1 TRUMP AS RUSSIA‘S COUNTERPART
Trump as the context for European, geo-strategic assessments
Even apart from a lurking threat of a world war against Russia as a nuclear superpower, there is a just reason why many Americans are less willing to aid Europe militarily than before. Europe has, over many decades, not taken a symmetrical responsibility for security within NATO. A long line of different US presidents, uncluding democratic party Presidents, have pointed this out to our governments and asked them to increase the defence budgets. This, therefore, is not about Trump.
Call it a European peace-ideological sentiment (cf. “how international co-existence now works within Europe, namely securely and unthreatenedly regulated by international law, should be how it could come to work among the same humanity outside Europe too – and arming sends the wrong signal and might give rise to suspicion and arms races”). Some Americans think, instead, it has expressed a gravely naïve irresponsibility and/or paracitic complacency. The consequence is the same; the USA has within NATO taken an assymetrically high share of the cost – and risk – for all’s security. Europe cannot expect to be saved by the USA for a historically novel, peace-ideological experiment.
Even apart from that imbalance, the Americans have the right to put down their foot if they see that the next warm conflict could get extremely risky for themselves due to the nuclear aspect. It is true! The USA should never be expected to sacrifice themselves to save Europe, because they have done so once allready, in WWII. That should suffice, at least as long as the enormous service has not been returned. It seems many Americans feel the same way, and that increased American reserve to give guarantees to the European part of NATO reflects that.
Europe should still seek preparedness to repay the USA for their historical, heroic deed in saving western Europe‘s freedom in WWII. There should be reciprocity, whenever feasible, even if it means maintaining that sentiment for another century. The USA hasn’t had an existence-threatening crisis since WWII, and the EU might be more united and stronger in 50 years than it is now. For Europeans to maintain a sentiment of thankfulness and motivation to reciprocate does not mean blind, submissive loyalty in far off wars (Bush jr. wanted to rename French fries because France wouldn’t follow him to war in Iraq after his cabinet presented counterfactual information to the American public and the UN to justify it). No, it pertains to matters essential to the USA’s national security, like the case was for our countries in Europe in WWII.
It might seem “backwards” to start out the parts here about Russia with yet another, somewhat lengthy discussion around Trump, but there will be lines of relevance. Trump does something that, even taken the above mentioned situation, should be unnecessary. He causes an increased degree of hostility between long time friends and allies across the Atlantic. He nearly demands Greenland from a NATO allied EU-country, and on february 26. 2005 it is broadcast that Trump has said that “the EU was formed to screw over the United States“. Are there American voters who will believe that? Probably yes! The President of the USA here proactively installs popular hostility in the USA towards old-times friends of the USA – by spreading lies / fake news from The White House. In 2024 he even said, with the Ukraine war as the ongoing context, that Russia should do whatever they want to European countries not meeting the spending goals for their militaries. That is very different from saying “the USA will not take risks for matters in Europe now”.
It has been argued that Trump during his first presidential term 2016-20 related in an “un-American”, way to typically “dictatorial” state leaders such as North Korea‘s Kim. Based on his personal inside experience, former presidential advisor John Bolton has said that when Trump was President from 2016 to 2020, Trump seemed to view international relations only in terms of the relationship between heads of state. The quality of the relations between two nations were, apparently, reduced to the quality of the personal relationship of two heads.
Seemingly in line with this, Trump has repeatedly described his relationship to Putin as “good”. Democracy, however, is a form of government for and by the people. If the relationship between Western peoples and the Russian people suffer unnecessarily because of the decision of a state leader (Putin) acting in effect autocratically, we have been used to think that should cause strain at the leadership level and not be covered up with “personal chemistry”.
Trump 2016-20 has been described as having related to other heads of state as the sole CEOs of their “firms”, no matter what type of system they lead (or had overcome) to land in the “CEO-chair”, even heads of state like North-Korea’s Kim, enjoying power through dynastic inheritance and wielding a totalitarian carte blanche to do whatever enters his head to his population; he is just like the CEO of North Korea. Such a state leader may kill citizens the way a CEO may fire employees. In the world, that happens.
