Trump is swinging on Russia again. What this means for Europe's security architecture

The Print

a day ago

A more traditional line of US foreign policy, as witnessed during the four years of the Biden presidency, favoured a hawkish policy on Putin's Russia and a more unabashed support for Ukraine. But the advent of Trump's second term and the influence of the MAGA base introduced an insurgent variable that echoes an isolationist streak in American foreign policy, almost militant in extricating the US from foreign wars and assistance.
More than three years after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the regional security complex of Europe stands more disrupted than ever in its post-World War 2 history. NATO's legalistic definition of its open-door policy has struck the wall of Moscow's threat perceptions and the geopolitics of the organisation's eastward expansion. The Russia-Ukraine war has clearly exposed major fault lines in US-Europe alignment on dealing with the Russian threat.
The upcoming meeting between President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin on 15 August in Alaska is perhaps one of the most anticipated. And it will be equally consequential in terms of its impact on not only the future of the US-Russia bilateral relationship and the fate of Ukraine, but also for the great shake-up in transatlantic order.
Unlike his first term, when a relatively inexperienced Trump was surrounded by more established voices of the Republican Party, his unchallenged electoral mandate in the second term allowed him to bring together a team of loyalists. Given this, the Trump-Putin bromance should have managed more amiable optics and outcomes.
However, the outcomes have been hardly predictable and linear. Almost breaking out of character, Trump turned hawkish on Putin, threatening primary and secondary sanctions, and promising high-end military items for Ukraine. Then came the news of the Alaska meeting, brokered by his envoy Steve Witkoff.
Western alliance on cliffhanger
In ways that ringside viewers can only surmise and speculate, the US foreign policy decisions are swinging like a pendulum. The effect would obviously cascade on the world order, especially if Trump caves in to Putin's demands. These demands currently include:
The recognition of the occupied territories in Ukraine
N o NATO membership for Ukraine
No stationing of W estern troops on Ukraine's borders
Strict limits to Kyiv's armed forces, including deliveries of Western defence equipment
The r
ecognition of the
Russian language
in Ukraine,
along with the Ukrainian
In March 2025, during Putin and Trump's first telephonic conversation, Putin had also demanded that Russia be taken back into the SWIFT system. He also wanted sanctions to be lifted off various sectors, including the agriculture and financial sectors.
The news of the Alaska meeting has put Europe, along with Kyiv, on edge. After the NATO summit at The Hague and the European allies' decision to increase their defence spending to 5 per cent in the next decade, NATO managed to show a face of relative unity and bonhomie. However, Trump's decision to meet Putin by sidelining Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the European allies—and his comment on 'swapping of some territories'—has not gone down well with Kyiv or Europe. The Trump administration has shown a history of cutting deals excluding major stakeholders, like the one in Afghanistan with the Taliban in 2020, which excluded the Afghan government itself.
Trump's mercurial approach to dealing with the Russia-Ukraine war has turned the tables in how Europe perceives the Russian threat and how it intends to deal with it. The long-term consequences of this will be known only in the time to come.
Europe was initially reluctant to take a proactive position against Russia, given its dependence on Russian oil and gas. But things almost took a U-turn after the Oval Office showdown between Trump and Zelenskyy and Trump's transactional approach to Ukraine, including the critical rare earth minerals deal.
France and Germany, along with the UK, a strong ally of the US, took a more robust stand in support of Ukraine. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer offered Zelenskyy a grand welcome in London, and approved a loan of more than £2 billion to be used primarily for weapons production in Ukraine.
In anticipation of the Alaska meeting, European leaders have also come out with a joint statement that broadly welcomes Trump's plan but emphasises protecting 'Ukraine's and Europe's vital security interests'. It signals an uneven alignment between Washington and its European partners on the top priorities and approach to Moscow.
Currently, the dynamics between Europe and Russia have gone so south that mending fences looks like an uphill task, even as the US swings between sanctions and olive branches. With the increase in defence spending by the European countries, there will always be an uneasy peace—if at all it can be achieved between Russia and the West, after the Ukraine war.
Three years into the Russia-Ukraine war, the geopolitical grounds have shifted. Earlier, the European countries, including France and Germany, were unwilling to antagonise Russia, while the US was more comfortable keeping it unsettled and insecure. Today, Europe and Russia are at loggerheads, while Washington, as always, continues to dominate and call the shots on transatlantic ties. In the process, the US is sidelining Europe while simultaneously demanding that it do more on regional security.
Things are topsy-turvy, to say the least. What comes out of the churn will shape the European security environment and the new world order.
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Is a post-US Europe in the making?
Regardless of the outcome of the Putin-Trump meeting, it is certain that the US president's hyper-transactional approach has made European allies come across as weaker powers at the mercy of a mercurial White House. European leaders telling Trump to consider Ukraine and Europe's vital security interests before ceding to Putin's demands speaks volumes about their growing uneasiness on the transatlantic partnership. So, has Moscow taken the edge over the Western alliance psychologically, territorially, and in pitting Russia as a power to reckon with vis-à-vis a fractured West? Will the Alaska meeting echo recent history?
Will it be a repetition of the 2008 Russia-Georgia war? Despite the US-led West's grumbling, no significant protection was given to Georgia, a country that was eager to join NATO. Russia took over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and Georgia had to give up on its territories.
The four occupied territories, along with Crimea that Putin is demanding from Trump, are almost non-negotiable for Russia, given their strategic location and mineral and industrial resources. Will the meeting end up compromising Ukraine and Europe's security? What will this portend for the European security architecture? Is Europe being remade minus the robust transatlantic alliance that has undergirded the post-World War 2 era? What would it foretell about America's security guarantees not only in Europe, but also in the rest of the world, including the Indo-Pacific region vis-à-vis China?
When great powers play great games, do remnants of international law and sovereignty become irrelevant? Is it a simple affirmation of the dictum of realism, 'The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must?' The recent turn of events reminds one of Henry Kissinger's lines: 'It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.' In the final analysis, a lot is on the line in Alaska.
Indrani Talukdar is a Fellow and Monish Tourangbam is a Senior Research Consultant at the Chintan Research Foundation (CRF), New Delhi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)