The transatlantic alliance as we’ve known it is dead

By Marc Champion

Twice now, major powers have chosen a conference in Munich conference to deliver speeches that dramatically changed the architecture of global security. In 2007, Vladimir Putin warned that Russia would no longer follow rules set by the West and would treat the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a hostile force. This weekend, the US served similar notice on its own allies, in a shock for Europeans that has left the trans-Atlantic alliance clinically dead.

US Vice President J D Vance’s speech dripped with contempt for those in the room and offered a series of messages that are likely to alter Europe’s security outlook as much as Putin’s did 18 years ago. The ensuing transformation produced three wars (Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014 and 2022), a rewiring of European energy markets and international institutions and a new military bloc for Moscow that includes China, Iran and North Korea.

Vance’s first message to the Munich Security Conference was that the Trump administration aims to be revolutionary and to export its revolution abroad. America’s “new sheriff” sees most European states as the “threat within,” he said, with a clear implication that if this is to change, they’ll need to drink from the cup of MAGA.

Europe, according to Vance, has abandoned the core democratic values on which the transatlantic alliance was founded. Never mind that his boss tried to overthrow an election by force. The vice president was there to boost like-minded politicians across the pond and to serve notice that the new US administration sees Europe’s establishment as opponents in the fight it cares about most — against the liberal order that Washington created after World War II and championed since.

Driving the point home, Vance declined to meet with Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Instead, he left the conference to see Alice Weidel, co-leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, which is polling second at 20% ahead of elections to be held on Sunday.

In the new American fight with liberalism, it should by now be clear that Russia is perceived as a potential ally. Likewise, Putin’s efforts to build a sphere of influence in Ukraine and perhaps further into Europe aren’t, for President Donald Trump, a heinous breach of international law. They’re something he’d like to achieve for the US, too, in Canada, Greenland, Panama and the Gulf of Mexico.

Vance delivered his next message simply by ignoring the questions of security, and above all Ukraine, that Europe’s leaders and defense officials had gathered to discuss. Europe, he implied, was too weak to deserve consultation or a place at the table with the great powers that would conduct the talks, namely the US, Russia and potentially China.

This was all “unacceptable,” a furious German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in response. Yet Europe will likely accept it. After sitting largely in stony silence during Vance’s speech, the audience gave him a standing ovation, understanding Europeans can’t afford an open split with its powerful — if soon-to-be-former — ally because they are indeed too weak to deal with Russia on their own.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen put on a brave face when she spoke just before Vance. She talked up the fact that Europe has collectively delivered more aid to Ukraine than the US and substantially increased defense spending since Putin’s full invasion of three years ago. Both claims are true, but also miss the point, because neither has been close to enough. Her proposals to now supercharge European defense are vital, but too late by a decade.

The last week has been more than a wakeup call for Europeans. It has realized their worst fears. Leaders and defense officials now know they’re on their own, that they can’t rely on the US to respect NATO’s Article V collective defense clause, and that Trump has no desire to include them in the deal he hopes to make with Putin to end the war. Worse, having set the terms of a settlement, he intends for Europe to pick up the vast tab, including security guarantees for Kyiv. That’s something that everyone in Vance’s audience this weekend – and above all Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – knows Europe is woefully ill-prepared to do.

The bottom line is that Europe still needs the US and knows it, but Trump’s America no longer sees a need for Europe. That isn’t to say the administration’s end run on Ukraine will produce the quick resolution to the war it wants. Putin’s demands remain a far cry from what Ukraine can accept, and Kyiv does have a voice. A first sign of that came this weekend, when Zelenskyy said he’d yet to accept Trump’s proposal to trade support for about half of Ukraine’s natural resources. And why would he, when it looks increasingly as if he’d get sold out to the Kremlin anyhow?

Zelenskyy’s pushing back on America’s go-it-alone strategy, saying he’ll meet with Putin only once a common negotiating position has been agreed upon among all of Ukraine’s allies. I doubt Europe can step up to fill the void left by what amounts to America’s defection. That isn’t just for lack of resources. It’s also because the Trump administration seems determined to use Ukraine and nationalism as wedges to deepen divisions on the old continent, and he may well succeed.

This is a challenge Europe’s leaders need to finally take on, doing whatever it takes to be able to ensure their collective security in a post-American order because this is a continent that’s had very poor experiences with unbridled nationalism. There was, after all, a third epoch-making conference in Munich, in 1938, and “peace in our time” did not follow.