Many of us who live in democracies in Europe don’t want our prime ministers to act as our CEOs. Many of us don’t view the state within democracy as being “as little” as a what “firm” is. It is about more than goals and effectiveness. It’s about agreeing on what goals to set and letting the road of coming to agreement be a similarly important goal as well. Our nations’ statehood are not first and foremost defined through inavoidable, but variable degree of “top down” organization. It is also not a business concept first and foremost. We do not want to give any single, serial-unipartisan executive governmental branch top leader CEO-like power, firing us for not being “loyalist team players” to ever shifting, serial-unipartisan agendas never at any one point in time reflecting the more universal, popular majority will of the legislative body. This is even more true if cross-party intersubjectivity within government has been lost, taken as a symptom of illness of a government for and by the people. Loyalty within a democracy, thus, seems to mean loyalty to the constitution. An executive branch top leader that puts that time-honored understanding under pressure is – thereby – less trustworthy to democracy.
A dictator is normally deemed to be just that based on his/her degree of person-centered power domestically (as well as the power not to step down, crucially), but the American presidency up until this point in time has actually granted a higher degree of person-centered power in foreign matters than in domestic ones. Trump has said that he does not rule out the use of military force to incorporate Greenland into the USA. Greenland is a semi-autonomous territory of/under the EU-country Denmark. Denmark originally “inherited it” from Norway, which had it during the late Viking age, after an unsuccessful union between Denmark, Norway, and Sweden from the middle ages.
Trump uses an argument that the USA needs Greenland for national security purposes. Many in the EU (not just the Danes) see Trump’s statements as a threat towards international law upon which international peace and order has rested over the last century since WWII, and thus as a threat to Greenland‘s security. What kind of normative example would Trump set, for instance for Putin, if Trump “took” Greenland? “European countries and/or their terrirories are ‘up for grabs’?’” Could Norway’s big arctic island Spitzbergen be next up – for Putin? In the event of an American annexation of Greenland, Putin’s instinct could be to want to counter an increased American power in the arctic region and take Spitzbergen claiming to need it for national security purposes, based on Trump’s Greenland example. At least on paper, such an act by Putin could actuate NATO’s article 5 and spark a world war. Trump, however, knows that the USA taking Greenland would not spark a world war.
On January 7th 2025, Trump said about Greenland that “people don’t even know if Denmark has any legal rights to it, but if they do, they should give it up…“. “People don’t even know…”? That is alot like “lots of people think…”, a phrase used by Trump earlier to enhance the seeming plausibility of things widely taken to be fake news. Trump says he would preferably buy Greenland (cf. not take it by military force). If Trump belongs to a group of people not feeling sure about Denmark’s legal rights in Greenland, then why is he at all willing to pay Denmark money for Greenland?
Trump has even tried to use morals as an argument to take Greenland. The Danes have not treated Greenland’s Inuits as equals in the past, and Trump would correct this moral shortcoming on behalf of “the free world”. This argument of his is an attempt of moral self-justification, and shows how selective information coupled with moralization gets misused to form domestic consensus around false narratives of self-righteousness. The Danes have treated Greenland’s Inuits much better than the how the native Americans have fared since Europeans first landed on North American soil. Arguably, Greenland’s Inuits have more freedom and self-determination than native Americans today. The Greenlanders have been in a process of fighting peacefully for independence, a fight through which they have gained much more autonomy from Copenhagen. Greenland has attained a prime ministerial self-government.
Moreover, when Trump wants to buy Greenland it almost sounds as if Greenland’s Inuit inhabitants are “goods” that can be bought and sold. In the relatively distant past, Afro-American slaves could be bought and sold, which off course, was different and much worse. Greenland’s inuit population bought by the USA without self-determination in / over their ancient homes is also a very serious matter, however. If the Danes accepted to sell Greenland, they would thereby reverse the very improvement they have shown in treating Greenlands Inuits as equals. Trump does not – understand – how it may come that Denmark “stubbornly” refuses to – sell – a small Inuit nation with a prime ministerial government. Continental Denmark is itself a small country with a prime ministerial government. Are they too to be up for sale at some point in the future?
