Appeasement in Europe

Mel Gurtov

(2/18) Munich has again become the symbol of appeasement less than a century after the West sold out Czechoslovakia to Hitler. This time around, it is the Trump administration that has sold out Ukraine, turning that country from victim of aggression to supplicant seeking defense from Russia while the US stands aside.

Before Trump’s top officials descended on Europe this past week, Donald Trump seemed to have three ideas for ending the Ukraine war: abandon ship, meaning depriving Ukraine of US aid and thereby forcing it to agree to a settlement with Russia; deploy European troops in Ukraine to deter Russia after a peace agreement; and give Ukraine aid in return for "guaranteed" access to its rare earth mineral deposits. Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, confirmed all these points and reiterated what he said was the Trump administration’s "underlying principle": that the Europeans "have to own this conflict going forward."

After Munich, we can fill out the key elements of US policy on Europe and the war.

• Russia is no longer a US adversary; now it is a partner in the search for an end to the war in Ukraine.
• The US can no longer be counted on either to defend Ukraine or be a reliable member of NATO.
• Ukraine will not only have to concede territory to gain peace; it will also have to make concessions to the US if it is to continue receiving US aid.
• Ukraine must not join NATO; it must find another way to ensure its future security.

Let’s examine these points more deeply.

Putin's Dream Come True

Statements by Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth make clear that European security will have to operate on new rules.

First among them is that Russia has legitimate security interests that go beyond its border with Ukraine and comprise Europe as a whole. Relations between Russia and the US are now effectively normalized. Far from having to pay a price for its aggression, Russia and the US are now at the table in Saudi Arabia, bargaining over Ukraine’s future (and perhaps much more) without either Ukraine’s or Europe’s participation.

When Trump was asked the other day if Russia would give up anything in a settlement of the war, he said: "It’s too early to say what’s going to happen. Maybe Russia will give up a lot. Maybe they won’t." In other words, Russia won’t give up anything.

In fact, Trump is moving right back to where he was with Vladimir Putin during his first term. The Reagan rule—trust but verify—is not Trump’s. He continues to be understanding of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which in Trump’s mind only occurred because Russia feared the Ukraine would become a member of NATO. No expert on Russia would agree.

How about the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Putin for war crimes? No problem; Trump ordered sanctions on those justices who made that decision. When asked if he trusts Putin, Trump said: "I trust him on this subject [of peace]. I think he would tell me if he didn’t."

That is what appeasement looks like: Ignoring facts on the ground, presuming the best of intentions for an aggressive adversary, and selling out one’s friends in a desperate effort to get rid of a foreign policy problem. While Russia will be able to solidify its hold on eastern Ukraine and Crimea, Ukraine will have to depend on the NATO countries to come up with some sort of security guarantee. We can expect that discussions in NATO, with the US absent, will involve hard bargaining that will result in far fewer troops being deployed to Ukraine than Pres. Zelensky wants—not 150,000 but maybe 30,000.

Whatever the number of troops Ukraine gets from the NATO countries, the US has also insisted that they not be identified as a NATO deployment. That cuts to the weakening US commitment to NATO and its supreme principle of collective security: All for one and one for all. If those troops are simply each country’s contribution, any combat with Russian forces will not occasion an automatic NATO response that would compel the US to participate. Thus has Trump limited US involvement in European security and bowed to Putin’s strategic view.

Ukraine is left dangling in another important way: Its rebuilding. Russia would now seem to be off the hook; it will pay nothing for the hundreds of billions of dollars in damage to Ukraine—for the children it has kidnapped, for the hospitals and schools and energy facilities it has destroyed.

Which countries will step up to support the rebuilding? The Europeans will argue that they are already having to be responsible for Ukraine’s defense. Trump is only interested in what Ukraine can do to repay the $500 billion he says they owe us.

The president, says Waltz, is going to put on the table "the future of US aid to Ukraine. We need to recoup those costs, and that is going to be a partnership with the Ukrainians in terms of their rare earth [materials], their natural resources, their oil and gas, and also buying ours." In other words, Ukraine will be treated like a US colony. Ukraine has rejected Trump’s demand, but it is hard to see how long it can hold out.

Redrawing the Map

Finally, we need to consider the implications of US officials’ support for the far-right parties in Europe, starting with the AfD in Germany. Vance has repeated Musk’s alignment with the AfD, arguing that it’s time for Germany to revise its laws on antisemitism and hate speech so as to give the far right more freedom to spout its neo-Nazi, anti-immigrant line. This direct interference in German politics is entirely in keeping with the Trump administration’s systematic efforts to divide Europe on security issues and relations with Russia.

In all, I think it is fair to say that Trump et al. are embarked on a plan to redraw the map of Europe in favor of extremist white Christian nationalist regimes, abandoning democratic friends and longstanding obligations.

In the past, turning our back on predatory autocrats in Europe has resulted in war. We never seem to learn.

Mel Gurtov is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Portland State University.

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