Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s From Across the Pond column. Like many, I used to believe that former U.S. President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was the biggest strategic mistake America had made, at least since the Vietnam War. That is, until now. U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to join Israel in a war against Iran is a far bigger strategic error, and one with far bigger strategic consequences. The reasons for this are many, ranging from the immediate impact on the region and the global economy to the longer-term upshots for Russia and China, as well as the repercussions for U.S. alliances and America’s global standing. That much is already clear — and we’re only three weeks in. Let’s start with the similarities: Much like the Iraq War, the war against Iran began based on the presumption that the regime in power would swiftly fall and that a new, more moderate and less antagonistic one would take its place. In both instances, the idea was to remove the greatest destabilizing threat in the Middle East — Saddam Hussein’s regime in the initial case, the theocratic dictatorship in Tehran in the latter — through the swift and decisive use of military force. But while Bush understood that defeating a regime required ground forces, it seems Trump simply hoped that airpower alone would suffice. As a result, Hussein’s regime fell swiftly — though Bush did vastly underestimate what would be required to rebuild a stable, let alone a democratic, Iraq in its place. But the Iranian government, as U.S. intelligence officials themselves have testified, “appears to be intact” despite Israel killing many of its key political and security leaders through targeted strikes. Focusing on the region at large, Bush’s misjudgment eventually contributed to a large-scale insurgency, which strengthened Iran’s influence in Iraq and the wider Middle East. In contrast, Trump’s miscalculation has left in place a regime that, aside from assuring its own survival, is now singularly focused on inflicting as much damage on the U.S. and its allies as it possibly can. Iranian drones and missiles have already attacked Israel and the Gulf states, targeted critical energy production facilities and effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, which hosts one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas export transits. The Salalah oil storage fire in Oman is pictured on March 13, 2026. | Gallo Images/Orbital Horizon/Copernicus Sentinel Data 2026 Less than a month in, the world is now witnessing the largest oil and gas disruption in history. And as the fighting escalates to include gas and oil production infrastructure, the global economic consequences will be felt by every single country for months, if not years, to come — even if the conflict were to end soon. The damage that has already been inflicted on the global economy is far greater than the economic consequences of the Iraq War in its entirety. But that’s not all. Geopolitically, the U.S.-Israel war with Iran will also have far greater reverberations than the war in Iraq ever did. For one, the Bush administration spent a lot of time and effort trying to get allies on board to participate in and support the war. It didn’t fully succeed in this, as key allies like Germany and France continued opposing the war. But it tried. Trump, by contrast, didn’t even try to get America’s most important allies on board. Not only that, he even failed to inform them of his decision. And yet, when Iran responded predictably by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. president then demanded allies send their navies to escort tankers — despite the U.S. Navy so far refusing to do so. And while it’s true that Iraq left many U.S. allies — even those that joined the war, like the U.K. — deeply scarred, Iran has convinced U.S. allies they can no longer rely on the U.S., and that Washington is now a real threat to their economic security. That, too, will have a lasting impact well beyond anything the war in Iraq did. Finally, the fact remains that when Bush decided to invade Iraq, Russia and China were still minor global powers. Russian President Vladimir Putin was only just starting his effort to stabilize the economy and rebuild Russia’s military power, while China had just joined the World Trade Organization and was still a decade or more away from becoming an economic superpower. In other words, America’s blunder in Iraq occurred at a time when the strategic consequences for the global balance of power were still manageable. Trump’s Iran debacle is occurring at a time when China is effectively competing with the U.S. for global power and influence, and Russia is engaged in the largest military action in Europe since the end of World War II. A woman sifts through the rubble in her house in Tehran, Iran on March 15, 2026 after it was damaged by missile attacks two days before. | Majid Saeedi/Getty Images Both stand to benefit greatly. Russia is the short-term winner here. Oil prices are rising, generating more than $150 million per day in extra income for Moscow to feed its war machine. The U.S. is relaxing its sanctions against Russia in a vain attempt to stall prices from ballooning at the pump. All the while, Ukraine is being left to contend with Russia’s missile and drone attacks without the advanced defensive weaponry that’s now being used to protect Israel and the Gulf instead. China, meanwhile, is watching as the U.S. diverts its military forces from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East, where they will likely remain for months, if not years. These forces include a carrier strike group, a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system from Korea, and a Marine Expeditionary Force from Japan. And while a disruption in oil and gas supply will be a short-term problem for Beijing too, China’s rapid transition to renewables and close alignment with energy-rich Russia will leave it well placed to confidently confront the future. Bush and Trump both came to office determined to avoid the mistaken wars of their predecessors. Nevertheless, they both embarked on military adventures fed by a hubristic belief in American power. But while the U.S. was strong enough — and its adversaries still weak enough — to recoup much of the damage inflicted by Bush’s war, the war unfolding in Iran today will leave behind an America that will have lost much of its global power, standing and influence, destined to confront rising adversaries all on its own.

Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s From Across the Pond column. Last December, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth laid out the current administration’s National Defense Strategy, arguing that President Donald Trump was the true heir to former President Ronald Reagan’s strategy of peace through strength. A key part of that strategy, Hegseth maintained, was the Weinberger Doctrine, which determined the principles for when and how the U.S. was to use military force. He then claimed that last June’s Operation Midnight Hammer against Iran had been “a textbook example” of that doctrine, its strikes “obliterating the Iranian nuclear program.” But what about the current war against Iran? Does Operation Epic Fury also hold up against Weinberger’s tenets? Hegseth would surely have a tough time making that case — and for Trump, this could finally mean trouble. In a November 1984 speech, then-Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger outlined six principles for military engagement that were, in many ways, drawn from lessons learned during that year’s disastrous Lebanon expedition and the failures in Vietnam a decade before. Unsurprisingly, Trump’s Iran war fails to meet virtually every single one. First, Weinberger said, force should only be used if a vital national interest is at stake. And while Iran may be governed by an odious regime that has accumulated a vast arsenal of ballistic missiles, pursued a nuclear program and exported terrorism overseas, the U.S. has lived with this very regime for almost half a century. Moreover, Tehran is weaker today than it has been in decades. Its economy is in shambles, its proxies have been decimated by Israel, and its allies in Syria have been ousted. The list doesn’t end there: Its nuclear program was buried deep underground after last year’s Israeli-U.S. bombing campaign; its missile stockpiles are dwindling; its production facilities are damaged; its air force can’t fly; its army can’t move beyond its borders; and its navy is little more than a coastal fleet. So while the end of the Iranian regime would be a good thing, it’s hard to make the case that, weakened as it was by war, sanctions and mismanagement, Tehran posed enough of a threat to vital U.S. national interests to justify a preventive war. Next come Weinberger’s second, third and fourth principles — that before deciding to use force, the U.S. needs to have clearly defined objectives, be wholeheartedly committed to achieving them, and deploy sufficient force to make sure it does. In the case of Iran, there are problems with all three. For one, Trump and his aides have cited many different objectives: deposing the regime, ensuring Iran never has nuclear weapons, destroying the country’s missile capabilities, vanquishing its navy, ending support for its proxies and terrorism, exacting revenge for past attacks killing Americans, as well as ensuring Iran can never project force beyond its borders. All these constitute a tall order, to say the least. Regime change, for one, is hard to achieve from the air, and yet it seems Washington has no intention of deploying ground troops to depose Iran’s regime, maintain order and assist a new one in taking over. And though airpower can do a lot to degrade and destroy the country’s nuclear program, missile capability and military in the short run, those are a means to an end. What political objective would be served by effectively disarming Iran? What would constitute success for the U.S.? And how much force would be needed to achieve it? On this, the administration and the president have been silent. A key part of that strategy, Pete Hegseth maintained, was the Weinberger Doctrine, which determined the principles for when and how the U.S. was to use military force. | Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images Finally, we have Weinberger’s last two principles, which are the most exacting but also the most important in a democracy: First among them is having a “reasonable assurance” of public and congressional support for the contemplated action. Here, the administration hasn’t even tried. In his State of the Union address just days before ordering the start of the war, Trump devoted only three of his 108 minutes to Iran. He emphasized that Iran needed to say the “secret words” that it would not get nuclear weapons — words it has uttered for decades — and never made the case to the public for war to achieve this or any other objective. Also, in contrast to his two Republican predecessors who similarly embarked on wars in the Middle East in the past 30 years — George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush — Trump didn’t seek congressional support either. Rather, he has ignored Congress completely, despite its constitutional role to declare war. Then comes the sixth and most obvious Weinberger principle: War should be a last resort. And what’s unfolding now is anything but. Twice the U.S. engaged in direct and indirect talks with Iran over its nuclear program, and twice Trump decided to go to war rather than see whether a deal was possible. Moreover, the U.S. negotiating team consisted of two entrepreneurs close to the president — his son-in-law Jared Kushner and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff — both of whom know little about the intricacies of nuclear weapons and programs. For example, just days before the talks, Witkoff told Fox News that Iran was “a week away” from making “industrial-grade bomb-making material” — except, in reality, Iran was in no position to enrich any of its uranium since the material was buried deep underground, and there’s no evidence that it even had operable enrichment centrifuges. Witkoff also claimed that Iran had suggested it had sufficient nuclear material to make 11 bombs, and that this fact had been hidden from inspectors. But the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is responsible for verifying nuclear activities, was well aware of exactly how much uranium Iran had enriched after Trump ripped up the last nuclear deal in 2018. The truth is, Iran was nowhere near getting a nuclear weapon. It wouldn’t have the capacity to build a long-range missile that could hit the U.S. for many years. It had no intention of striking U.S. forces in the Middle East first. And there were other ways to address these long-term threats. Moreover, the U.S. negotiating team consisted of two entrepreneurs close to the president — his son-in-law Jared Kushner and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff — both of whom know little about the intricacies of nuclear weapons and programs. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Trump’s decision to go to war wasn’t a last resort — it was a dangerous gamble that force could achieve what diplomacy could not, and it was wholly inconsistent with the Weinberger Doctrine that Hegseth touted as the administration’s guide. Of course, like all gambles, this all might just pay off. But it’s far more likely to end badly, with a new Iranian regime that’s even more determined to exact revenge, using terror and other means to strike back. If so, the cost for Trump will be significant. Just as Bush paid a heavy toll for his Iraq misadventure, and Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden paid dearly for the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, there will be a steep political price for this unnecessary and dangerous wager come November.

Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s From Across the Pond column These days, Europe and America don’t agree on much. But when it comes to the rules-based order, European and American leaders are in agreement: That order is gone. But is it really gone? The American-led order — Pax Americana — died with the re-election of Donald Trump in November 2024. It was clear that Trump 2.0 would continue and accelerate America’s abdication of the global leadership role Washington had first assumed in the early 1940s.  That, however, is not the same as declaring the end of the rules-based order. And, yet, that is what a succession of leaders, starting with Mark Carney’s much-heralded address in Davos last month, have now proclaimed. “The old order is not coming back,” Carney admonished his audience. “Stop invoking rules-based international order as though it still functions as advertised.”  Carney is hardly alone in declaring the end of the rules-based order. In his speech to the Munich Security Conference, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz similarly declared “that the international order, which is based on rights and rules, is on the verge of being destroyed. I fear we need to put it even more bluntly: this order — imperfect even at its best — no longer exists.” America’s erstwhile allies weren’t the only ones to bemoan the end of the rules-based order. America’s chief diplomat in Munich this past weekend, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also picked up a shovel to bury it. “The postwar global order is not just obsolete; it is now a weapon being used against us,” Rubio asserted. “We can no longer place the so-called global order above the vital interests of our people and our nations.” The meetings in Davos and Munich of world leaders have no doubt underscored the reality of a United States vacating its traditional role as the leader of the free world, the main provider of public goods, and the principal champion of a world based on strong security alliances, open trade and the defense of democracy and human rights.  Through tariff policies, threats to invade allied countries, unilateral use of force in Venezuela and elsewhere, Trump’s America has returned to acting like the imperial powers of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Indeed, Rubio seemed to bemoan the fact that this era had ended. “For five centuries, before the end of the Second World War, the West had been expanding — its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers pouring out from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build vast empires extending out across the globe.” If this is what the United States seeks to offer the world as the new global order — a return to imperialism, empire building, exploitation of national resources, the imposition of Christendom — than surely the rest of the world can be forgiven for saying: No, thanks! Nor did Rubio’s nostalgic appeal to Western civilization as the basis of transatlantic unity go over well. “We are part of one civilization — Western civilization,” Rubio declared. “We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry and the sacrifices our forefathers made together.” “The postwar global order is not just obsolete; it is now a weapon being used against us,” Rubio asserted. “We can no longer place the so-called global order above the vital interests of our people and our nations.” | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images But for most Europeans — indeed, for most Americans — these are hardly the features that set the West apart. Missing from the list were such essential Western values as democracy, human rights and the rule of law. As America celebrates its 250th year of independence, it is remarkable that its chief diplomat seems to have forgotten what made America different — the idea, inscribed in the Declaration of Independence, that: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Trump’s America is offering the world something patently unacceptable to all but the most diehard realists, who put their faith in power and its naked pursuit. It is not a world others will want to live in. But that doesn’t mean that the rules-based order is over. Yes, its major powers, led by Russia, China and the U.S., are no longer willing to live by the rules painstakingly developed over the past 80 years. But the rest of the world surely does — not least those middle powers, like Canada, the EU, Japan, Australia, India, Brazil and others Carney called to action. On the security front, America’s NATO allies are reaffirming the importance of their security alliances and bolstering spending on new and necessary capabilities. They are supporting Ukraine in ensuring it will be part of Europe, thus depriving Russia of the principal aim of its war of aggression.  New trading regimes are being negotiated among all the middle powers, to reduce the dependence of their economies on the predatory trade and supply-side policies of China and the U.S. Existing and new rules can govern trade among the 40 countries that belong to the EU, the revised Trans-Pacific Partnership, India and others. Together, these countries account for nearly 40 percent of global GDP — far outstripping the U.S. and China.  And there’s nothing to prevent the middle powers from upholding basic human rights, supporting democracy and the international institutions that have evolved over the years to deliver goods and services and protection to those in need. The U.S. may have abandoned its role in leading the rules-based system. But there is every reason to hope that those middle powers that have benefitted greatly from that system take up the leadership mantle instead.

Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s From Across the Pond column In justifying his military operation against Venezuela, U.S. President Donald Trump reached back in time over two centuries and grabbed hold of the Monroe Doctrine. But it’s another 19th-century interest that propelled his extraordinary gambit in the first place — oil. According to the New York Times, what started as an effort to press the Venezuelan regime to cede power and end the flow of drugs and immigrants into the U.S., began shifting into a determination to seize the country’s oil last fall. And the president was the driving force behind this shift. That’s hardly surprising though — Trump has been obsessed with oil for decades, even as most of the world is actively trying to leave it behind. As far back as the 1980s, Trump was complaining about the U.S. protecting Japan, Saudi Arabia and others to secure the free flow of oil. “The world is laughing at America’s politicians as we protect ships we don’t own, carrying oil we don’t need, destined for allies who won’t help,” he wrote in a 1987 newspaper ad. Having supported the Iraq War from the outset, he later complained that the U.S. hadn’t sufficiently benefited from it. “I would take the oil,” he told the Wall Street Journal in 2011. “I would not leave Iraq and let Iran take the oil.” That same year, he also dismissed humanitarian concerns in Libya, saying: “I am only interested in Libya if we take the oil.” In justifying his military operation against Venezuela, U.S. President Donald Trump reached back in time over two centuries and grabbed hold of the Monroe Doctrine. | Henry Chirinos/EPA Unsurprisingly, “take the oil” later became the mantra for Trump’s first presidential campaign — and for his first term in office. Complaining that the U.S. got “nothing” for all the money it spent invading Iraq: “It used to be, ‘To the victor belong the spoils’ … I always said, ‘Take the oil,’” he griped during a Commander in Chief Forum in 2016. As president, he also insisted on keeping U.S. forces in Syria for that very reason in 2019. “I like oil,” he said, “we’re keeping the oil.” But while Iraq, Libya and even Syria were all conflicts initiated by Trump’s predecessors, Venezuela is quite another matter. Weeks before seizing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump made clear what needed to happen: On Dec. 16, 2025, he announced an oil blockade of the country “until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.” Then, after capturing Maduro, Trump declared the U.S. would “run the country” in order to get its oil. “We’re in the oil business,” he stated. “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies … go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, and start making money.” “We’re going to be taking out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground,” Trump insisted. “It goes also to the United States of America in the form of reimbursement for the damages caused us by that country.” On Wednesday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced that Venezuela would ship its oil to the U.S. “and then infinitely, going forward, we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela into the marketplace,” effectively declaring the expropriation of Venezuela’s most important national resources. All of this reeks of 19th-century imperialism. But the problem with Trump’s oil obsession goes deeper than his urge to steal it from others — by force if necessary. He is fixated on a depleting resource of steadily declining importance. And yet, this doesn’t seem to matter. Throughout his reelection campaign, Trump still emphasized the need to produce more oil. “Drill, baby, drill” became as central to his energy policy as “take the oil” was to his views on military intervention. He called on oil executives to raise $1 billion for his campaign, promising his administration would be “a great deal” for their industry. And he talked incessantly of the large reservoirs of “liquid gold” in the U.S., claiming: “We’re going to make a fortune.” But these weren’t just campaign promises. Upon his return to office, Trump unleashed the full force of the U.S. government to boost oil production at home and exports abroad. He established a National Energy Dominance Council, opened protected lands in Alaska and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas exploration, signed a mandate for immediate offshore oil and gas leases into law, and accelerated permitting reforms to speed up pipeline construction, refinery expansion and liquid natural gas exports. At the same time, he’s been castigating efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions as part of a climate change “hoax,” he withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement once again, and he took a series of steps to end the long-term transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy. He signed a law ending credits and subsidies to encourage residential solar and electric vehicle purchases, invoked national security to halt offshore wind production and terminated grants encouraging renewable energy production. Then, after capturing Nicolás Maduro, Trump declared the U.S. would “run the country” in order to get its oil. | Henry Chirinos/EPA The problem with all these efforts is that the U.S. is now banking on fossil fuels, precisely as their global future is waning. Today, oil production is already outpacing consumption, and global demand is expected to peak later this decade. Over the last 12 months, the cost of oil has decreased by over 23 percent, pricing further exploration and production increasingly out of the market. Meanwhile, renewable energy is becoming vastly more cost-effective. The future, increasingly, lies in renewables to drive our cars; heat, cool and light up our homes; power our data centers, advanced manufacturing factories and everything else that sustains our lives on Earth. By harnessing the power of the sun, the force of wind and the heat of the Earth, China is building its future on inexhaustible resources. And while Beijing is leading the way, many others are following in its footsteps. All this, just as the U.S. goes back to relying on an exhaustive fossil fuel supply. What Trump is betting on is becoming the world’s largest — and last — petrostate. China is betting on becoming its largest and lasting electrostate. Which side would you rather be on?

Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s From Across the Pond column. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  Since U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, Europe has slowly but steadily moved through the five stages of grief, taking an entire year to finally reach acceptance over the loss of the transatlantic relationship. Now, the question for 2026 is whether the bloc has the will and strength to turn this acceptance into real action. Trump’s reelection and inauguration represented the end of Pax America — a period of over 75 years where the U.S. was the undisputed Leader of the Free World, and successive presidents and administrations in Washington placed relations with Europe at the core of America’s global engagement. It was clear Trump would end this era and instead adopt a narrow, regionally focused policy of “America First.” And yet, few in Europe believed this would truly be the case. At a lunch attended by some dozen NATO ambassadors in mid-December 2024, one envoy after another declared that with a little more European spending on defense, everything would be okay. When I suggested they were in denial about how fundamental the change would be, one of them turned to me and said: “You can’t seriously believe that the United States will no longer see its security as tied to Europe’s, do you?” But not long after, Europe’s refusal to accept the fundamental transformation that Trump’s reelection entailed was put to the test by a series of events in February. At his first NATO meeting, new Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told his colleagues that Europe needed to “take ownership of conventional security on the continent.” Next, Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed that the U.S. and Russia would negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine — without Ukraine’s or Europe’s involvement. And then came Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference, where he said that the biggest threat to Europe wasn’t Russia or China but “the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.” Finally, at the end of the month, Trump and Vance confronted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, on live television. “You don’t have the cards,” Trump exclaimed, berating Ukraine for failing to end a war it had not started, and ignoring how Ukrainians had valiantly held off their subjugation and occupation by a much larger foe for more than three years. So, by February’s end, Europe’s denial turned to anger. When I met with a foreign minister of a major ally just days after Munich, the longtime supporter of the U.S. appeared despondent. “You stabbed us in the back. You’re leaving us to deal with Russia alone,” he shouted. But the anger lasted only so long, and in the next few months, the bloc shifted to bargaining. Key European leaders convinced Zelenskyy to forget about the Oval Office showdown and tell Trump he was fully committed to peace. Europe would then join Ukraine in supporting an unconditional ceasefire — as Trump had demanded. In August, stage three — bargaining — quickly gave way to stage four — depression. | Tom Brenner for The Washington Post via Getty Images Similarly, in April, when Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs, hitting allied countries just as hard as non-allies, the U.K. and the EU moved swiftly to negotiate deals that would lower rates from the initial levels of 25 percent or more. By June, NATO leaders had even agreed to raise defense spending to the 5-percent of GDP mark Trump had insisted on. Europe’s negotiating on Ukraine, trade and defense gave Trump the victories he long craved. But it soon became clear that however great the victories or however fawning the flattery, the U.S. president would just pocket them and move on, with little regard for the transatlantic relationship. Trump was already back to negotiating Ukraine’s fate directly with Putin by August — in a red-carpeted summit in Alaska, no less. And though he had flown to the meeting promising “severe consequences” if the Russian leader didn’t agree to a ceasefire, he left having adopted Putin’s position that the war could only end if there was a fully agreed-upon peace agreement. Days later, no less than eight European leaders flew to Washington to try and persuade Trump to change course and push Russia to accept the ceasefire he had long proposed. And while it sort of worked, most of the leaders still left Washington deeply depressed. No matter what, when it came to Ukraine, an issue they deem existential for their security, Trump just wasn’t on the same page. Eventually, it was the publication of the new U.S. National Security Strategy in early December that proved too much — even for Europe’s most stalwart Atlanticists. The strategy not only berates the continent for supposedly causing its own rendezvous with “civilizational erasure,” it also clearly underscores that both Trump and his administration view Russia very differently than Europe. Gone is any mention of Moscow as a military threat. Instead, the U.S. is seeking a return to “strategic stability” with Russia, even offering itself up as a mediator between Russia and Europe on security. An ally just doesn’t say these things or behave in this way. So, after a long year, Europe has now come to accept the reality that the transatlantic relationship they have long known and depended on is no more. “The decades of Pax Americana are largely over for us in Europe, and for us in Germany as well,” said German Chancellor Friedrich Merz earlier this month. “The Americans are now very, very aggressively pursuing their own interests. And that can only mean one thing: that we, too, must now pursue our own interests.” What remains to be seen is whether Europe will do so. On that, the jury is still very much out.

Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s From Across the Pond column. If you’ve had a hard time following the latest U.S. efforts to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, you’re hardly alone. It’s been a dizzying few months, with meetings in Moscow, Anchorage, New York, Washington, Miami, Kyiv and Geneva, and countless more informal calls between a large list of players. One reason for this rollercoaster is that U.S. President Donald Trump has set his camp a nearly impossible task: ending a war between two countries that are both determined to continue their fight for polar opposite goals: In Russia’s case, Ukraine’s subjugation; in Ukraine’s case, securing its sovereignty and independence. But there’s another reason for the chaotic scenes we’ve witnessed over the past few months — of summits announced then called off, deadlines declared then abandoned, plans set in stone then amended, all with an ever-rotating cast of characters leading negotiations — and that’s because the Trump administration lacks a formal process to develop policy, provide guidance, interact with foreign governments and set a clear direction. This absence of formal process is a unique feature — or bug — of this presidency. Of course, Trump is hardly the first U.S. leader to rely on a small coterie of aides to discuss critical foreign policy issues. Former President George H.W. Bush ran the Gulf War with seven top officials, while Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden made many national security decisions during his presidential daily intelligence brief, which was attended by just a few top aides. What’s different here is that top aides in other administrations relied on an interagency process led by their staff to discuss issues, develop policy options and oversee implementation. Trump, meanwhile, runs the U.S. government like he ran his family business — from behind his desk in the Oval Office, where he meets with everyone, calls anyone and then decides policy on a whim. And his aides operate almost entirely on their own. When it comes to Ukraine and Russia, there are literally only a handful of individuals within the president’s circle: Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Presidential Peace Envoy Steve Witkoff and, since October, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Not included as a matter of course are the defense secretary, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, or the heads of the CIA and national intelligence. Of these key players, only Rubio has a substantial staff at the State Department and National Security Council, but even then, there’s very little evidence to suggest he relies on them in the ways his predecessors did. Whatever interagency discussions are happening, their influence on policy development at the highest levels is scant — if it exists at all. And according to foreign interlocutors, including diplomats in Washington, officials in both departments are approachable yet largely in the dark about what is happening. Even more problematic is the fact that, besides Rubio, the other main players on the Ukraine file operate without staff or process. Witkoff, for example, attends meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials without a notetaker, and he’s been known to rely on Putin’s own interpreter. Kushner is deeply involved in talks but has no formal position in the administration. And Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, who was drawn into discussions with Ukraine on very short notice last month, was only given a weekend to get up to speed on the war, its history and the negotiations before being sent off to Kyiv to present the latest plan. This absence of process also goes a long way toward explaining the extremely chaotic nature of the talks over the past few weeks and how everything all unfolded. Initially, in mid-October, Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov sent Rubio a memorandum setting forth ideas on how to end the war. The plan was that Putin and Trump might agree on these points during their meeting in Budapest, which was planned for the end of the month. Even more problematic is the fact that, besides Rubio, the other main players on the Ukraine file operate without staff or process. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images The memo contained all the usual Russian demands: territorial concessions, severe limits on Ukraine’s armed forces, and no NATO troops in or membership for Ukraine. But when Rubio called Lavrov to discuss it, he found that Moscow’s position was set in stone and advised Trump not to go to Budapest. The U.S. president subsequently called off the talks, saying he didn’t want “a wasted meeting.” However, while Rubio and Trump were pivoting to increase pressure on Russia — including the announcement of the first new sanctions since Trump’s return to office — Witkoff was engaging other Russian interlocutors to get talks back on track. In a call with Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s top foreign policy advisor, Witkoff reportedly claimed: “The president will give me a lot of space and discretion to get to the deal.” Then, two weeks later, Witkoff and Kushner were sitting down in Miami with Kirill Dmitriev, another close Putin envoy, looking to sketch out a 20+ point plan to end the war, just as they had done for Gaza weeks earlier. Except unlike Rubio mere days before, Witkoff and Kushner largely accepted Russia’s position and made it their own. As Dmitriev told Ushakov after the meeting, as reported in another leaked transcript, he had passed along an informal paper as the basis for a final plan to make sure it was “as close to [Russia’s] as possible.” When Rubio was first presented with this 28-point plan drawn up by Witkoff and Kushner, he called it merely “a list of potential ideas,” reportedly telling U.S. senators that “it is not our recommendation [or] peace plan.” Trump, however, liked it and told Ukraine to sign on by Thanksgiving or be on their own. This then led Rubio to quickly reverse course and declare “the peace proposal was authored by the U.S.” Ultimately, what drives all these U.S. players isn’t a formal process or even a coherent assessment of what it will actually take to end the war in Ukraine. Rather, it is an unrelenting effort to satisfy Trump’s insistent demand to be recognized as the world’s peacemaker. As long as this continues, so will the chaos and confusion. And none of this will bring an actual end to the war any closer to reality.