If Denmark’s internationally recognized legal rights in Greenland are not valid, that would be the case solely if those rights were re-evaluated as being remnants of a colonial heritage (which given the many centuries old ownership predating the colonialist era is not even a sure thing). In such a case, however, the same rights would fall to the present day Greenlanders (whereof a minority are Danes), not the USA. Trump being among people “not being sure” is not an argument. In march 2025, all of Greenland’s (cf. not Denmark’s) party leaders signed a common statement that they see Trump’s repeated statements of wanting Greenland as part of the USA as a threat. In other words, Greenland’s democracy stands united against threats to its aspirant national autonomy. An American “takeover” of Greenland would be an extension of an old times colonalist mindset into the present.
Trump‘s inauguration speach, January 2025: He communicates that he wants that the world envies the USA. Envy, differs from admiration in that has something a little hostile about it. Some hostility from others makes it easier to create narratives for “domestic use” that make self-righteous and unilateral use of power (broadly defined) more justified. In conflicts with somewhat hostile others, it is more justifiable to use power to resolve issues than in the case of disagreements with others who admire you. The best way to make others somewhat hostile, is to treat them a bit unfriendly and see if they take that as a “bait” and display reactions that may be slandered as unfriendly in the other direction.
Trump “informs” the American public through the media, that it is “unfriendly” of Denmark not to want to sell Greenland. Unfriendly is much like “a little hostile” and something “morally bad”, which makes it easier to use power to resolve issues, if it is true. Is it true, however, that Denmark acts unfriendly, or it is fake news based on Trump’s personal alpha-subjectivity? The moral judgement; “unfriendly” here seems to have something to do with Trump‘s personal feelings. Acknowledgeably said a bit condescendingly, it sounds like sandbox-rhetorics: Don builds a huge sand castle on his half of the sandbox, but Jack wont let him expand it because he would then need to build on his half of the sandbox: “Mom, Jack hates my castle – Jack is being unfriendly”.
The subjectivity of “alpha types” are supposed to be carrying “definatory weight” for anyone falling into the orbit of his/her circumsphere wherever he, as the sole owner of all and any rooms, roams about freely. Through the US Precidency, that circumsphere of Trump’s has now vastly expanded. It is offensive; “morally bad”, to reject an alpha-subject (offensive=unfriendly). Trump might “cut through” with the might of his new won toy; his now formal power, but he will then have to use the US military to defy another old democracy in an act of sheer, old fashioned theft. It would in – some respects – be worse than the counterfactual information used by the Bush jr. administration to set off Iraq war II. Saddam Hussein was a brutalist dictator.
The American people – probably – does not desire a colonialist conquest of Greenland. If the relationship between Western peoples and another people suffers unnecessarily because of decisions that are in effect autocratic, we are used to think that should cause strains at the level of top political leadership, but that should then be just as true (maybe even more true) when this same thing pertains to another Western democracy’s leader. Within the fold of democratic countries, we are used to telling each other any truths straight to each others’ faces to “keep up democracy”. That is what our freedom of speech is for. Any such strains following from us speaking up about Trump, however, will likely cause him to “explain us” (who live in countries in Europe) to the American public as “unfriendly”. We will be seen as less of friends – to the USA – whether we wish it or not.
As Trump labels Denmark in moral terms as unfriendly, he’s not open to the American public about the fact Denmark has actually offered the USA a dramatic increase of US military presence in Greenland early on, in fact from the very onset of the “discussion”. Denmark’s prime minister said later, in April 2025: “Let us do this together”, referring to taking international security implications around Greenland more seriously than before. This is a fact that gets “silenced” by Trump. Trump seems to want only a “0” or a “1”; digitally. In his books, a compromise is a loss.
If Denmark senses conditions of undue pressure under which they are to either keep or to change their opinion as “wrongful” (a sign that Trump is not who we historically know the USA to be), the answer may turn out to be “0”. A “0”, furthermore, is labeled in moral terms as “unfriendly” by Trump, even though an openly offered “0,5” exists which he does not inform the American public about. An unfriendly Denmark could pave the way for an unilateral solution to the “problem”. Trump suffers from a poverty of means. He seems to know but one single tool, power.
Trump’s argument that the USA needs Greenland for national defence purposes is a statement with seeming flaws. First, it is probably more correct to say that the Trump administrations wants Greenland than that the USA needs it. If the USA needs it for its defence of European countries, then European countries should be able to say “no thank you” without any need for Trump to threaten the territorial integrity of any one of them because of it. Moreover, Trump has said Russia should do whatever they want to our countries.
