Translated from GegenStandpunkt 2-2025

Trump calls off the Ukraine war –
Europe sticks to its policy of incompatibility with Russia

I. MAGA dismantles the West

1. The US government is settling its scores with the Ukraine war

Ending the Ukraine War is high on Donald Trump’s foreign policy agenda. On the campaign trail, he already promised to immediately end it, within one day, and with him in power, it wouldn’t have started in the first place.

The interesting thing about the first statement is his political judgment on the war. Trump doesn’t mean that the job America undertook under his predecessor has been adequately completed and can therefore be ended. He considers America’s involvement there over the past three years to be utterly wrong. Therefore, the second statement doesn’t mean to say that America’s deterrent power against its main enemy has failed in Ukraine, but clarifies: Under Biden’s presidency the warring parties there failed to show their respect for America as the force for peace. And even more: Trump’s predecessor steered his country into a war that wasn’t America's concern from the start. Three years of war without any tangible progress, especially without any apparent benefit for America, but instead a damage caused by squandering beautiful US weapons and billions of dollars, are proof of this. Under Biden, America allowed itself to be embroiled in and exploited for an enterprise that is none of the world power’s business.

So Trump isn’t giving up on the war, let alone conceding defeat. If he meets with Putin and demonstratively goes over the heads of the Ukrainians and their European sponsors to negotiate with Russia on a ceasefire that is to be followed by a peace agreement, then he revokes the entire purpose and strategic content that the Biden administration gave to its course of action against “Putin’s war of aggression” and pursued in Ukraine: It was and still remains a mistake to view the Russian military action against Kyiv as an attack on a peace that America would be responsible for preserving and restoring, and which it has to defend with unrelenting intervention, with indirect warfare right up to the brink of a direct confrontation that could lead to world war; as if the US were obliged to do this in order to maintain its status as the world power. The very war that the US has led indirectly but from a commanding position, sponsored and orchestrated together with its NATO allies for three years, is indeed over with Trump’s announcement – as promised, from the first day of the new presidency. The fighting in Ukraine continues; and the US is still involved, providing intelligence and delivering firmly promised weapons, as well as continuing the sanctions against Russia; a certain degree of damage continues to be inflicted on Russia. But it’s no longer about gradually weakening Russia’s power in Europe. Ukraine is no longer an outpost in a struggle between the US and its Western allies with their unbearable Eastern adversary. What is it instead?

Trump’s calling off of the Ukraine war reinterprets it retrospectively, and redefines it prospectively – almost a bit ironic in the sense of the official Western maxim of aid given in solidarity with the poor victim of unprovoked Russian aggression – as a local armed conflict between the great Russian Federation and a Ukrainian state that is essentially incapable of waging war. That’s what the war is now, because America will have nothing more to do with it. It may not yet be completely out of the game. Disentangling its practical involvement will take time for the US, as will finding a new way to relate to the case. Defining and developing its interests in the region and its leaders is underway; so is the appropriate handling of the disruption that the ongoing war represents. But that means: Trump’s America is no longer a party to the war, let alone Russia’s direct adversary in it. It has inherited a political mistake that must be ended and reversed as quickly as possible. Its decisive role is to be an interested party that knows how to make the best use of both warring sides, Russia and Ukraine, once their bloody quarrels are over. This is what it is committed to.

For this reason and in this sense, the US government is negotiating peace with Russia and Ukraine. And this means opposite things for both sides.

Trump doesn’t negotiate a peace agreement between Russia and the US with Putin because, in his view, there is not really a war between them to be ended. It’s about ending a senseless obstruction of American access to the region – an obstruction which Russia, after all, plays a rather significant role in. Therefore, a certain amount of pressure needs to be put on Putin. Hence, the subject matter of negotiations is not just the rosy prospect of mutual cooperation; in this respect, the sanctions that are part of the West’s economic war aren’t bad at all. While they no longer aim to ruin the aggressor, they may be useful for building the desired prosperous relations with the world’s largest country, which certainly has a lot to offer for an America becoming great again. In this sense, America’s continued involvement in the war can also be useful: as leverage against Putin, so that the peace between the feuding Slavic brothers ultimately becomes productive for MAGA.

With the American redefinition of its war, Ukraine, on the other hand, has lost everything it has fought for, and intends to continue to fight for, with the power it has borrowed as a proxy of strategic Western interests, after having already lost much of its land, much of its people, and its national wealth. The peace settlement sought by the US government does not include the restoration of its status as a Western frontline state against Russia or compensation for war losses. Instead, it entails the final loss of Crimea, the loss of the eastern oblasts that have been, or to the extent they have been, occupied by Russia, no prospect of NATO membership, and no security guarantee from the US. Looking back, the new American policy considers Ukraine’s entire war program, derived from Western imperialist interests, to be one of the foreign, un-American purposes that the Biden administration committed itself to, at a loss to the American taxpayer. Looking forward, the Ukrainians’ sovereign determination is merely the annoying claim to continue managing their statehood at America’s expense, far beyond their own capabilities, and to wage war for this end. This is the political content of the lecture that Ukraine’s president was openly given in the White House: He is entirely dependent on external support.[1] And if he in all seriousness believes that the US can be won over to defeat Russia in the interest of Ukraine’s sovereignty, then he must be confronted with the absurdity of his intention: that he assumes he can drive the world power into World War III for the sake of the existence of his impotent state.

Ukraine can rely on only one thing with regard to the peace that Trump wants to bestow in it: his interest in something useful and long-lasting that results for America from it.[2] What the Ukrainian president can expect from this is – so far – firstly a swap: selling off the country’s natural resources as far as Kyiv’s power reaches – in combination with a pledge to invest the proceeds into a fund for the reconstruction of the war-torn country – to get, in return, security against a Russian conquest, which will result from the presence of the US as an owner of Ukrainian property.[3] Secondly, the Ukrainian leadership finds itself emboldened by America’s interest in proper business relations to urge the Russian enemy to agree to a rapid, unconditional ceasefire from which it hopes to secure – if not the recovery of lost territories, then at least – a halt to the Russian advances on the front and a prevention of further devastation. On occasion, the MAGA team reminds Ukraine of the poor hand all this gives it, and cautions it as the US is the only power that can enforce something like a ceasefire, and to that extent preserve Ukraine as a sovereign nation. But should new demands be made and conditions be put forward again, the US will be out of the entire business immediately.

