Hal Brands
Europe, geographically speaking, is a small peninsula protruding from a much larger landmass, Eurasia. Today, the continent feels small indeed.
Europe is being squeezed by a probing, predatory Russia. It simultaneously faces a US that grows more dangerous, more distant. A continent that flourished in the American global order has reached an epic inflection point: Either Europe will become a geopolitical force in its own right, or it will become an afterthought, a victim, in a fragmenting world.
The pressure from Moscow is unabating. President Vladimir Putin’s grinding war against Ukraine is a siege of Europe’s outer defenses. Aggressive hybrid warfare makes matters worse.
Russian drones and planes overflew Poland, Estonia and Romania — and now, it seems, Denmark and Norway — this month.
President Donald Trump offered wildly inconsistent responses to Russia’s aerial bullying, and has mostly held back US capabilities from NATO’s response. This is part of Trump’s larger pattern of disconcerting behavior: demanding that Denmark cede Greenland; imposing an asymmetric trade deal on Europe; slashing US support for frontline NATO states; and politically backing pro-Russian actors including the Alternative for Germany party and Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Trump has also consistently blamed the Ukraine war on Ukraine, not Russia. He recently demanded that European countries torch their trade relationship with China, in exchange for harsher US sanctions on Russia — even as Trump seeks his own trade deal with Beijing. Trump’s major contribution to transatlantic security, prodding European states to spend more on their militaries, could be a prelude to the partial withdrawal of US forces from the continent.
Russia becomes more menacing; America becomes more aloof and aggressive. The reaction of most European leaders has been to hug Trump tight.
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