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EUROPE NEEDS A NEW STRATEGY TOO
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Minna Ålander
December 6, 2025
Northern Flank Notes
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_ Europe needs to finally seize the initiative and stop wasting time
trying to manage Trump. It is time for Europe to formulate clear
conditions under which real negotiations to end Russia's war in
Ukraine can take place. _
A Coalition of the Willing meeting in London. From left to right:
President of Ukraine Zelenskyy, UK PM Starmer, NATO SecGen Rutte,
Dutch PM Schoof, Danish PM Frederiksen, photo Simon Dawson / No 10
Downing Street
Previously this year, I wrote about Europe’s Trump dilemma
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still formally treaty ally, the US is acting more often than not in a
way that undermines European security. Especially given Ukraine’s
need for US air defence systems (mainly Patriot), humouring Trump was
distasteful but necessary. Europe was able to avert much worse
outcomes and limit Trump’s ability to do harm by patiently
manoeuvring him back in line after each outburst. However, the
grovelling strategy always had an expiration date. That date has now
definitively passed, with the latest peace plan shenanigans and the
publication of the new US National Security Strategy
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(NSS) yesterday.
The US NSS is in its characteristic ugliness actually a useful
document from a European perspective. It codifies in policy, in black
and white, what has been evident all year long: Trump and his people
are openly hostile to Europe. Once it is spelled out in the NSS,
European leaders cannot ignore or explain the fact away anymore. Any
hope to sit this out and for things to go back to the old normal looks
increasingly ludicrous and politically unviable.
Furthermore, the Trump administration’s eagerness to interfere in
European affairs in favour of the far right has promising potential to
backfire. As I wrote in February
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that was a likely outcome of the approach most fervently driven by JD
Vance. Especially claims in the NSS such as “(a) large European
majority wants peace, yet that desire is not translated into policy,
in large measure because of those governments’ subversion of
democratic processes” are just the kind of good stuff that may well
trigger an anti-reaction among those “patriotic European parties”
that this US administration seeks to support. Given Trump’s pretty
uniform unpopularity in Europe - with the highest approval rating in
Italy at 28 percent in a recent YouGov poll
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- any uninvited “(c)ultivating resistance to Europe’s current
trajectory within European nations” may well end up damaging the
European far right.
What comes to the hysteria about mass immigration, it is almost a bit
amusing that the NSS mentions the following:
“Over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few
decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority
non-European. As such, it is an open question whether they will view
their place in the world, or their alliance with the United States, in
the same way as those who signed the NATO charter.”
…because that is a longstanding European concern with regard to the
US and its commitment to NATO. This is some Russian-style projection
and of one’s own issues onto others.
Perhaps fourth time’s a charm: Europeans should by now have enough
data on the Trump administration’s repeatedly failed efforts to end
Russia’s war in Ukraine so that they can start crafting a more
proactive strategy with the confidence that Trump will not be able to
coerce Ukraine into just any kind of deal. The main issue is probably
that Trump and his people are trying to end “the Ukraine war”
without understanding that it is _Russia’s war in Ukraine_. On the
other hand, it has become sufficiently clear that any amount of
“Trump whispering” won’t fundamentally change the
administration’s course on Ukraine or Europe more broadly. The
forces pulling the other way within the administration are strong
enough to withstand European efforts at good faith cooperation.
Europeans know that Russia hasn’t shown any signs of serious
willingness to negotiate in good faith, so it is understandable that
working on a peace (or even ceasefire) plan has not been the main
priority in Europe. But the fact that the Trump administration at
regular intervals throws a curveball at Ukraine and Europe, and every
time Europe looks equally stupid, with only a crisis management
strategy but nothing of substance of its own to offer. By the way, I
was looking for sources with the search words “Russia rejects US
peace plan/ ceasefire deal” and found media articles from December
2024
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January 2025
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2025
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April 2025
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(twice
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May 2025
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and August 2025
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And that was just a quick Google search. So my faith in Russia’s
continued efforts to thwart any efforts to end the war seems
justified.
But the European counterproposals
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are every time a bit lazy, too. Europe keeps firmly rejecting
territorial concessions, limitations to Ukraine’s defence forces, or
any provisions on Ukraine’s future EU and/or NATO membership without
consulting the organisations, as they should. All of these are
obviously unacceptable conditions for Russia - because no one has so
far made a real effort to make Russia accept them. It is therefore
evident that when European leaders comment on the latest “peace
plan” that is thrown at them, and talk about European red lines
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they are signalling to the US – trying to remind Trump once again
what goes and what doesn’t – not to Russia. Europeans know very
well that their insistence on Ukraine’s rights will be rejected by
Russia, until the situations becomes dire enough for the Kremlin to
have to start making concessions. But just waiting for that to
magically happen is not a strategy, and Ukrainians don’t have all
the time in the world.
That is why Europe needs to finally seize the initiative
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trying to manage Trump. If Europeans themselves drive the agenda,
together with Ukraine, they will not constantly be caught off guard
and need to manage yet another crisis. It is therefore time for Europe
to formulate clear conditions under which real negotiations can take
place. If Europeans made a concerted – and professional –
diplomatic effort to communicate to Russia not only “as long as it
takes” but what it _really_ takes, it could actually lead somewhere.
And, even more importantly: start squeezing Russia to inspire greater
interest in actual negotiations. Finally mobilizing the frozen Russian
assets
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is crucial in this regard. The clock is ticking ahead of the European
Council meeting on 18 December
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which is expected to be the last possibility to solve the problem on
time. Only that way Europeans can nip future US “peace plans” in
the bud and force Russia to stop playing around.
_Minna Ålander_ [[link removed]]_ is Associate
Fellow, Chatham House | Non-resident Fellow, CEPA | Senior Fellow,
Frivärld. __@minnalander_
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* Europe
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* The United States
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* Ukraine
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* Russia
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