This unfriendly signal is at the same time explicitly directed at the European friends and supporters of an autonomous, anti-Russian Ukraine.[4]

2. The US government revokes its insurance coverage for its European allies

After all, when the US and its NATO partners entered into an increasingly fierce proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, this was not just another joint action by selectively cooperating powers, but a prominent case of their alliance. The subject matter and objective of this war was defending the American-European power to determine power relations in the world of nations against the Russian attack that took place in Ukraine, but was on the Western quasi-sovereign monopoly on the use of force. The way the war was conducted was an organized show of force by the Western alliance unlike anything seen since the demise of the USSR, in an increasingly escalatory fight against the Russian Federation that threatened to use nuclear weapons, and thus made permanent recourse to the deterrent American nuclear arsenal. By calling off the war in Ukraine, the Trump administration is terminating this allied configuration which the West has been practicing in Ukraine since February 2022. It releases Russia from its status as the main strategic adversary that has to be fought on account of its nuclear arsenal, thereby depriving the alliance of its foundation. And this not only applies to the case in question, but to the alliance in general, as the European partners have to learn. In ruling out Ukraine’s membership in NATO with its ominous unconditional defense obligation in the event of war, the Trump administration still makes a distinction between internal and external alliance obligations.[5] But the MAGA president does not fool himself nor his NATO partners that the US can be expected to quasi-automatically enter into war in Europe, if necessary even to the point of employing strategic nuclear weapons – something that has always been dubious and doubted by the European side, though it has repeatedly been promised politically and prepared for militarily. Even if the US has – not yet – left the alliance, its complaint about a deceitful Europe freeloading off American security guarantees is clear enough: Trump’s attack on the partners’ extremely insufficient contributions to the NATO war chest, i.e. compensation of the US for its enormous expenditures and decades-long commitment, is clearly not calculated on the assumption that, once these fictitious debts have been settled, America would then stand in again to defend every square inch of European alliance territory. True, even under Trump, Europe remains of particular interest to the US as a co-imperialist power and strategic outpost on the other side of the Atlantic. By calling off the war in Ukraine, however, the new president has made it crystal clear that not only this war but the confrontation between NATO Europeans and Russia is altogether their business, and no longer directly America’s. The confrontation building up between ambitious allies who in truth are overreaching rivals, and an unwieldy adversary that commands over interesting resources, will not involve the US as a party; in the worst case, it is a regional accident that must be treated as such – namely, done away with.

The reason for this change of position, as the administration makes known, is that the MAGA nation has other, bigger worries than protecting Europe from Russia: It is the People’s Republic of China that is now being identified as the primary strategic challenge, as America’s new existential security problem.[6] The Europeans are, of course, also faced with this threat. But this definitely does not translate into an interest in an alliance in which the principle of “one for all, all for one” actually applies, which was once guaranteed in NATO by the entire alliance structure and which was never tested but had serious political meaning.

3. The US administration ends the old world order and proclaims and programs a new one

This old alliance has not only, after all, defeated its former principal enemy against which it was founded. Beyond preparing for combat, it secured the supreme global power of the United States, and for its allies it opened up their exceptionally useful, unrestricted access to the sovereign states of this world: it secured the system of competition of all against all which, in its traditional version, has been praised to the present day by its European beneficiaries as the miracle of a “rules-based world order.” It is truly a collaborative enterprise, given that the reason of state of the world’s sovereigns is based on being locations for capital, the everyday life of their competition revolves around participation in the growth of the global markets for goods and money, and their materialism has its essence and binding measure not merely in money in general, but in the US dollar as the ultimate substance of global capitalist wealth. All this is based on the fact that the major capitalist powers, the Europeans first and foremost, together with the United States as their recognized leading power, give and continue to give the world of states no alternative for their survival. The fact that this lack of alternatives functions so relentlessly as an entire system of civil, and especially brutal, capitalist constraints has, in turn, a reason that is by no means civil: With NATO and with allies around it, in cooperation with states of the same kind and ever prepared for war, the US created an omnipresent military power which has in various successful combat missions and with its deterrence effectively prevented any use of state force by others who seek to reverse their national dependencies in a way that threatens this system of competition. Thus, with the creation of the ‘West’ in a collective of imperialists, the US has secured for itself a globally effective quasi-monopoly on the use of force. Even though this has always been a contradictory success, it has been functional for decades and so profitable for America that the new president is now setting out to emancipate his country from this contradictory business basis of its imperialism. He rejects the imperialist collectivism that has become a reality in the form of NATO as a virtual global war alliance, and even more so the ensemble of genuinely supranational or pseudo-supranational institutions and bodies that have emerged from this foundation. From the MAGA perspective of the new administration, this entire system of interdependencies and obligations, with its effective service to America’s greatness, has not only outlived its utility; from this perspective, it appears as a system of entanglements that prevent America from building up the power it truly is, entirely through its own strength and perfection. The results of this collaborative ‘Western’ imperialism belong to the strongest and serve as the starting point for a new golden age for America and the entire world. As Trump put it in his inaugural speech:

“As Commander in Chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions. And that’s exactly what I’m going to do. We’re going to do it at a level no one has ever seen before...We’re going to measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars we end. And, perhaps most importantly, by the wars we never get into. My proudest legacy will be that of a peacemaker and unifier...America will reclaim its rightful place as the greatest, most powerful, and most respected nation on Earth, commanding the awe and admiration of the entire world...Our power will stop all wars and bring a new spirit of unity to a world that has been furious, violent, and completely unpredictable.”