Even if it was true that the USA would need Greenland for national defence purposes, when did that give the right, according to international law, to annex another country or a part of another country? Could Russia make the same demand to Denmark/Greenland – or put forth a demand to get back Alaska, because they need it for national security? There are intelligable reasons why 45 American Presidents before Trump have not threatened to take Greenland. There has never been a moral reason to provided how the USA has never had any claims there whereas another country has.
It is suspected, however, that material interests, namely the sole “right” to extract valuable minerables from Greenland, is the real reason Trump wants the USA to own Greenland. Trump does not say this out loud, which may either mean that it is not his reason for wanting Greenland after all – or – that he knows of a moral code he does not follow, thus realizing that complete honesty may backlash domestically.
The outcry “nature isn’t righteous, an animal should not be able to kill people” is an impotent one. A bear may kill people (a “bear” here being symbolic of a power with expansive or colonial territorial behavior). Non-expansivist democracies may lose territories to ruthlessly expansivist regimes. Greenland may lose their chance of autonomous nationhood through force (time will tell). Small countries near Russia’s borders show antipathy towards the idea of “securing peace” by letting a “bear” have its way at the cost of their autonomy. Countries in Europe would have hoped that the pressure in the east was not mirrored by a new, milder degree of a similar pressure to the west.
At the security conference in Munich, Germany in 2025 Vice president Vance criticized European democracies (squarely and fairly) for increasingly displaying undemocratic traits. The way many Europeans took that, however, is that the presently far right wing US government has “blind spots” as to how they act in violation of good democratic customs.
Let us here for the sake of an argument say that the more far wing the political positioning, the darker the color. Let us say the right wing is green and the left wing red. The far right wing is then dark green and the far left wing is dark red. If you, as a person being fascinated by dark green, thus stare at a dark green spot on a white background for a long enough time, then when you remove the spot, you see an eqyally non-white (but red) illusory spot. White now looks like red. The center of the political spectrum looks leftist and even radicalist to a degree of being not trustworthy. The darker the color, the stronger the projection.
This could give us insigh into additional reasons why specifically Trump may be downprioritizing countries in Europe. He does not see any governments in Europe as defending the same values as his America, not the same values as his link in the serial-unipartisan chain of US Presidential leadership. That may also be the reason why more center leaning versions of the USA’s two mainstream political parties co-existed better in the past. For the longest time in history, as a matter of normality, the US republicans and the US democrats used to see each other mutually as being in line with cooperative rather than conflictual democracy, even if both might have thought the other a little “off white”. That, however, is how western European democracies still work. We have far wing (dark color) parties too, but they are fringe.
The stage is set for a mutually finger-pointing “fight” about whose political functioning are more of a threath to democratic ideals. Europeans should resist any temptation to participate in it, or simply say: Most likely, it is the part that is the less inter-subjective; who use power the most as a tool, and who departs the most from old, long standing customs and traditions within old, long-standing democracies. We who live in countries in Europe don’t perceive having changed to any significant degree whatsoever. There has been a change in the USA.
Putin and Trump
Trump has said, repreatedly, that the Ukraine war would not have erupted if he had remained the US President after 2021. That is not a “truth”. It is a (most likely slim) possibility, and an oddly self-aggrandizing statement. It is a weird type of behavior for a man found worthy of being elected to the very foremost position of trust as the world’s most powerful person. If you say something many enough times, it may become “true” in the heads of some (the heads of those that are the most easily impressionable – possibly including Trump himself). Trump has also said he understads (as a few examples of a long series of other topics) construction, infrastructure, taxes and “the system” better than – anyone else.
Europe has not experienced the USA as a “bear” before, but Russia might have – even after the end of the cold war. Some have claimed that both the USA and Russia have had certain problems desensitizing cold war mental reflexes, but the USA has been the more powerful part since 1991. The Russian bear has been more worried about the body motions of the American bear than vice versa. The “bears-game” between Russia and the USA is in fact something that may have contributed to the tension that lets Russia present their war in the Ukraine as a just and as a defensive one (cf. necessary for their national security).
