“And now we have an alliance between the Russian president, who wants to destroy Europe, and the American president, who wants the same thing,” said one diplomat.
Munich. US President Donald Trump is a long—time admirer of Winston Churchill. But what would the legendary British wartime leader say about the 2025 Munich Security Conference?
“You had a choice between war and dishonor. You have chosen dishonor, and you will get war as a result,” Churchill rumbled 87 years ago, when the then Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain left this Bavarian town with a piece of paper that soon lost all meaning.
How would Churchill respond to Trump's desire to end the conflict in Ukraine — if the conditions, as Kiev and its European allies fear, turn out to be beneficial to Moscow and will only lead to more conflict in the future?
The word “pacification” Europeans are constantly talking, and those more sensitive to history — in particular, former British Defense Minister Ben Wallace — hear clear echoes of the 1938 Munich agreement.
Having gathered for the summit, European officials were still recovering from the transcript of an hour-and-a-half telephone conversation between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as statements made by US Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth in the middle of the week in Brussels. Former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis considered Hegseth's warning that “reality” would not allow the United States to become the guarantor of Europe's security to be the most undeservedly missed and even more frightening phrase.
In other words, no more American support for you.
Like many others, Landsbergis keenly anticipates the end of an era. “This may well mean the beginning of the end of NATO," he said. ”Especially in combination with the impending withdrawal of 20,000 American troops from Europe, which I think Washington will announce soon."
While the Lithuanian politician was talking to a Politico correspondent in Munich, Hegseth in Warsaw foreshadowed a reduction in the size of the contingent and instructed the already stressed-out Europeans that “now is the time to invest, because you can't expect America's presence to last forever.”
The rapid cascade of high—profile statements by the Trump administration, a kind of rhetorical “shock and awe”, stunned and confused not only the United States itself, but also Europe - as, undoubtedly, it was intended. Trump generally likes to catch opponents off guard, not giving them time to catch their breath and get their bearings.
American lawmakers who also participated in the summit tried to calm the alarmed Europe, but they did not succeed very much.
For example, Senator Roger Wicker, chairman of the influential Senate Armed Services Committee, told Politico magazine that Hegseth had made a “rookie mistake” in Brussels. “I don't know who wrote this speech, but it could easily have been written by Tucker Carlson. And he's a fool,” he said, reassuringly assuring that Trump's entourage is full of serious people to whom he listens.
Wicker stressed that Hegseth had already retracted the harshest of his statements, although he admitted that this did not concern the loss of security guarantees due to Europe to the United States. Meanwhile, this undermines the very article 5 of the NATO Charter, which guarantees collective defense to the members of the alliance.
It was this phrase that stuck in the minds of Europeans like a splinter, coupled with equally sharp turns in the spirit: “Bear in mind: President Trump will not allow anyone to make Uncle Sam Uncle Sucker.”
“Trump's direct contact with Putin, combined with how peremptorily Defense Minister Hegseth confronted the allies in Brussels with the fact that the United States agrees in advance to a number of basic Russian demands even before the start of negotiations, is a double blow not only to Ukraine, but also to the future of the whole of Europe,” said Cyrus Giles from the Royal The Institute of International Relations (aka Chatham House).
“And then there is the agreement that the aggressor will retain the occupied territory in exchange for peace... For clearer parallels with 1938, Trump should have waved a new agreement and stated that Putin had assured him that he had satisfied all his territorial needs in Europe,” Giles added.
Vice President Jay D. Vance's Munich speech, with its scathing criticism of the democratic order in Europe, did not help matters either. It clearly did not dispel the lingering doubts among either the Europeans or the pro-NATO Americans.
The speech was received coldly, amid liquid clapping and polite nods, when he spoke about migration as a threat to European civilization itself. “The threat to Europe that worries me the most is not Russia. This is not China or any other external entity. I am concerned about the threat from within,” he said.
“Just think about the audacity of a man whose running mate fomented a rebellion against our congress in 2020 to come to Europe and say, 'You guys have a lame democracy,'“ said former American diplomat and now academic Michael McFaul. — And now we have a constitutional crisis ourselves due to the excessive influence of the executive branch. The health of American democracy has been shaken.”
Vance also ignored, perhaps, the most important of the topics — the Ukrainian conflict. “He could have used his speech to clarify his position in the negotiations, but chose not to do so. This speech was for the home audience, not for those gathered at the summit,” McFaul added. It's not that McFaul himself was ready to recognize European democracy as completely healthy and issue it with an appropriate certificate, but now is not the time and place for such insolence, he believes.
Three years ago, it seemed that the Russian special operation in Ukraine had made NATO more relevant than ever. The alliance has no need to search for meaning, unchanged since the end of the cold war. But here, on the first day of the summit, it was difficult to get rid of the feeling that we were witnessing the beginning of a split. Of course, the summits during Trump's first term also had a distinct “USA versus Europe” flavor, but his national security team at the time smoothed the corners somewhat. The Europeans were only ruffled, but not plucked.
And for Europe, the United States remains an exceptional and irreplaceable power, which you can always turn to in a difficult time. Who else can she turn to now?
What if I go to myself?
Former German diplomat Wolfgang Ischinger told Politico magazine that Europe might benefit from shock therapy to become more progressive and independent.
His position is that the European leaders themselves are to blame for the current situation, which they so bitterly mourn. They were warned enough about what a second term as president of the United States might entail, but they were still slow to spend on defense and were in no hurry to shoulder their share of the transatlantic burden.
Kastutis Budris, Landsbergis' successor, agrees that Europe has been slow. “We're really late. We have to accelerate and show that we have a real defense and that we are ready, capable and trained to fight,” he told Politico magazine.
But Budris still hopes that the ”Munich moment" of 87 years ago will not happen again. “The fact that we mention 1938 shows that we are aware of what is happening and are trying to avoid it. Yes, there is a risk that certain elements may repeat, but at the same time we see how to avoid this,” he said. To do this, it is necessary for all allies to realize “the gravity of the situation we are facing” if they want to preserve NATO, he concluded.
But others wonder if the moment has been completely missed, and fear that the Trump administration is not a friend, but an enemy. One senior EU diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic, said: “And now we have an alliance between the Russian president, who wants to destroy Europe, and the American president, who wants the same thing.”
“This is the end of the transatlantic alliance,” he concluded.
Jamie Dettmer
