Europe Can’t Wishcast Away What Trump Means for Ukraine Policy
With the Russian military advancing in Ukraine and U.S. President Donald Trump having returned to the White House, Europeans are wondering and worrying about what lies in store for them under the new administration in Washington. Many are focused on how to retain U.S. engagement and partnership on the European continent, starting with Ukraine, while avoiding both Washington’s cold shoulder and/or its bypassing of Europe—Ukraine included—through direct dealings with Moscow.
The concern is understandable. If Trump were to abandon Ukraine, Europe would struggle to fill the void, especially in military terms. And against the backdrop of Ukrainian losses on the battlefield, there is a real threat that a lot more territory could fall under Russian occupation—and even a possibility that Kyiv could succumb entirely. There is also the very real risk that Washington will not just reach out to Moscow over the heads of Europeans, but do so to sell out Ukraine, for which Trump never displayed much sympathy.
These prospects are so scary that many in Europe tend to brush them aside, latching on to the wishful thinking of a continuation or perhaps even revamping of U.S. support. Yet the more Europeans believe in this idealized scenario, the less likely it is that they will prepare for the more realistic ones ahead.
Even before his inauguration, Trump had already backtracked on his bombastic promises during the election campaign that he would end the Ukraine war in a day upon taking office. Behind his pledge was the misplaced assumption that the war is being protracted by Ukrainian maximalist demands to drive Russian forces entirely out of Ukrainian territory, even at the risk of triggering a Russian nuclear attack. By this line of thinking, Ukraine’s purported intransigence is being fed by Western military support, so all Trump would have to do is twist Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s arm to make him come to his senses: By pulling the plug on military support for Kyiv, the war would magically come to an end through compromise.
Trump and his team now implicitly acknowledge that things are not so simple: The reason the war is raging on is that Russian President Vladimir Putin has no interest in ending it. Withholding support for Ukraine would therefore not result in a compromise agreement, but rather at most halt the war temporarily through Kyiv’s surrender and even potentially exacerbate the conflict.
That the Trump administration has reached this preliminary conclusion is good news. But it does not mean that the future for Ukraine is rosy. There are three possible scenarios in the coming months, with different possibilities and implications associated with each of them.
The scenario that Ukrainians and many Europeans believe in is that Trump succeeds in bringing Putin to the negotiating table, but fails to clinch a deal due to Russia’s unwillingness to back down from its imperial ambitions to control Ukraine. Adamant not to let Ukraine become his version of Afghanistan—where in Trump’s world former President Joe Biden’s retreat, though negotiated by Trump’s first administration, seriously dented the United States’ global reputation—an annoyed Trump, once slighted by Putin, would double down in support of Kyiv and lead it to victory.
The third scenario is the worst and, unfortunately, the most likely: The coming year sees the opening of negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, but Putin drags the talks out while continuing his military onslaught.
This is what many Ukrainians also hope for, and that hope explains why Zelenskyy is bending over backward to curry favor with Trump’s team. It is also what other Europeans are aiming for, aware that in this scenario retaining political unity in Europe and across the Atlantic may be feasible, while partly letting them off the hook militarily. Unfortunately, however, at the moment this looks like the least likely outcome.
A second scenario is that Trump succeeds in bringing Putin to the negotiating table, and a truce is reached. While it is unrealistic to expect this to be little more than a shaky ceasefire, it’s certainly possible that Putin might acquiesce to a temporary timeout to the fighting. While doing so would give the Ukrainians and Europeans time to bolster their defenses, it would also enable Russia to regroup, rearm and prepare for the next round of fighting. Furthermore, if such a truce were accompanied by a partial withdrawal of U.S. and European Union sanctions, the Russian war economy would gain breathing space to help propel a future round of military aggression forward.
The added advantage from Putin’s vantage point is that this scenario would test European and trans-Atlantic unity. There would be countries in Northern and Eastern Europe, starting with Ukraine itself, that would push for an accelerated rearmament, with no illusions that the war with Russia was over. But other countries in Western and Southern Europe would lull themselves into thinking that peace had been reached, with some perhaps willing to return to the good old days of trade and energy interdependence with Russia. That political division would make it much harder for Europe to act responsibly on defense. Military support for Ukraine could dwindle, and a European tripwire force in Ukraine to deter further Russian aggression would be portrayed as too complicated, perhaps even unnecessary given that “peace” had been reached. In short, while in theory a truce could provide more time for Europeans to bolster their defenses, in practice it would likely further fuel already growing political divisions in Europe and with Washington.
The third scenario is the worst and, unfortunately, the most likely: The coming year sees the opening of negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, but Putin drags the talks out while continuing his military onslaught. Under these circumstances, U.S. support would gradually dwindle, with a new supplemental spending bill authorizing military aid unlikely to pass through the Republican-controlled House and Senate.
Putin would avoid pulling the plug altogether on the talks. Rather, he would deploy the full force of his disinformation machine in Europe and the U.S. to shift the blame for the failure to reach an agreement on Kyiv. And even if the Kremlin’s narrative were to have limited traction in Washington, Trump—not known for being skilled or passionate about complex and drawn-out negotiations—may simply get bored and turn his international gaze elsewhere.
This would be the worst-case scenario for Ukraine and Europe: The war would continue, but U.S. engagement wouldn’t, placing the burden of military support for Ukraine almost entirely on European shoulders, even as European countries seek to bolster their own defenses against a predatory Russia. What’s more, political divisions would probably arise in this scenario as well, insofar as for some Western European countries the driving force behind support for Kyiv is the desire to maintain the trans-Atlantic partnership, rather than a commitment to Ukraine itself. If the U.S. were to disengage, some European countries would follow.
Again, the third scenario or some variant of it seems the most realistic outcome. However, Europeans are acting on the assumption that the second—or perhaps even the first—will still pan out. As a result, they are still not displaying the real sense of urgency that the worst-case scenario would warrant. In addition to leaving them unprepared for the consequences, Europeans’ continued lack of urgency is a surefire way of alienating Washington and undermining U.S. engagement. Wishcasting, as the substitution of desired outcomes for realistic assessment is known, is always an analytical mistake. But it is a dangerous one when the action—or inaction—it leads to makes the worst-case scenario a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Nathalie Tocci is director of the Istituto Affari Internazionali, part-time professor at the School of Transnational Governance (European University Institute) and honorary professor at the University of Tubingen. She has been special adviser to the EU high representative. Her WPR column appears monthly.