The histrionic tone is fitting for a declaration of independence in which the global power redefines itself and its relationship to the world of states, meaning: It is not America that turns to the world of states with unfulfilled demands that it cannot possibly fulfill alone, possibly in the name of higher international legal claims, as if it still had to remedy any deficiencies in its incontestable supremacy in matters of wealth and power. This country does not suffer from deficits. As the global power that it has become, it simply takes for granted that it is “the most powerful nation on earth,” and that other nations have no choice but to relate to this fact in “awe” and with respect and, in doubt, with subservience. Trump does not make demands, but defines; he does not order, but proclaims America’s definition of itself as the reality that any state must reasonably deal with. No nation has the right to take disruptive, arbitrary actions; these are, in Trump’s speech, the wars that simply have no place in America’s world. For Ukraine, this means: claims that are asserted militarily and exceed its own power and capacity are simply unacceptable and will be ended. For Russia, this means: the nation may do what it can, but if America does not like it and if American interests suffer as a result, then Russia must heed reality and stop it. For Europe, this means: A war based on mutual obligations is completely out of the question because using the world power for such a purpose violates its principle of absolute freedom of action. And the examples set in these three cases apply to all the world’s sovereigns: They are all directly related to God’s own country; and when they all align their activities accordingly with their direct relationship to the world power, then all the ugly excesses between them will retreat behind competing for Trump’s favor, and everything will be completely predictable. This is MAGA’s new global peace. Or in other words: America needs no one; it approaches all states at its own discretion and for its own benefit to make them provide the services they have to offer – to the mutual benefit of all. By respecting America’s superiority, the competition between sovereigns is unleashed, based on what they can accomplish through their own strength. This does not impose a global order or a body of international law on them, but the free and selfish use of their national potential – as far as this reaches, and as far as they follow the rationality of opportunism toward the global power. The politics of MAGA does not organize a system of international rights and duties or considerations, but becomes effective through its success.

But woe betide those who fail to deliver success!

II. Europe’s response: Europe adheres to its decision to be incompatible with Russia while offering to serve America’s desire for peace.

The Europeans categorically reject the plan for a peace deal which is essentially agreed between Trump and Putin themselves, and their degradation as the powers that have so far played a decisive role in shaping Europe’s peace order under US supremacy. They firmly denounce Russia and give the Ukrainian president a pat on the back in solidarity, and they diplomatically insist at every opportunity that Russia is the inhumane, brutal aggressor that invaded Ukraine in order to annex it. They place great emphasis on radicalizing their perception of the enemy: No one is safe from this enemy’s lust for power and drive to conquer, least of all the dear and good homelands of Europe. They tirelessly implore their former American ally in the run-up to possible peace negotiations to make Trump, Wittkoff, Rubio, etc., understand that “Russia doesn’t want peace,” neither in Ukraine nor in Europe. So even before the peace negotiations have begun and a concrete peace deal has been laid out, and regardless of its details, they make it clear to Russia and the dealmaker in the White House that they will maintain their enmity to Putin’s Russia under any circumstances. They declare their security – in plain language: the ever-increasing expansion of their politico-economic and militarily-backed power up to Russia’s borders – to be fundamentally incompatible, now and in the future, with “Putin’s neo-imperialism,” or in plain words: the will and military capabilities of the nuclear-armed Russian power to defend itself in a war against its encirclement. Security in Europe is only possible for the Europeans if Russia recognizes their supremacy over shaping the European peace order.

Trump’s calling off of the shared enmity to Russia and to the “West” in its previous format has put them in a deep dilemma, which they take, on the one hand, as a challenge to assert their security interests against Russia in the future themselves, by their own strength:

“What Trump is saying is: It’s up to you to bear the burden. And I say: It’s up to us to take it on.” (Macron, interview in the Financial Times, February 14, 2025)

They follow up this statement with actions. Actions that, on the other hand, demonstrate how fundamentally Trump’s rejection is thwarting their imperialist claim to power.

1. Europe continues the war in Ukraine: a rearguard action of its own kind for Ukraine as a bulwark of European security interests

In keeping with their declaration of enmity to Russia, the Europeans are determined to continue providing financial and military support to their Ukrainian proxy under their direction within the NATO framework. One thing is clear: “Kiev can no longer expect many more weapons from the US. The Trump administration will only deliver what was ordered under Biden... That will expire in the next few months.” While “the country will at least continue to have access to intelligence data” (FAZ, April 12, 2025), “Europe is heading toward a fundamental decision that is challenging in every respect: Should it support Ukraine alone if America continues to fail? Can it do that at all?” (FAZ, May 21, 2025)

The answer from Europe’s major capitals is yes. The Europeans continue to make Ukraine their battlefield where their security is being defended. They extend their extensive training programs for the Ukrainian army, and they mobilize their national defense budgets for the continued supply of ammunition and other military equipment. All of this takes place within the framework of NATO – after all, the Ukraine war is organized as a proxy war for its Western backers – that is, by utilizing the Alliance’s assets, such as its vital intelligence and communications capabilities as well as its organizational structure. Since the United States, as the main military provider of arms for the Ukraine war, has withdrawn from the Ramstein format in which the arms deliveries had previously been organized, Germany and Great Britain, as scheduled heads of the Ukraine Contact Group, promptly relocate the group to NATO headquarters in Brussels, drumming up no less than a further $21 billion in military aid for Ukraine from the remaining NATO members.