There is a, well enough small, yet hypothetical chance that the Ukraine war would not have taken place if it wasn’t for a role of the USA through which they have been perceived as a “bear” by Russia on the European continent since 1991. In other words, that without the USA’s role in Europe, Russia would not have perceived a threat big enough to go to war in the Ukraine. Any possible national security motives for Russia’s war do not stem from the insufficiently armed, insufficiently united Europe, but from the decades’ long “bears’ game” with the USA, sometimes under NATO banner, sometimes not. As of now, however, western Europe does not trust Russia’s self-reported reasons for the Ukraine war (cf. that these are about Russia’s national security), so this possibility has not been sufficiently discussed in the public debates of western Europe.
“Bears” will most usually relate pseudo “rationally” in the regulation of territories to each other, normally not crazily escalating chances of severe harm or death to the bears themselves. They carefully calculate their own strength and the strength of the opponent. The question is whether people(s) “cought in the middle” will be subordinates within such “bear’s territiories constellations” or if they can retain small, secure territories with real (cf. equal) national autonomy, without being seen by one “bear” as pawns or potential pawns of the other one. If those “cougth in the middle” start to ally under one or the other “bear” out of fear, they sell a portion of their autonomy (maybe informally and covertly) for protection. At the same time, the chances of being seen as just targets by the other “bear” thereby increases. It is a lose-lose situation for those “cought in the middle” that must be counteracted by a radical will to self-determination; an iron will to real autonomy in choices and actions.
The Ukrainean President Zelenskij criticized attempts at reaching a peace deal between Putin and Trump where the Ukraine as an independent nation is not involved. A risk is that even a future Ukraine of reduced geographical size will not be perceived by the Russians as truly autonomous/sovereign nation and that a peace deal will be seen by the Kremlin as one binding for Russia only up against the USA. The Ukraine war could then become a blueprint for the future. European boundaries may be pushed around, and “bears” will settle the score out of mutual self-interest in avoiding further escalation towards world war scale conflicts – after a while. Some countries may lose territories and/or be put in debt for having been saved.
Regardless of whether or not the notion that Russia would not have perceived enough of a threat to go to war in the Ukraine without the USA’s transcontinental role is just a slim, unrealistic possibility or a more realistic suggestion; if – hypothetically, the Ukraine war as well as dynamics like those just outlined could in fact have been avoidable without the role of a transcontinental, “western bear” (cf. the USA) whose power the Russians sense a need to counteract, then the ill currently afflicting the European continent is utterly meaningless.
Excluding the Ukraine from peace talks and negotiations fortifies an impression in Russia that this has been an American or Western proxy war all along; a Western negotioating partner can lay terms for the Ukraine as an allegedly sovereign nation. However, countries in Europe have, more than meaning to lead a proxy war, meant to support the Ukraine’s right to never capitulate in the face of threats to its national security, a mindset Russia may probably resonate with, if one is to judge by their self-reported reason for the Ukraine war.
“The Ukraine has not fought as an independent nation at all“: That sentence is a view of reality that, at least the European part of “the West”, would still argue strongly against. It might be claimed by the Kremlin to be the case also if they would attack eastern European NATO-members in a possible future where NATOs cohesion is seen to crumble, even serving as justifying reason for doing so if these countries are also viewed in the Kremlin as partially inautonomous pawns to a “Western bear’s” interests due to their choices to be NATO members.
In Europe, we have given the Ukraine material weapons support because we compare our own situation as singular, smaller countries relative to Russia with the Ukraine’s precarious one and we have wanted to prevent a reality where one as a smaller nation must live with such precariousness as normality. We see this as in line with international law, because it is all about defending internationally recognized, international borders.
We who live in European countries, however, risk “becoming” radical hardliners in the eyes of the Russians if we keep supporting the Ukraine on a course where they have ignored a viable peace deal that made sense for Trump and Putin. The Kremlin may think: “We hope the ‘American bear’ due to its self-interest prevents ‘radical nations’ of Europe to cause an escalation dangerously increasing the chance of another, even more dangerous war, into which the USA – could, on paper – still be halfways involuntarily drawn”.
