of a continent that grasps the enormous bloodshed and chaos that will result if Ukraine is defeated. Putin of course knows all this. He feels confident that he can turn up in Alaska and play the game with no concern for the European response. Europe’s vassal-like behavior has reduced the whole spectacle to a wrestling match between Russia and the US in which European power is all but irrelevant. Europe should state its position clearly and simply. Russia launched an unprovoked war of aggression, and we will not live in a world in which the new rule is that if you invade a country and hold its territory for three and a half years, you get to keep it. This, does it even need to be stated, is a game plan for global disaster. If Russia can get Trump to agree to cede just one meter square of Ukraine without consequence, then that’s a meter square that Russia never had. So clearly the lesson is to repeat this cycle. Fail now, and Europe will not get another chance to right it at any foreseeable time. All that follows for the years to come will be constructed on the assumption that Europe is a diminutive influence in the future of the world. The consequences, for Ukraine, could be calamitous and on that score, Europe will win nothing but infamy.