PARIS — The American people voted for change, and change—more profound than perhaps anyone now understands—is what we Europeans are getting. Whether the Trump administration is being strategic or merely falling into a painful trap when it calls for a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, what I hear is clear: Europe had better get its act together.
So far, I see no signs of an adequate European response to America’s new posture, only the tears offered by Christoph Heusgen, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, in the wake of J.D. Vance’s recent speech.
Monday’s emergency conference on Ukraine, initiated by President Macron to deal with the fallout from Munich, ended in Paris with the usual words of support for Ukraine but no serious commitment to supply peacekeeping troops in the event of an eventual ceasefire, much less clarity about long-term security—for Ukraine or for Europe itself.
Europe has no choice. The American president, the secretary of defense, and the secretary of state have told us that we cannot depend indefinitely on the United States. We must unite or die. If we do not act, we will endure—in two, three, or five years—a new Russian assault, but this time in a Baltic country, Poland, or elsewhere.