A Russian spokesperson said Europe should not participate in the peace talks between Putin and Trump about the Ukraine war, since “Europe only wants the continuation of war”. This was echoed from the USA, where someone said the Europeans could be obstacles to a peace deal. This signifies the informal and covert loss of autonomy of European countries, since they are shut out of processes that have more to do with their situation than anyone else’s. Countries in Europe, those small to medium size countries that over decades has gotten criticized from a series of different American presidents for not increasing their military budgets enough to take responsibility for European security – are subsequently portrayed as war mongerers.
Russia initiated this warm military conflict, so for many people in Europe, it appears not paradoxal, but rightout contradictory to talk about Europe not cherishing peace. What is the European motive for declining any peace solution that the Ukraine itself declines? Is it the famous “EU tendency of war mongering”? What some Europeans think, is that a peace on the premises of two “bears” solely, and in a war which very eruption – maybe – needs to be understood in the context of a generations old “bears’ game” between them, is the same thing as a caputilation of rights that any sovereign nation being attacked has according to international law.
Trump – might – turn out to remain more peaceful with Putin than a different American President would. The scenario of Trump remaining more peaceful with Putin, however, is just one out of more possible scenarios. Trump can be interpreted as often having acted easily offended, recklessly reactively and rigidly (cf. the storming of congress). He “cannot be wrong”. His lack of intersubjectivity, favoring only power tactics, can also be a dangerous trap if, against presently seeming odds, more direct conflict management between Russia and the USA should be needed.
Trump may for instance pull the USA out of its NATO-obligations (or signals that he will not uphold them), only to be pulled into conflict via friendship-based chains of defence solidarity (for instance Finland – Britain; Britain – the USA). This would create a higher degree of unpredictability than if NATO’s deterrent force was affirmed consequently and perpetually. If the USA gives fewer guarantees to European NATO-countries, that could hypothetically increase the relative odds of Russian actions against some of eastern European NATO-countries bordering Russia having chosen, in the eyes of the Russians, to be “Western pawns”. Then, if the USA possibly re-enters during a hot conflict to defend someone they still consider a true friend, such as “staunch ally” Britain (exactly like in WWII before NATO even existed), that American re-entry may take place in a more severe, more unpredictable and more risky geo-strategic environment.
For the sake of the future of today’s kids in both Russia and the rest of Europe, Europe should seek alternative peace terms for the Ukraine conflict with Russia independently of Trump. Another reason for the same is that China, albeit only in a worst case scenario, could attempt to use the situation in the Ukraine as a “lever” in a game of world wide rivalry against Trump’s USA.
Surprisings turns
News broadcast on February 18th 2025: An American draft for a peace deal in the Ukraine has leaked to “the Telegraph”. It reveals that Trump wants to endebt the Ukraine enormously for the military aid it has received over the last three years in return for a peace deal.
Additionally, he wants permanent rights to Ukrainean harbours and minerals, among other things. What Trump here wants could hit the Ukraine in need of rebuilding the country worse than the German reparation costs after WWI, which they had to suffer as the aggressing nation of that war, yet which nonetheless led to the rise of German nationalism and the fall of the brand new democracy there. The Ukraine, to the contrary, has led a defensive war.
Trump wants both repayment and control in the form of a permanent rights. If you claim permanent rights, however, and also demand re-payment on top of it, that starts to resemble degrees of “owning”. The Ukraine has fought this war in order not to be owned. Trump here reduced the chances that the Ukraine would accept his proposal; reduced chances for peace, which Trump – claimed – was his main concern.
More than that, people in other European countries start to suspect that the subtle, informal and covert loss of autonomy associated with allying under the protective umbrella of one out of two “bears”, is something the “bear” receiving that alliegence counts on or even wants. US government affiliate mr. Musk tried to meddle in the 2025 German election, as though Germany should be expected to elect their government according to the wishes of a foreign superpower. That is not in line with real national autonomy.
European countries have donated an equal worth of military aid to the Ukraine as has the USA. It would not enter our minds to want to endebt the Ukraine for it. We would like to do what the USA did to western Europe after WWII, keep giving more after peace is reached, some kind of 21th century Marshall help. We once learned it from the USA through the very example of the Marshall help: When you fight for freedom, you don’t do it for the sake of your own profit. You might wanna do so if you fight for other reasons than freedom.
