The Munich Security Conference and the days that followed, including the senior level US-Russia meeting in Saudi Arabia, have witnessed massive turbulence in transatlantic relations on a level not seen since the end of the Second World War.
The bewilderment of the participants gathered at Munich about what J.D. Vance’s speech portended for the future U.S. trajectory was soon eclipsed by questions in Berlin, Paris, London and Warsaw about why Europeans were being excluded from the Riyadh talks.
Even more distressing to European politicians and commentators was the exclusion of Ukrainians from those talks – the very people who have the most to gain or lose in any forthcoming peace deal.
These shockwaves came on the heels of earlier comments by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth that Ukraine would not become a member of NATO, that it was unrealistic to expect that Ukraine would regain all of its territory, and that any potential peacekeeping force in Ukraine would not include US troops, nor would it be carried out under the NATO flag.
President Trump’s comments about his call with Putin and his sharp exchanges with President Zelensky further fueled the expressions of disbelief that pervaded conversations in Europe since Munich.
The U.S.-Russia Relations Sea Change
Amidst all of the confusion, one thing seems clear: what happened after Munich, and especially in Riyadh, represents a sea change in U.S. relations with Russia, all but nullifying the last three years of policy on Ukraine pursued by the Biden administration.
At the core, the Trump administration has realigned Washington’s relations with Moscow, in effect bringing Russia out of diplomatic isolation. Although ending the war in Ukraine is considered the key deliverable, these decisions are more about U.S.-Russia relations than about a workable endgame in the war.
The Trump administration appears determined to seek the perceived geopolitical advantage of taking the lead on its relations with Russia, while factoring in Europe’s weakness and its dependence on the United States when it comes to security.
The centerpiece seems to be to make a “Kissinger-in-reverse” play. In other words, the Trump administration could be attempting to peel Russia away from China. If this is the case, it assumes that Washington will be able to induce Moscow to loosen its relations with Beijing and hew more closely to the US in exchange for breaking out of isolation, the lifting of sanctions, and accepting its territorial gains in Ukraine.
The response from European capitals has been predictably confused, ranging from outrage to bewilderment. Ultimately, however, Europe remains too fractured to lead on Ukraine without the United States. Hence, it seems this part of the administration’s gambit is working, at least for now.
Kissinger-in-Riverse: Will It Work for Donald Trump?
However, it remains to be seen whether changing how the United States has traditionally engaged with Europe will allow the Trump administration to achieve its principal objective of leveraging relations with Moscow to counter Beijing.
Though the idea that Washington can somehow reposition Russia as an asset against China has been discussed repeatedly in multiple venues in DC, it doesn’t fully account for Putin’s principal objective of rebuilding the Russian empire and establishing a sphere of influence in Central Europe and the Baltic region. Hence, whether this gambit can work remains very much in doubt, with warranted skepticism about the outcome.
If anything, Moscow is likely to pocket the advantages such a reopening of relations with Washington has already granted it and then continue its revisionist trajectory in Europe and beyond. If anything, this seismic shift in U.S.-Russia relations presents Putin with an opportunity to re-negotiate the perimeters of his dependence of Xi, while at the same time retaining the principal advantage that his relationship with Beijing brings him in his historic confrontation with the West.
The Future of Ukraine
All of which leaves the question of the future of Ukraine up in the air. After three years of brutal full-scale war unlike anything Europe has seen since 1945, Ukraine finds itself at a moment when all the assumptions it has held have come up for revision.
Having experienced a dramatic shift in its relationship with Washington and with Europe bereft of military capabilities to backfill for declining U.S. support, Kyiv is struggling for alternatives, seeking to leverage its relations with regional powers, especially Turkey, to establish a negotiating position.
Here much will likely depend on how President Erdogan weighs his country’s threat perceptions vis-à-vis Russia and his key relationship with the United States against his larger plans for the Black Sea region.
Much like the current flux in the relationship between the United States and its European allies, Turkey’s moves going forward should be carefully watched as Ankara’s priorities will likely weigh more heavily on Ukraine’s situation than ever before. As for Ukraine, the greatest unknown is how the population will react to this sudden change, especially considering the horrific price it has paid over the past three years to defend its national sovereignty and independence against the Russian onslaught.
In hindsight, the 2025 Munich Security Conference will likely be remembered as one of those symbolic seminal moments when the long-held assumptions about power alignment are revised in anticipation of a systemic reset.
President of the United States Donald Trump speaking with supporters at a Make America Great Again campaign rally at International Air Response Hangar at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport in Mesa, Arizona.
What was expected to be reaffirmation of the transatlantic alliance morphed instead into a display of how far apart the priorities of the United States and its allies have become.
In order to reverse this transatlantic drift, Europe must rearm posthaste to provide real exercised capabilities in NATO. Also, the U.S. and its European allies need to speak plainly about what each alliance member brings to the table and expects in turn going forward.
Regardless of how the US-Russia negotiation breaks in the end, the last couple of weeks will likely be remembered by historians as a sea change in transatlantic relations.
The question now is: What comes next?
About the Author: Dr. Andrew A. Michta
Dr. Andrew A. Michta is Senior Fellow at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council of the United States. Views expressed here are his own. You can follow him on X: @andrewmichta.