The nature and the extent of their assistance for their proxy, however, reveal what Trump’s downgrading of the Ukraine war to a regional conflict between Russia and Ukraine means for its European sponsors. A Ukrainian counteroffensive has long been off the agenda; the corresponding slogans – “Russia must be defeated,” “must not win,” “Ukraine's territorial integrity must be restored” – have been withdrawn. There are no “red lines” when Putin’s army advances and devastates the country from the air; nor are there any arms deliveries which the Europeans in NATO would use to demonstratively ignore the “red lines” drawn by Putin. What they have to offer are defensive weapons aiming to enable Ukraine to withstand the air strikes and the Russian pressure on the front lines. In Germany, the Taurus cruise missile super-weapon is back in public debate, but more as the means of a long-range air defense strategy for which Germany is even willing to support a future Ukrainian production of standoff weapons. In addition, there are financial resources, particularly from the EU, to enable Ukraine to survive as a state, even after the abolition of USAID. America’s announcement of peace negotiations is appreciated even if it no longer contains any of the remaining minimal goals – no territorial concessions to Russia, nor the prospect of NATO membership for Ukraine. The Europeans’ own peace plan, with which the Europeans aim to secure themselves a decisive role in actual negotiations should they take place, demands little more: “No restrictions on the Ukrainian armed forces,” “Ukraine is striving for EU accession,” “Ukraine will receive solid security guarantees, including from the US (an agreement similar (!) to NATO Article 5)” (Europe’s proposal for an agreement, Reuters, quoted in FAZ, April 26, 2025). The “territorial questions” are postponed until after an “unconditional ceasefire”...

A last element of the counteroffensive launched by the Europeans via the EU is yet another package of sanctions against Russia, the potential ineffectiveness of which is controversially discussed. What is agreed is that a continuation of the economic war against Russia, still carefully proportioned, can only be truly effective if the US joins it. To get America’s support, they pin their hopes on the US Congress: No less than 80 senators would approve the imposition of 500% tariffs on imports from countries that violate the anti-Russia sanctions. The president’s approval is not to be expected, though.[7] And even if he were to favor sanctions against Russia, or at least a serious threat of them, they are, or would be, the instrument of a peace initiative for him that follows the opposite logic of the European intentions. Trump, for his part, insists on ending the “senseless bloodshed” with Putin; and not merely out of grandfatherly empathy for the victims, but because, as a goal-oriented negotiator – over the heads of the Europeans – he can make sense of a ceasefire as the first and decisive step toward a lasting peace agreement. His interest lies in how suitable both Ukraine and Russia are for the politics of MAGA.

“Instead of criticism, Trump spoke on Monday about possible cooperation. Russia wants to engage in ‘large-scale trade’ with the United States after the end of the war, and ‘I agree with that,’ he wrote on his platform. Russia’s potential is ‘limitless.’” (FAZ, May 21, 2025) [8]

2. Europe’s ceasefire diplomacy with Trump

This, however, does not hold the Europeans back. It rather spurs them on to interpret Trump’s desire for peace in their own way. They take it as the starting point for their ongoing strategic interest in continuing to damage the Russian power and diminishing it in confrontation. In line with Trump’s peace plea, insofar as it is critical of Putin, they demand an immediate cessation of Russian aggression and an unconditional ceasefire as a precondition for subsequent peace negotiations. They, in turn, aggressively put forward this demand, certain of a rejection by Putin’s government which does not concede the Europeans a role in any potential talks, especially as long as the West continues to supply weapons to Ukraine. All the more, they insist on playing a part as the competent guarantors of the ceasefire they demand, and a more sustainable ceasefire in particular, which would elevate them into the position of a deterrent power against Russia:

“‘Our objective is clear: we want to secure peace,’ said French President Emmanuel Macron last week after a summit of the heads of state and government in Paris. ‘To achieve this, we must put Ukraine in the best possible negotiating position and ensure that the peace negotiated is solid and lasting for Ukrainians and all Europeans.’” (quoted in euronews, April 2, 2025)

In this spirit, the European NATO partners Great Britain, France, Italy, Poland, and Germany, represented by their Chiefs of Staff, meet in March to develop a “pragmatic and somewhat rough road map” for securing a prospective ceasefire in Ukraine. The broad idea of this road map is to make Russia comply with a potential peace agreement by means of an escalatory, three-tiered deterrence model. This is best fronted, literally, with battle-hardened Ukrainian soldiers: “The most important security guarantee lies in the strength of the Ukrainian army.” (French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu, quoted in FAZ, March 13, 2025)

Behind them stands what really matters: a “reinsurance force,” troops that keep up the confrontation with Russia. What this mission will entail and what its mission will look like remains entirely open for now:

“Under this slogan, internal discussions are underway about stationing approximately 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers on Ukrainian soil, but well away from a ceasefire line... However, it is uncertain whether this number would even materialize... Several participants indicated that there is no clear objective for the mission yet. The options range from training Ukrainian soldiers in their own country or near the border, to a surveillance mission, to a heavily armed force that could intervene in fighting itself if Russia violates a ceasefire” (FAZ, April 11, 2025)

– not least because the Europeans are keen to garner as much global support as possible:

“Macron quickly clarified that the force would not be stationed on the front line as a peacekeeping mission. This task, he suggested, should fall to the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). Instead, Macron said, the reassurance force would be stationed at ‘certain strategic locations’ throughout the country, such as cities, ports, and power plants, and serve as a ‘deterrent’ against Russia. Western troops could be deployed on land, in the air, and at sea. ‘For the time being, nothing is ruled out,’ the French president told reporters.” (euronews, April 2, 2025)

Europe’s strategists are, of course, also taking into account that in their forward-looking “reassurance” efforts, they are dealing with a nuclear power that will not be easily intimidated. This leaves them once again faced with the task of following the US president’s commitment to peace in a way that will somehow allow them to redefine it for their own purposes:

“However, the group still hopes that the US will be involved in the process at some point and provide support to the reassurance force... ‘As I have said throughout, this will require the commitment and support of the United States,’ Starmer said. ‘This is a discussion we have had with the US president on many occasions.’ The British and French representatives are in regular contact with Trump to keep him informed of the coalition’s progress. They portray their work as in the interests of Europe and America, as it will secure the peace agreement Trump is seeking.” (euronews, April 2, 2025)

In practice, however, European diplomats do not expect to gain American support for their nice idea of a militant anti-Russian “reinsurance force.” But perhaps this much: a certain amount of support for the European sanctions policy might be wrested from the deal maker in Washington if they endorse Trump’s peace plea word for word and demand an immediate ceasefire, maneuvering Putin, diplomatically and rhetorically, into the position of the enemy of peace who obstructs every step toward ending the carnage.

