WaPo (“U.S. votes against U.N. resolution condemning Russia for Ukraine war“):
The United States voted with Russia, North Korea, Belarus and 14 other Moscow-friendly countries Monday on a resolution condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine and calling for its occupied territory to be returned that passed overwhelmingly in the U.N. General Assembly on Monday.
The U.S. delegation also abstained on its own separate resolution that called simply for a negotiated end to the war after European-sponsored amendments inserting new anti-Russian language also passed the 193-member body by a wide margin.
The votes were a clear sign of opposition by major U.S. allies as well as countries throughout the Global South who were prepared to buck heavy diplomatic pressure from the Trump administration to support President Donald Trump’s efforts to quickly end the war through direct negotiations with Moscow.
A State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity about the fast-moving diplomacy, said the United States would introduce its resolution at a meeting of the 15-member U.N. Security Council later Monday and would veto any amendments.
“While our partners at the Security Council and in the General Assembly would like to debate the entire situation now, we are much more focused on just getting the parties to the table so that whatever the next step is can be undertaken,” the official said
Richard Gowan, a U.N. expert at the International Crisis Group, said the divide between the United States and Europe marked “the biggest split among Western powers at the U.N. since the Iraq War — and probably even more fundamental.”
BBC (“New German leader signals seismic shift in transatlantic relations“):
Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting didn’t wait for the final results of his country’s election on Sunday to herald a new era in Europe.
Declaring the US indifferent to this continent’s fate, Friedrich Merz questioned the future of Nato and demanded Europe boost its own defences. Quickly.
This tone from the close US ally – and from Friedrich Merz who is known to be a passionate Atlanticist – would have been unimaginable even a couple of months ago.
It’s a seismic shift. That may read like hyperbole, but what we are now experiencing in terms of transatlantic relations is unprecedented in the 80 years since the end of World War Two.
Big European powers have been shocked to the core by the Trump administration, which suggests it could revoke the security guarantees to Europe in place since 1945.
“I would never have thought that I would have to say something like this in a TV show but, after Donald Trump’s remarks last week… it is clear that this government does not care much about the fate of Europe,” Friedrich Merz said during a post-election debate on Sunday.
“My absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that, step by step, we can really achieve independence from the USA,” he added.
Merz hinted that the endeavour was so urgent that he was not sure on whether the transatlantic alliance leaders gathering for a summit in June “would still be talking about Nato in its current form or whether we will have to establish an independent European defence capability much more quickly”.
Significantly, the forthcoming chancellor put Donald Trump’s America on a par with Russia – widely viewed here as a security threat to Europe more broadly. “We are under such massive pressure from two sides that my absolute priority now really is to create unity in Europe,” Merz said.
NYT (“Europe Prepares to Face Russia as Trump’s America Steps Back“):
President Trump was barely acknowledged in a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and 13 Western leaders who visited Kyiv on Monday to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Still, he was everywhere. In the subtle rebukes thrown his way. In how European leaders talked about further aid to Ukraine. In how they emphasized the importance of Ukrainian sovereignty, even as Trump officials have been talking about dialing back U.S. support for Kyiv and troop numbers in Europe.
On the invasion’s somber anniversary, European leaders and other Western allies descended on Kyiv to demonstrate their resolute support and pledge more money and military assistance to Ukraine. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, said strengthening Ukraine’s defenses and energy infrastructure was critically important, and that it was also essential to not back down now.
“The autocrats around the world are watching very carefully,” she said.
The show of solidarity in Ukraine on Monday comes at a head-spinning moment for Europe. For three years, the United States has been a major supporter of Ukraine’s resistance against Russia’s invasion, diplomatically, financially and militarily, pulling the allies together in the leadership role it has played since World War II.
But Mr. Trump is in the process of upending that, or at least threatening to do so.
He shocked European officials last week when he appeared to blame Ukraine’s leaders for Russia’s invasion. He called Mr. Zelensky a “dictator without elections.” And he has been drawing closer to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, initiating discussions about ending the war that so far have not involved Ukraine.
Because of concerns that Mr. Trump might slash American aid for Ukraine, Mr. Zelensky has been working furiously to shore up European support. And European leaders have been scrambling to come up with a plan to help make up for any change in U.S. engagement.
As the visiting leaders gathered in Kyiv on Monday, European foreign ministers met in Brussels and debated how much aid to send Ukraine in their next support package. Those discussions could yield a package totaling more than 20 billion euros, according to two people familiar with the deliberations, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. Kaja Kallas, the E.U.’s top diplomat, said during a news conference on Monday afternoon that the details would be “decided and discussed” on March 6, at a special meeting of European leaders.
