When US President Donald Trump called Vladimir Putin on 12 February, he made history – but not in a good way.
Following a 90-minute conversation, Trump announced he would meet Putin first in Saudi Arabia and then visit Moscow, while Putin would come to Washington. At NATO headquarters in Brussels, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spelled out what this means: Ukraine will never join NATO, and a return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is unrealistic.
And that was before US Vice President JD Vance told Europe at the Munich Security Conference that America and Europe no longer share the same values.
When Trump nominated J.D. Vance as his running mate last year, I warned of precisely this scenario (Europe is now on its own, 23 July 2024). Back then, I pointed out that Vance’s isolationist stance would severely undermine trans-Atlantic security cooperation. This is exactly what is now happening.
Predictable though these developments were, they are still shocking. Not since the end of World War II has there been such a dramatic shift in the global security architecture. And rarely has a great power abandoned its allies with such devastating consequences.
If you are not sure just how dramatic the events of the last week are, think about them this way. When World War II was coming to an end, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin met at Yalta to plan post-war Europe. But they did not invite Hitler to these discussions.
Now, as the Ukraine War appears to be ending, it is the aggressor (Putin) and a sympathetic US President planning Ukraine’s future.
Meanwhile, Ukraine and America’s European allies are effectively excluded from the talks.
As Estonia’s former Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, now EU foreign policy chief, put it, “Why are we giving Russia everything they want even before negotiations have started?”
The dangers of this approach are enormous. A victory for Putin would embolden every authoritarian regime worldwide. It would signal that military aggression pays, that nuclear blackmail works, and that the West’s security alliance is not worth the paper it is written on.
Let us be clear about what is happening. The US is not just abandoning Ukraine. By pre-emptively ruling out NATO membership and accepting Russia’s territorial gains, Washington is capitulating to Moscow’s demands before negotiations even begin.
As former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt observed on X, “It’s certainly an innovative approach to a negotiation to make very major concessions even before they have started. Not even Chamberlain went that low in 1938.”
The Munich Agreement of 1938 is indeed the obvious historical parallel – except this time is worse. At least Czechoslovakia was present at Munich when Britain and France forced it to surrender the Sudetenland to Hitler. By contrast, Ukraine is simply being informed of its fate.
Just as letting Hitler take the Sudetenland did not prevent World War II but made it more likely, surrendering Ukrainian territory to Putin will not bring peace. As I noted last year (Europe’s precarious security could invite Putin to expand war, 26 January 2024), European weakness will only encourage Putin further.
Former Trump officials are sounding the alarm, too. John Bolton, Trump’s former National Security Advisor, warns that Putin is essentially waiting for Trump to “surrender” Ukraine. Another former National Security Advisor, H.R. McMaster, cautions that abandoning Ukraine would be a gift to the “axis of aggressors” – Moscow, Tehran, Beijing and Pyongyang. They are both right.
The most likely scenario is frightening enough. Russia will use any ceasefire to regroup and rearm. Once ready, probably within two to three years, it will strike again – either to take more of Ukraine or to threaten NATO’s eastern members directly, most likely starting with the Baltic states.
But the worst-case scenario is even more terrifying. When I discussed Niall Ferguson’s analysis at last year’s Consilium conference (Why it’s dangerously misguided to ignore threat of new axis, 29 October 2024), he warned that Russia’s success in Ukraine could trigger multiple global crises.
If Ukraine falls, China might move on Taiwan, calculating that US deterrence is at a low point. Iran could escalate in the Middle East through its proxies. North Korea might fire missiles over Japan or even test nuclear weapons in a show of defiance. Aggressive powers will all be emboldened if America leaves Ukraine to Putin.
Meanwhile, Eastern European countries like Poland and the Baltic states will feel compelled to accelerate their rearmament. Some might even pursue nuclear weapons. Indeed, the lesson for every medium-sized power will be that only nuclear weapons truly guarantee security.
What we are witnessing is thus the end of the post-World War II international order. German foreign affairs expert Thomas Jäger put it starkly: “The rules-based international order existed only as long as it was supported by US power. That is over. It has not existed since 12 February 2025.”
The old rules-based order Jäger refers to was built on international law, mutual defence commitments and secure borders – all policed by the US.
The new world emerging will be more like the 19th century: great powers pursuing their interests through force – and smaller nations forced to accept their fate. That order terminated with the two world wars.
This time, it will be worse. Today’s great powers have nuclear weapons, cyber warfare capabilities and a whole arsenal of tools for destabilising other countries through disinformation and economic coercion.
The problems are exacerbated by Trump’s open flirtation with fascist ideology. Over the weekend, Trump posted on social media that “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” It was a statement reminiscent of the great ideologue of Nazism, Carl Schmitt. Three generations ago, it was the US liberating the world of fascism. Today, it is the US President espousing Schmittian thinking.
Few have grasped just how dangerous this moment is. Europe has been caught completely off guard, despite all the warning signs and the experience of Trump’s first presidency.
When future historians write about the end of Pax Americana and the Western-led international order, they will mark last week as the week it died. The short peace that may follow will be fragile. The world that emerges will be darker, more brutal and more dangerous than most people (and practically everyone in New Zealand) imagine.
A new era in international relations has begun. As President Trump celebrated his call with Putin, he spoke excitedly of “the great benefit” of their nations “working together.”
What he really announced that day was not peace but surrender – not just of Ukraine, but of the entire post-war order that made the West secure and prosperous since 1945.
It will not come back.
To read the full article on the Newsroom website, click here.