Thus, in mid-May, the European leaders (Merz, Starmer, Macron, and Tusk), together with Zelensky, take the initiative, and by threatening to tighten economic sanctions, they set Russia an ultimatum to agree to a – virtually immediately effective – 30-day ceasefire within a week as a precondition for direct negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv. The new German Foreign Minister Wadephul explains:

“‘Germany now expects a ceasefire from Russia and then the willingness to negotiate,’ said Wadephul before the start of the meeting in the ‘Weimar Plus’ format. ‘Ukraine is ready for this,’ said the CDU politician. In this respect, it is now clear that ‘Russia will have to move.’” (Der Spiegel, May 12, 2025)

Neither the Russian nor the American side responds to this. Yet there is always cause for hope, at least for the fully engaged, aggressive media. So after his first 100 days in office, in which Trump, other than as promised, has failed to end the Ukraine war, POTUS’s impatience can be counted on. And indeed, on April 26, Trump writes “on his platform Truth Social, that there was no reason for Russian President Vladimir Putin to fire rockets at civilian areas, cities, and villages in Ukraine in recent days. ‘It makes me think: Maybe he doesn’t even want to end the war, but is just stalling – and needs to be treated differently.’ Trump hinted at consequences: so-called secondary sanctions against third countries and the possibility of further cutting Russia off from the international banking system.” (FAZ, April 28, 2025) But then there is another phone call between the presidents, Trump is thrilled by the good mood – and Europe is disappointed that its belligerent calls for peace have made no impact, not even in regards to sanctions.

But this is not the end of European imperialism. The Europeans take notice of the end of their symbiosis with the superpower as a co-determining collective in the American-led “West” – a second “Zeitenwende” (turning point of history) and one of a more radical nature than the one brought about by Putin's “special military operation” in Ukraine. And they begin to thoroughly redefine themselves.

3. Re-armament against Russia is essential – for Europe’s geopolitical role as a power that enforces order

More than ever, the Europeans see themselves faced with the need to become a conventional military power in the long term. Their imperialist claim to power is simply too ambitious to be content with a peaceful coexistence with the Russian power: The Europeans declare the struggle with Russia over whose security bulwark Ukraine is and whose strategic property the states surrounding Russia are or should become – in other words, the open dispute over who owns Eastern Europe – to be the existential question of the geopolitical reach of their power.

At the EU Council summit in early March, they acknowledge that the geopolitical role of their united Europe as a globally significant order-keeping power is determined by their readiness to fight a war against Russia:

“Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and its impact on European and global security in a changing environment pose an existential challenge for the European Union.” (Conclusions of the European Council, March 6, 2025)

The new White Paper of the European Commission clarifies what is meant by this “existential challenge,” i.e. the imperialist level on which it aspires to define Russia as an intolerable threat:

“Russia will remain a fundamental threat to European security for the foreseeable future, including its more aggressive nuclear posture and the positioning of nuclear weapons in Belarus. Russia exploits a web of systemic instability, including through close cooperation with other authoritarian powers. It constantly fuels tensions and instability in Europe’s neighborhood, be it in the Western Balkans, Georgia, Moldova, or Armenia, and has a growing destabilizing influence in Africa.” (European Commission, Joint White Paper on European Defense Preparedness 2030, March 19, 2025, p. 3-4)

At least since the start of the Ukraine war, the EU, which has long been a strategically offensive economic alliance, has been advancing toward becoming a force for order that has to be ready for war. Russia is violating Europe’s right to count its nearby and far away “neighborhoods” as its future property or sphere of influence, and commands considerable power to challenge this right – and a united Europe will no longer accept this. The Europeans therefore see themselves forced to enable themselves to face up to Russia’s military power on an equal footing:

“We must develop the capability to defend the European continent on our own.” (German Chancellor Merz, FAZ, May 17, 2025)

Europe’s leading powers in particular declare their intention to transform Europe into a collective capable of challenging Russia’s military power in conventional warfare in the near future (by “2030”) by relying on its own resources. In the long run, this collective will independently acquire the superiority it needs to credibly threaten Russia with war. The EU takes the military capabilities of heavyweights like Russia, China, and the US as the benchmark for the scope and quality of arms it needs to satisfy its own pent-up imperialist demand.[9]

With this aim in mind, the Europeans are preparing for the prospect of a direct confrontation with the “aggressive Russian autocrat” which they can carry out with “their own military power.” From Germany, which boasts that Europe’s rearmament is first and foremost a question of its financial strength, to a country like Spain, which has so far attracted unfavorable attention with its low defense spending on NATO but whose head of government is now risking a government crisis simply by increasing the defense budget, and except for the usual suspects like Hungary and Slovakia – every European country is in agreement that they must take their rearmament efforts to a completely new level. At the NATO meeting of foreign ministers in mid-May, they decide in their role as NATO members to “increase defense spending to 3.5% of economic output by 2032 and to devote a further 1.5% to defense related spending, primarily for infrastructure.” (FAZ, May 16, 2025)

To achieve this ambitious goal, the European states – including, under certain conditions, non-EU members like Great Britain, provided they make a contribution – are supported by their highest supranational authorities. These are planning to raise a total of €800 billion for rearmament over the next four years in order to contain and deter Russia’s increasingly “aggressive nuclear posture,” with the goal of driving the formation of their alliance forward to a comprehensive high-level conventional military power. To this end, the European Council of Ministers and the Commission come up with a whole range of incentives for their nations that provide leverage for their steps toward military collectivism by adapting and interpreting the relevant legal framework, as well as by providing credit.[10]