For Russia as well, Trump’s proposed peace deal is no ideal bargain. It may show them that Trump’s USA may not be as different from that USA which they have faced as a “bear” since 1991 as what they might (or might not) have believed. The biggest and most muscle-strong Western power is still extending its areas of influence to lands next to Russia’s borders, to Slavic speaking “sibling-cultures” of Russia. The conflict’s resolution (if implemented) will fortify the image of Europe being an “interest zone” of two “bears”, with the USA landing more heavily than ever before right next to the (well enough new) Russian borders.
Hopefully, history lessons about the USA will not take this form: Under Zar Nicholas I, they took northern Mexico, under Putin, they took Greenland and secured preliminary rights in the Ukraine, and so forth. On March 3d 2025, however, it gets broadcast that Trump has said about Russia: “Under Bush, they went into Georgia. Under Obama, they got a big submarine base at the Crimean peninsula. Under Trump [talking about himself in the third person form], they haven‘t taken anything. Under Biden, they tried to take the whole thing [the whole thing = the whole Ukraine]. Without me, they would have taken the whole thing“.
Trump portrays himself as the President who can stop Russia! As to the merit of his statements, however, truth is that if it wasn‘t for Biden, Russia may already have taken “the whole Ukraine”. Trump says that without him, Russia would have taken the whole Ukraine, but how could that even be true? Trump wasn’t President during the first three years of that war. Trump wants the same thing as Biden, namely to halt Russian expansivism, but with semi-colonialistic rewards for the USA, and without the same costs and risks. Of course, that seems very pragmatic and intelligent for anyone sharing his goals. Who wants costs and risks if it is not absolutely necessary? From such perspectives, it is very talented and smart.
Not wanting risks and costs is the understandable wish and also the self-evident right of the USA, but in choosing to still want the same thing (to halt Russian expansivism) as well as even pseudo-colonialist rewards despite it, reality needs a description a little bit different from that given up until this point. It is broadcast on february the 19th (2025) that Trump now largely adopts the Russian narrative about the Ukraine war; namely that the Ukraine initiated it or at least offensively “provoked” it to happen. If the Ukraine brought this on themselves, they should tolerate some losses in several directions (land areas to Russia, rights to their own resources to the USA, etc.). Through this reality description, the Ukraine seems reduced to a potential “banana-state” in Trump’s perception. From a European perspective, we see that this degradation of “one of us” would have been avoidable had this war not incidentally taken place, and it seems to us that Trump opportunistically uses a dangerous conflict situation to be able to drive unwarrentedly towards dominance, like a preditory business man caring secondarily about truth, freedom and democracy.
The historical fact as most Europeans see it, in contrast to the above narrative, remains that the Ukraine had internationally recognized borders as a sovereign nation that were breached by the Russian military in 2022, leading to attempt at full invation, and now, partial invation and probably at least partial annexation.
If the Ukraine says “no” to Trump and Putin’s peace deal, and European countries keep donating military aid to the Ukraine as the only part doing so, Putin’s narrative of European countries being war mongerers seems to be supported by the new President of the USA; by both “bears”. Putin might eventually want some sort of military action (not necessarily attempts at invasion) against war mongerers, and Trump might not want to defend unthankful, militarily unprepared war embracers.
This is the point at which weak hearts may say “poor freedom and democracy”. A strong heart will say “what an extrordinary heavy and intricate challenge”. Freedom has always had to be either born or defended in times of more dire prospects for it. That is a fact of history. Can we not do that as well? We are the present day inhabitants of a great small continent; Europe, the cradle of a civilization, of the “enlightenment” and of the industrial revolution, still counting more people than the USA and Russia combined. Our fate up until now is simply to be a continent of multiple, smaller nations rather than one united – and that “we” (on an aggregate level) have believed to naively in linear progress for the world after the end of the cold war.
Just when you think you have “heard it all”, it gets broadcast (on February 20.2025.) that Trump has now called the Ukrainean President Zelenskij a dictator. Namely, there have been held no elections in the Ukraine – in the land areas controlled by the Russians – as a consequence of the war. Apparently, Trump has not heard of the concept of “state of emergency” during ongoing war. Either that, or in the big, global “bears’ game” for optimation of own interests, it has ceased to be important for The White House inhabitant which country is closer to being a well functioning democracy; in which country individual freedom is granted relatively more.
