Europe’s Reality Check
February 20, 2025
By: Matthew Blackburn
As Donald Trump negotiates with Russia, Europe needs statesmanship and strategic thinking rather than knee-jerk emotive rhetoric and moral panic.
Europe’s weakness has never been so openly on display. President Donald Trump has shattered the existing framework of Western support for Ukraine. America has officially abandoned a hugely costly and failed nineteen-year quest to expand NATO into Ukraine. The commitment to ensuring Kyiv regains its pre-2014 territory is now canceled. The United States will neither send troops to Ukraine nor extend Article 5 to any Western “peacekeepers” deployed there.
Europe is now expected to foot the bill of defending and rebuilding Ukraine while America seeks to recoup some of the $175 billion it has spent on the war with a deal granting it ownership of Ukrainian rare earth minerals. According to Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia Keith Kellogg, Europe won’t even have a decisive say in the deal America makes to end the war. At an emergency summit in Paris called straight after a traumatic Munich Security Conference, Europe’s leaders could not agree among themselves on any new common position.
For Europe’s pro-Ukraine commentariat, this is nothing short of a nightmare. They, as well as most European leaders, have spent three years ignoring or outright denying every sign that the West is unable to defeat Russia in Ukraine. At every juncture, they wanted to spin the roulette wheel of escalation “just one more time” to weaken Russia.
They systematically ignored the evidence of Ukraine’s military decline and still call for yet more support. Their support for Ukraine was once encapsulated by the phrase, “We stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.” In 2024, it shifted to “Ukraine is on an irreversible pathway to NATO, and we must put them in the strongest possible negotiating position.” Now, in 2025, there is a third version: “No negotiations on Ukraine without Ukraine” and “peace through strength.”
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/europes-reality-check