Ukraine, which has already been highly armed as the EU’s front-line state against Russia and is in need of ever more weapons, is firmly embedded in this long-term strategy – irrespective of the EU’s own reservations about Ukraine’s immediate accession to the EU and despite the fact that the US has decidedly ruled out Ukraine’s membership in NATO:

“Ukraine’s defense needs will remain high well beyond a short-term ceasefire or peace agreement. Ukraine will remain at the forefront of European defense and security and is the crucial arena for defining the new international order, in which its own security is intertwined with that of the European Union. The EU and its member states must strengthen Ukraine’s defense and security capabilities through a ‘porcupine strategy’ so that it is able to deter possible further attacks and ensure lasting peace. It is therefore urgently necessary for the EU and its member states to increase their military support to Ukraine.” (White Paper, p. 10)

Ukraine’s de-militarization and “neutrality,” one of Russia’s main war aims in the Ukraine war, is not going to happen with the EU – it starts creating facts on the ground, for example, by increasing cooperation with Ukraine on its arms industry.[11]

The Europeans are also getting active outside the (old) NATO context or the EU to prepare for their arms race with Russia. In particular, the two to five most powerful states in Europe are striking appropriate bilateral strategic deals between themselves with the aim of becoming pioneers in intra-European arms cooperation, among other things. To this end, they are renewing old coalitions like the “Weimar Triangle” and turning up in various newly created formats – sometimes in pairs, sometimes in groups of three, or four, or five, sometimes as a “coalition of the willing” – in Europe and particularly on the global diplomatic stages in Washington, Istanbul, etc., in the run-up to the peace negotiations between the US and Russia.

But whatever role the Europeans take on or whatever configuration they form, one thing is certain: Europe’s new raison d'état puts rearmament on a new level so that it is ready for war against the military power Russia which defies Europe’s status as a globally recognized power. They define Russia as the precedent that leaves them no choice but to rise to the league of powers that are perceived and respected all over the world and that plays a decisive role in global affairs. Russia forces their collective to become a respectable agent of war, which is the independent guarantor of its global imperialist ambitions, one which is equipped with appropriate military strength, the ultimate means of political freedom of action. Every initiative deals with this issue and works toward this goal: Europeans must put themselves in a position where they can autonomously define and assert their European security interests, and the global political and military reach of their power.

4. The hotly debated question of European nuclear weapons

The discussions and the controversies between the major European powers about a genuinely European nuclear umbrella reveal the quality inherent in this European endeavor and the strategic scope it necessarily encompasses. The debate started with the French president’s offer of a French nuclear umbrella for his European partners:

“European states can ‘no longer depend on the American nuclear deterrent,’ he said in a newspaper interview. Therefore, a ‘strategic dialogue’ on the defense of the continent is necessary in Europe. France is the only EU country to have nuclear weapons... Macron said he wanted to ‘open a discussion’ on this to see how to protect countries that do not have nuclear weapons... At the end of February, the Daily Telegraph reported that European general staffs were specifically discussing stationing French nuclear-armed Rafale fighter-bombers in Germany... The Bundeswehr could then [according to the “Parisian expert” Etienne Marcuz] contribute logistical personnel and infrastructure, as it had always provided for US nuclear weapons.” (FR, May 4, 2025)

Every European politician today – even every German politician – along with their military advisers recognizes the need for strategic nuclear weapons to meet the pent-up imperialist demand they have identified in regard to rearmament. They are indispensable for the military freedom of action that is absolutely essential for their imperialistic ambitions against the nuclear power that is Russia.[12] But here the two crucial problems begin: Who would have command over such a nuclear force? And what would it have to look like?

Enter the French President with a pertinent offer. And with it, these two completely open questions: How will France reconcile its indivisible national sovereignty over its nuclear weapons of destruction[13] with an extension of its authority over their deployment to include Europe – and who belongs to that Europe? And conversely: To what extent would France’s partners want to make their demand for nuclear deterrence dependent on, or would be prepared to accept, national decisions made in France? This does not just, once again, touch on the fundamental contradiction of the way the EU is constructed to increase the political weight of the national sovereigns by ceding their sovereign rights bit by bit and communalizing them in a supranational entity to turn their union into a respectable global power. Nor is it merely the general question of a state’s monopoly on the use of force in its external affairs which can no longer be clearly distinguished from national sovereignty itself as one of several political spheres of activity and can, at most, be communalized by establishing the project of a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). With authority over a nuclear war affecting the whole of Europe, the very survival of the partner countries of the decision-making nuclear power is at stake: an existential question that cannot be entrusted to a foreign sovereign.

Or can it? A scenario like this has already existed for decades and is still effective. “European general staffs” are now cold bloodedly calculating a possible transfer of Germany’s “nuclear sharing” in the American “umbrella” to France. This echoes the way the NATO states have always made their security in this ultimate question of survival in a nuclear war dependent on the US. But Germany’s ex-Chancellor Scholz’s skepticism toward such a switch from the US to France clearly indicates that such an existential bond with a foreign power is something singular and cannot really be repeated. It was the result of the special historical condition of the American nuclear power’s confrontation with the Soviet Union, which had the potential of a world war; a confrontation in which the US involved its newly established capitalist partners, who for their part could endure it and make it their own concern only in a war alliance that depended on America’s weapons. Consequently, this relationship only endured in the form of grave mutual doubts about its stability. The American side has always doubted whether its partners were, firstly, loyal enough and, secondly, strategically important enough for America to risk a nuclear war over Europe. The Europeans have always been distrustful of two things: does the transatlantic leading power not simply intend to turn Europe into an outpost battlefield for the last world war and, conversely, in the event of such a European war, could America’s nuclear weapons be relied on until the very end?