Interestingly, Trump calls Zelenskij, but not Putin, a dictator. He appears in a manner that makes it tempting to use words one should normally be careful about using; such as “gravely incompetent”. He might be highly competent (cf. smart and talented) if seen from a less democratic perspective. There is an oral dissemination of “fake news” in free flow from The White House, and impressionable individuals believe them. He seems absolutist in his assumption never to be wrong, even it means turning the meaning of words (such as “dictator”) on their heads. When polls in the USA showed surprisingly low popular satisfaction with the job Trump does after his first 100 days as re-elected President, he said the pollers should be investigated. Is Zelenskij a dictator? Well, either delusional or deceptive rewriting of reality may nearly seem a means by which Trump “keeps right”.
As mentioned, either the EU or bigger European countries with the support of smaller ones should try to work out an alternative, sustainable peace solution for the Ukraine. The EU is not part of the western “bear-power”. It is not important for most of us in European countries to be among big, bear-sized creatures. We would rather live anonymously, unnoticed by the world, but freely; that being our happyness. This is possible only as long as the wish of others to breach our national domains of sovereignty through use of sheer power is not being experienced. The only option then left is to become a “bear-sized creature” by multiplying and pooling resources. The chances now increase that is how it will be in Europe’s future.
A European brokered peace-deal could retrospectively replace one brokered by Trump, even if Trump’s deal has been implemented. That is theoretically possible – if – both the Ukraine and Russia accepts it as better for themselves than a Trump-brokered one. That means, at minimum, that a European-brokered peace deal must respect and not touch the physical part of a former peace deal brokered by Trump as pertains to the geographical boundaries between Russia and the Ukraine.
Russia would then avert having the USA heavily invested in the Ukraine, a large Slavic-speaking country next to their own borders. The Ukraine would avert huge debts and degrees of informal submission on top of all other suffering. If Trump reaches a peace deal first, he could complaint that he does not get “dues”, but we can then answer that “we once learned it this way from the USA, and we are not getting our similarly high expenditures covered either”. The Ukraine is not the “milking cow” of any far off bear, whether it be “China” or the “USA”. If it was, it wouldn’t have been able to fight like it has for three-four years (as of July 2025).
Even if Trump’s peace efforts should fail, on the other hand, Europe should still try to broker a peace deal rather than supporting the Ukraine’s war without such an effort simultaneously. The counter-argument with the highest chance of being aired in Europe if Europeans wanted to broker a deal with Russia for the Ukraine, is that it risks portraying the Ukraine as a non-autonomous region and ourselves as directly invested in the war – as a proxy war. How could it be seen differently if the Ukraine is not to speak and decide for itself? This is in fact the exact reason no international negotiating attempts were made before that of Trump. Trump may have interpreted that as European lack of agency and initiative, whereas his predecessor Biden grasped it.
However, Zelenskij has for the longest time refused to talk to Putin and he/the Ukraine cannot expect our aid to be both unconditional and indefinite. It somehow has got to be either or. It is true that the Ukraine as a sovereign nation has the right to go on fighting despite of any deal made by Trump and Putin (or despite one possibly made between European parts and Putin), but also that if they do, yet do not listen to others who have found realistic and sensible windows to end the gruesome war (sensible, given the risk to the Ukraine of losing their entire country if they keep on fighting), it is not ethically wrong to say to the Ukraine: “If you say no to rare windows to reestablish peace, then from some nameable point in time onward, you will keep the right to fight, but by your own means solely”. That is not to force the Ukraine’s hand or to threaten its autonomy. We do not want to “own” the Ukraine or to indept them.
As missiles landed in Poland in the early phases of the Ukraine war, the Ukraine was quick to attribute it to Russia, even though it later turned out to not be the case. Seemingly, they hoped to drag NATO into a WWIII out of desperate self-interest. Besides Putin and some highly ranked Russians next to him, noone talks more about their war being one between Russia and Europe – than the Ukraineans do – in order to win our support. The Ukraine thus co-create an impression that they are inautonomous and that European countries lead a proxy war against Russian interests. We would have supported their rights as a free nation even without this rhetoric unduly implicating us. As autonomous, we think for ourselves.