The ministers also approved a fresh package of sanctions aimed at Russian energy, trade, transport, infrastructure and financial services. That could displease the White House, as Mr. Trump pivots toward Russia and American officials resist the inclusion of references to Russian aggression in statements by the Group of 7 and other bodies.
“I feel a different sense of urgency, especially after what we all experienced in Munich a couple of weeks ago,” Lars Lokke Rasmussen, Denmark’s foreign minister, said Monday on the sidelines of the Brussels meeting, referring to comments by Vice President JD Vance that criticized Europe at a recent security conference. “This is not only about Ukraine. I mean, this is basically about the world order of today.”
The United States has spent about $119 billion on the war in Ukraine, with $67 billion of that going to military spending, according to one frequently used tracker. Europe has dedicated $65 billion to military aid — slightly less — though it has spent $21 billion more than the United States on humanitarian and financial aid.
If the United States were to pull back support from Europe and NATO in a big way, it would be costly and difficult to replace, both in military personnel and in sophisticated military equipment. Even if Europe ordered such hardware now, it would take up to a decade to receive it.
AP (“Trump meets with French President Macron as uncertainty grows about US ties to Europe and Ukraine“):
President Donald Trump welcomed French President Emmanuel Macron to the White House for talks on Monday at a moment of deep uncertainty about the future of transatlantic relations, with Trump transforming American foreign policy and effectively tuning out European leadership as he looks to quickly end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The two leaders started their day by participating in a more than two-hour virtual meeting with fellow leaders of the Group of Seven economies to discuss the war.
Trump also has made demands for territory — Greenland, Canada, Gaza and the Panama Canal — as well as precious rare earth minerals from Ukraine. Just over a month into his second term, the “America First” president has cast an enormous shadow over what veteran U.S. diplomats and former government officials had regarded as America’s calming presence of global stability and continuity.
Despite some notable hiccups, the military, economic and moral power of the United States has dominated the post-World War II era, most notably after the Cold War came to an end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. All of that, some fear, may be lost if Trump gets his way and the U.S. abandons the principles under which the United Nations and numerous other international bodies were founded.
“The only conclusion you can draw is that 80 years of policy in standing up against aggressors has just been blown up without any sort of discussion or reflection,” said Ian Kelly, a U.S. ambassador to Georgia during the Obama and first Trump administration and now a professor at Northwestern University.
“I’m discouraged for a lot of reasons, but one of the reasons is that I had taken some encouragement at the beginning from the repeated references to ‘peace through strength,’” Kelly added. “This is not peace through strength — this is peace through surrender.”
American leadership of a Western alliance with the great powers of Europe has been a cornerstone of the world order for generations. Those days may be over.
To some extent, this has been building since at least President Obama’s first term. In his June 2011 farewell address to NATO on the eve of his retirement as Secretary of Defense, Bob Gates warned the Allies:
With respect to Europe, for the better part of six decades there has been relatively little doubt or debate in the United States about the value and necessity of the transatlantic alliance. The benefits of a Europe whole, prosperous and free after being twice devastated by wars requiring American intervention was self evident. Thus, for most of the Cold War U.S. governments could justify defense investments and costly forward bases that made up roughly 50 percent of all NATO military spending. But some two decades after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the U.S. share of NATO defense spending has now risen to more than 75 percent – at a time when politically painful budget and benefit cuts are being considered at home.
The blunt reality is that there will be dwindling appetite and patience in the U.S. Congress – and in the American body politic writ large – to expend increasingly precious funds on behalf of nations that are apparently unwilling to devote the necessary resources or make the necessary changes to be serious and capable partners in their own defense. Nations apparently willing and eager for American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reductions in European defense budgets.
Indeed, if current trends in the decline of European defense capabilities are not halted and reversed, Future U.S. political leaders– those for whom the Cold War was not the formative experience that it was for me – may not consider the return on America’s investment in NATO worth the cost.
In November of that same year, Obama announced the so-called “pivot to Asia.”
After a decade in which we fought two wars that cost us dearly, in blood and treasure, the United States is turning our attention to the vast potential of the Asia-Pacific region.
[…]
As President, I have therefore made a deliberate and strategic decision: as a Pacific nation, the United States will play a larger and long-term role in shaping this region and its future, by upholding core principles and in close partnership with allies and friends.
The first Trump administration made additional demands on NATO allies to “pay up” and made no bones that “great power competition” with China was at the core of its national security and defense strategies. The Biden administration was even more adamant that China was the “pacing challenge.”
I think abandoning Ukraine is a strategic and moral mistake and agree with the Biden team that Russian revisionist aims make them an “acute threat” worthy of significant short-term investment. Still, the current administration is not wrong to demand that our European allies shoulder a far greater share of the burden for defending their region.
It is, however, not at all clear to me what siding with Russia in this accomplishes.