In any case, the scenario of a world war into which America’s European partners are incorporated, but which they are not able to cope with on their own strength, is the permanent prerequisite and basis of this American-European pact. This is exemplified in Germany’s “nuclear sharing”: By providing carriers for American ordered nuclear weapons, the Bundeswehr is an element in a thoroughly calculated and organized nuclear war scenario that, in the simplest case, follows a “conventional” war with increasingly powerful, initially tactical, and ultimately strategic nuclear weapons. The aim and purpose of this scenario is to gradually deprive the enemy – which in principle calculates and prepares for war in the same way – of its military might, to force it to stop fighting with ever harder strikes, and, in the best case, to knock out of its hands any assets which it could use to continue fighting. Germany, with its own military and hardly any nuclear bombers, was and would be no more and no less than a figure in the struggle between the nuclear “superpowers” whose own security is based on the services it delivers in the struggle for what, in plain military-speak, is called “escalation dominance.”

And here lies the great difference for France as Europe’s leading nuclear power. This is not due to the nationality of the commander in charge but to the power it would command. With its nuclear weapons, France can undoubtedly threaten the Russian enemy with a damage that may compel it to show calculated restraint in its suspected preparations for war or its anticipated conduct. France can also add some emphasis to this by demonstrating that it may be capable of an indefensible second strike in case the enemy does not give in or has perhaps struck first. This leaves France’s capabilities at a level below the “solution” that the nuclear “superpowers” have developed and refined to ever greater perfection to address their problem of a high-risk leap from a conventional war with its frontlines and its military fortunes to a comprehensive process of annihilation that militarily no longer makes sense. They have, as mentioned above, acquired the capabilities to use their own weapons, including those with nuclear explosive power, to destroy the adversary’s military might, including its nuclear weapons, piece by piece and with calculable risk, in a back and forth of indefensible attacks and assured defense. Europe must reckon with this capability in its confrontation with Russia for the time being.

And France’s nuclear arsenal does not provide this capability, let alone one that is even nearly at the level of the weapons the US has, which continues to set the standards in the further development of this “solution.” This rules out France as the leading power in a war collective such as the US has been in NATO from the very beginning. It cannot offer its partners the scenario of a nuclear war in which – when it comes to the crunch – they are assigned a role in the battle for escalation dominance which is militarily not quite hopeless and to which they are left no alternative. France’s offer is all very well, but simply insufficient for a credible deterrence of Russia, which Europe needs if it is serious about its capability of waging a conventional war which the Russian enemy would not be able to cope with.

This is the situation for the European leaders Macron, Merz & Co. if Trump’s America is really out of Europe’s demand for superiority. But be that as it may, one thing is certain: giving up is not an option.

Footnotes

[1] The US Secretary of State justified this approach in an interview: “The way you bring it to an end is you get Russia to the table to talk … Attacking Putin, no matter how anyone may feel about him personally, forcing the President into a position where you’re trying to goad him into attacking Putin, calling him names, maximalist demands about Russia having to pay for the reconstruction – all the sorts of things that you talk about in a negotiation. Well, when you start talking about that aggressively ... you’re not going to get people to the table. And so you start to perceive that maybe Zelenskyy doesn’t want a peace deal. He says he does, but maybe he doesn’t. And that act of open undermining of efforts to bring about peace is deeply frustrating for everyone who’s been involved in communications with them leading up to today. And I think he should apologize ...” (Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Kaitlan Collins of CNN, February 28, 2025)

[2] “We’ve explained very clearly what our plan is here, which is we want to get the Russians to a negotiating table. We want to explore whether peace is possible. They understand this. They also understand that this agreement that was supposed to be signed today was supposed to be an agreement that binds America economically to Ukraine, which, to me ... is a security guarantee in its own way because we’re involved; it’s now us, it’s our interests.” (Rubio, ibid.)

[3] The “Agreement between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Ukraine on the Establishment of the United States-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund,” signed on April 30, secures the US privileged access to very broadly defined strategic raw materials and a prominent role in the reconstruction of war-torn Ukraine for an extended period of time. What is being pledged in this way is described as follows:

“‘Natural Resource Relevant Assets’ means the sites, reserves, and deposits in the territory of Ukraine of aluminum, antimony, arsenic, barite, beryllium, bismuth, cerium, cesium, chromium, cobalt, copper, dysprosium, erbium, europium, fluorine, fluorspar, gadolinium, gallium, germanium, gold, graphite, hafnium, holmium, indium, iridium, lanthanum, lithium, lutetium, magnesium, manganese, neodymium, nickel, niobium, palladium, platinum, potash, praseodymium, rhodium, rubidium, ruthenium, samarium, scandium, tantalum, tellurium, terbium, thulium, tin, titanium, tungsten, uranium, vanadium, ytterbium, yttrium, zinc, zirconium, oil, natural gas (including liquified natural gas), and other minerals or hydrocarbons ...”

[4] “How else is this war going to end? I ask people: What is the European plan to end this war? I can tell you what one foreign minister told me, and I’m not going to say who it was but I can tell you what one of them told me, and that is that the war goes on for another year and at that point Russia will feel so weakened that they’ll beg for peace. That’s another year of killing, another year of dying, another year of destruction, and by the way, not a very realistic plan in my point of view … If Donald Trump tomorrow decides I don’t care about Ukraine, I don’t care about Russia, and I don’t care about this war, and he walks away, I ask you – I ask everyone – well, who on this planet has any chance whatsoever, even a 1 percent chance, of getting the combatants to the table? The answer is there is no one. He is the only one on Earth right now that has any chance. If there is a chance at peace, he’s the only one that has a chance to deliver on it.” (Rubio, ibid.)

