Europeans, face facts: Trump is all too predictable

The awful reality of a second Donald Trump presidency is here. Most western European leaders—finding the denialism of the past year no longer possible—have resorted to full ingratiation mode. They have done everything to avoid dissenting from the edicts of the new regime in Washington; when this is inescapable (over, for example, Greenland), their preferred approach is to suggest that the new president is “unpredictable.” With it comes the self-comforting implication that, if Europeans do not overreact, Trump may go and do something else—or even change his mind.

Sadly, while Trump may be erratic and chaotic in how he is rolling out his agendas, at the strategic level he is doing pretty much exactly what he promised. His approach to the war in Ukraine, as so brutally elaborated in recent days, is entirely consistent with his past behaviours and pronouncements.

He promised a presidency of “retribution”—so European leaders cannot really be surprised at the depths of his personal hostility towards Volodymir Zelensky. After all, the Ukrainian president refused Trump’s instruction, during his first presidency, to dig the dirt on Hunter Biden. Therefore, in the Trump mind, Zelensky is no doubt to blame for his first impeachment.

Since his first presidency, Trump has made plain his anger with “obsolete” NATO and his view that Europeans are taking him for a sucker on defence spending. But he also harbours an altogether more visceral contempt for European values (clearly expressed by J.D. Vance at last week’s Munich Security Conference) and the EU in particular.

His infatuation with Vladimir Putin has long been on public display, notably at the embarrassing Helsinki summit of 2018. Trump truly is in Putin’s thrall: he has every intention of throwing Ukraine under the bus, to pursue what US secretary of state Marco Rubio described in Riyadh as “an incredible opportunity for partnership with the Russians, geopolitically on issues of common interest, and, frankly economically on issues that hopefully will be good for the world.”

A classic “America-first”-er, Trump has reiterated his antipathy to involvement in ”foreign wars” while demonstrating that the trumpeted peace deals he is ready to strike instead amount to giving the other side (North Korea, the Taliban) pretty much whatever they ask for.

So, while it is true that Europeans could scarcely have imagined a more awful set of developments around the Ukraine war than those of the last few days, should we really have expected anything better? It is time now to face facts, and respond accordingly—in doing so, two timeframes are relevant.

First, Europeans must bend every effort to helping Ukraine stay in the fight. This includes money—including more of those frozen Russian assets—weapons and training. This will quite possibly see Europeans spending good money to salvage the unsalvageable. But the Ukrainian courage and resilience is surprising, and Russia has its own problems in sustaining its war effort.

Beyond that, it will do no harm if at least some Europeans continue to express readiness to deploy peacekeepers in support of a peace deal. But a credible US ‘backstop’ would be essential for such a force—and the chances of that seem vanishingly small. Besides, the only peace deal currently foreseeable is the Putin-Trump plan for a disarmed, rump Ukraine, run by Moscow’s stooges (ie, the Georgia model). Europeans might see little virtue in lending their imprimatur to that.

Second, looking to the slightly longer term, the European leaders who actually want to resist Russian domination of their continent (and the restricted cast list for Emmanuel Macron’s Paris summit was belated recognition that its certainly not all members of the EU) need to actually plan for defending themselves without the US.

Agonising over how to find more money for defence may be necessary, but it is not enough. As Zelensky himself made clear in his Munich speech, money matters—but not as much as determination and the right defences. Finding money—and selling the need for it to disenchanted, war-weary electorates—may indeed be easier if leaders have a clear account of what needs to be done.

What force structures must Europeans now build, how should they be deployed? How should they be commanded and controlled? How far can “enablers”, such as communications, intelligence assets and other infrastructure, be salvaged from NATO if, when, or as the US pulls out its forces? What new capabilities do Europeans need to develop and field for themselves—and with what variations of urgency?

Europeans need to defend themselves against a latter-day Russian tsar seeking to restore an old empire, egged on by a rogue American president who has talked of encouraging the Russians “to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies

These are among the hard practical questions which require an answer. Europeans need to defend themselves against a latter-day Russian tsar seeking to restore an old empire, egged on by a rogue American president who has talked of encouraging the Russians “to do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies. “Oh, he probably doesn’t mean it” really doesn’t work any more.