[5] “The United States does not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome of a negotiated settlement. Instead, any security guarantee must be backed by capable European and non-European troops. If these troops are deployed as peacekeepers to Ukraine at any point, they should be deployed as part of a non-NATO mission. And they should not be covered under Article 5...To be clear, as part of any security guarantee, there will not be U.S. troops deployed to Ukraine.” (From Defense Secretary Hegseth’s speech to the Europeans at the Ukraine Contact Group, February 12, 2025)

[6] “Safeguarding European security must be an imperative for European members of NATO. As part of this, Europe must provide the overwhelming share of future lethal and non-lethal aid to Ukraine...We're also here today to directly and unambiguously express that stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe. The United States faces consequential threats to our homeland...We also face a peer competitor in the Communist Chinese with the capability and intent to threaten our homeland and core national interests in the Indo-Pacific. The U.S. is prioritizing deterring war with China in the Pacific...” (Hegseth, ibid.)

[7] “... the listing of almost 200 more ships in Russia’s shadow fleet could make Russia’s oil exports somewhat more difficult... So all eyes are now on an 18th package of sanctions. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a lower price cap for Russian crude oil on Friday... However, the G7 countries would have to agree to this, including the US. Von der Leyen also referred to a ban on gas deliveries via the Nord Stream pipeline. This would be a purely symbolic measure, as three pipelines are severely damaged... However, the most effective measure would probably be high US tariffs against third countries that buy Russian oil – such secondary sanctions are currently being prepared by the US Congress. Whether Trump will support them is uncertain, however.” (FAZ, May 21, 2025)

[8] “‘The US president appears to have refused to join the European push for new sanctions against Russia and is instead focusing on business deals with the country,’ the article [in the NYT] states. Additional sanctions against Russia would limit the opportunities for American companies that Trump wants to expand, US officials told the newspaper. ‘Trump wants to help US companies benefit from the Russian energy sector and rare earths, as well as other potential areas of investment. As a result, Europe is now seeking new sanctions, while the United States appears ready to go in the opposite direction and bypass Ukraine to build a closer relationship with Russia,’ the sources said.” (strana.news, May 21, 2025)

[9] The EU’s White Paper contains a short excerpt from the list of deficiencies that highlights Europeans’ need to procure the entire spectrum of weapons on land, in the air, at sea, in cyberspace, and in space, which opens up the possibility of non-escalation and which, within the framework of NATO, only the US has had at its disposal to date:

The priority capability areas are the following:
Air and missile defence: an integrated, multilayered, air and missile defence that protects against a full spectrum of air threats (cruise missiles, ballistic and hypersonic missiles, aircraft and UAS).
Artillery systems: advanced fire systems including modern artillery and long-range missile systems designed to deliver precise, long-range attacks against land targets (deep precision strike).
… Drones and counter-drone systems: unmanned systems, including aerial, ground, surface and underwater vehicles that can be controlled remotely or operate autonomously using advanced software and sensors and enhance the capabilities that these technologies enable (e.g. situation awareness, surveillance, …). (White Paper for European Defence – Readiness 2030, p. 7)

In addition, with generous funding from the EU and countries such as Germany, relevant start-ups are pushing ahead with attempts to become independent from the US in terms of intelligence gathering and surveillance.

[10] To begin with, the European Council and Commission will eliminate once and for all community regulations that could be in the way of financing the national rearmament efforts of European member states. Linking the national credit creation to the national economic power will be suspended for a good cause: the progress of European militarism. In addition, the member states are called upon to revise their national priorities and reassign the assistance they receive from the cohesion fund – which was originally planned to manage the nationally unfavorable effects the European internal market has on the development of many a region – in order to finance military infrastructure projects. And, of course, the precarious budget situation of many member states, including such heavyweights as Italy and France, must not obstruct the ambitious aim the EU has set itself. The EU provides “loans ...on the basis of Article 122 TFEU, as financial assistance to Member States who are threatened with severe difficulties caused by exceptional occurrences related to the geopolitical situation” (Questions and Answers on ReArm Europe Plan/Readiness 2030 Brussels, March 19, 2025, p. 3).

“The Security Action for Europe – SAFE is a new EU financial instrument which will provide Member States with up to EUR 150 billion of loans backed by the EU budget. This will help Member States to boost their defence capabilities through common procurement. Buying together will ensure interoperability for Member States' armed forces and predictability for European defence industry, reduce costs, and create the scale needed to strengthen the European defence industrial base. It is key for both competitiveness and readiness of the European defence industry” (Questions and Answers, p. 1).

This debt-driven rearmament program is to be rounded off with an irresistible offer to global investors who are in search for a reliable basis in their competition: “The last two areas of action aim at mobilising private capital by accelerating the Savings and Investment Union and through the European Investment Bank” (Press statement by President von der Leyen on the defence package, March 4, 2025). This will be achieved in a first step by removing the barriers the European Investment Bank has set up for its lending for military expenses, by re-designing the “sustainability criteria” for loans so that they are largely suitable for military spending. In a united Europe all national barriers to cross-border speculation must be removed and the capital market union – now the “savings and investments union” – must be finalized. This has been demanded more lately by a number of leaders of states who had until recently opposed it.

[11] “The European Commission is investing €910 million from the European Defense Fund (EDF) in building a strong and innovative defense industry in Europe. For the first time, the Ukrainian defense industry will also participate in EDF projects...” The aim is to “further integrate Ukraine into the European defense industry in order to strengthen common security and innovation goals” (Ukrinform, April 30, 2025).

[12] “After the federal elections, Friedrich Merz already suggested that Germany must ‘prepare for Donald Trump no longer allowing the NATO treaty’s promise of assistance to apply without restriction.’ Europe must ‘become more nuclear independent’... Last week, Merz announced that he wanted to talk to the nuclear powers France and Great Britain about a ‘joint nuclear umbrella for Europe’. He said he wanted to discuss with his potential coalition partners whether ‘nuclear sharing’ with the US could be transferred to France and Great Britain in the future.” (FR, May 4, 2025)

[13] “Even though Macron advocates European ‘participation’, he rules out any European co-decision-making when it comes to the ‘Force de frappe’.” (Ibid.)