Ivo Daalder, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s From Across the Pond column. Three hundred days into U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, how is the world faring? According to the president and his supporters, the answer is clear: never better — at least as far as the U.S. is concerned. This isn’t a judgement I personally share, but let’s take a closer look at the case that Trump and his defenders are making for the success of his foreign policy to date — and whether it tells the whole story. By forcing Europe and other allies to pay more for defense, to take on a bigger share of the burden of helping Ukraine, and to buy more weapons from the U.S., Trump has boosted the collective strength of America and its allies to unprecedented heights. Or so the argument goes. This year, the U.S. increased defense spending by about 13 percent to reach $1 trillion. And its NATO allies — perennial spending laggards — have now committed to spending 5 percent of their GDP on defense. That’s a bigger share than the U.S. will spend. Building on this growing strength, according to Robert O’Brien, Trump’s first-term national security adviser, the U.S. president has “positioned himself as the indispensable global statesman by driving efforts to bring peace to other, often far-flung and long-standing disputes.” Trump himself frequently touts this peacemaking prowess, boasting that he has “ended 8 wars in 8 months.” And to be fair, in some of these cases he did teach a masterclass in using leverage to get what he wants. Nowhere was this more evident than in the Middle East, where, as one seasoned diplomat told me: “No one can say no to him.” The result was the ceasefire in Gaza, the return of all living hostages to Israel, and an end to Israel’s longest, most devastating war. Finally, both Trump and his officials argue, he has remade the global trading order to the benefit of the U.S. He has used tariffs and threats to force open markets long closed to American goods, to reap revenues by charging for the privilege of access to the world’s greatest consumer market, and to strong-arm other countries into paying for America’s reindustrialization. Taken at face value, all of this adds up to quite a record — but an incomplete one, to say the least. Looking at the specifics, the picture becomes much more complicated, uneven and often quite different. Take alliances, for example. It’s true, of course, that many NATO allies have now committed to spending much more on defense. It’s even true that Trump “will achieve something NO American president in decades could get done” — as NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte texted Trump shortly before the NATO summit last June where that commitment was agreed. Many NATO allies have now committed to spending much more on defense. | Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images But what Rutte didn’t say is that this is because no other U.S. president has ever threatened to walk away from the alliance, or to abandon the solemn commitment to collective defense enshrined in Article 5 of the NATO charter. Led by Germany, NATO allies are boosting their defense spending, but the main reason is because they no longer believe they can rely on the U.S. ( Another one is that they fear Russia — an anxiety Trump doesn’t share.) Trump’s approach to Ukraine clearly underscores this change. He ended all military and economic assistance to the country, forcing it into an agreement to share its natural resources in return for U.S. aid that was previously provided cost-free. He then sought to force Ukraine’s president to sign a deal that would effectively mean Kyiv’s capitulation to Russian aggression, and only agreed to ship weapons if Europe paid for them. None of this is the behavior of an ally who believes their mutual alliance reflects shared interests or common threat perceptions. It’s the behavior of someone who has turned security alliances into a protection racket. As for Trump’s self-declared peacemaking prowess, there’s much less than meets the eye. Yes, the U.S. president skillfully maneuvered Israel and Hamas into a ceasefire and the return of hostages — but this is hardly the lasting peace he proclaimed. The divide between Israelis and Palestinians is deeper now than at any time in recent history, and the prospect of renewed violence is vastly greater than any enduring peace. Many of the other conflicts Trump claims to have ended suffer from similar shortcomings. India and Pakistan are one incident away from a return to cross-border fighting. Cambodia and Thailand suspended their agreement less than 30 days after Trump presided over its signing. And neither Rwanda nor the Congo are implementing the terms of the agreement they initialed in Washington earlier this year. Peace, it turns out, is not the same as stopping the shooting. As for trade, Trump has indeed upended the global system. But to what end? The escalating tariff war with China has settled into an uncomfortable truce akin to the situation that existed when he first returned to office. Meanwhile, many big agreements — including with the EU — have yet to be finalized, as Trump has always been more interested in declaring a win than in negotiating the details. In fact, it’s highly uncertain whether Europe, Japan or Korea will actually make the kinds of new investments Trump has touted. And just last week, Trump abandoned tariffs on hundreds of food and other items in order to address a growing domestic political backlash stemming from rising prices on groceries and other basics. Overall, Trump has been much more skillful at wrecking things than building them. He has destroyed a global order that was painstakingly built by his predecessors over many decades; an order that produced more prosperity, greater security and broader freedom for Americans than at any time in history. To be sure, the system had its flaws and needed reform. But to abandon it without considering what will take its place is the height of folly. Folly for which Americans, no less than others, will pay the ultimate price.

Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s From Across the Pond column. U.S. President Donald Trump loves the 19th century. His heroes are former presidents William McKinley who “made our country very rich through tariffs,” Teddy Roosevelt who “did many great things” like the Panama Canal, and James Monroe who established the policy rejecting “the interference of foreign nations in this hemisphere and in our own affairs.” These aren’t just some throw-away lines from Trump’s speeches. They signify a much deeper and broader break from established modern national security thinking. Trump is now the first U.S. president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to believe the principal threats to the U.S. aren’t in far-away regions or stem from far-away powers — rather, they’re right here at home. For him, the biggest threats to America today are the immigrants flooding across the country’s borders and the drugs killing tens of thousands from overdoses. And to that end, his real goal is to dominate the entire Western hemisphere — from the North Pole to the South Pole — using America’s superior military and economic power to defeat all “enemies,” both foreign and domestic. Of course, at the top of Trump’s list of threats to the U.S. is immigration. He campaigned incessantly on the idea that his predecessors had failed to seal the southern border, and promised to deport every immigrant without legal status — some 11 million in all — from the U.S. Those efforts started on the first day, with the Trump administration deploying troops to the southern border to interdict anyone seeking to cross illegally. It also instituted a dragnet to sweep people off the streets — whether in churches, near schools, on farmlands, inside factories, at court houses or in hospitals. Even U.S. citizens have been caught up in this massive deportation effort. No one is safe. The resulting shift is also expectedly dramatic: Refugee admissions have halted, with those promised passage stuck in third countries. In the coming year, the only allotment for refugees will be white South Africans, who Trump has depicted as genocide victims. Illegal crossings are down to a trickle, while large numbers of immigrants — legal as well as illegal — are returning home. And 2025 will likely be the first time in nearly a century where net migration into the U.S. will be negative. For Trump, immigrants aren’t the only threat to the homeland, though. Drugs are too. That’s why on Feb. 1, the U.S. leader imposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China because of fentanyl shipments — though Canada is hardly a significant source of the deadly narcotic. Still, all these tariffs remain in place. Then, in August, he called in the military, signing a directive that authorizes it to take on drug cartels, which he designated as foreign terrorist organizations. “Latin America’s got a lot of cartels and they’ve got a lot of drugs flowing,” he later explained. “So, you know, we want to protect our country. We have to protect our country.” And that was just the beginning. Over the past two months, the Pentagon has deployed a massive array of naval and air power, and some 10,000 troops for drug interdiction. Over the past five weeks, the U.S. military has also been directed to attack small vessels crossing the Caribbean and the Pacific that were suspected to be running drugs. To date, 16 vessels have been attacked, killing over 60 people. For Donal Trump, immigrants aren’t the only threat to the homeland, though. Drugs are too. | oe Raedle/Getty Images When asked for the legal justification of targeting vessels in international waters that posed no imminent threat to the U.S., Trump dismissed the need: “I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. Okay? We’re going to kill them. You know, they’re going to be, like, dead.” But now the U.S. leader has set his sights on bigger fish. Late last month, the Pentagon ordered a carrier battle group, Gerald R. Ford, into the Caribbean. Once that carrier and its accompanying ships arrive at their destination later this week, the U.S. will have deployed one-seventh of its Navy — the largest such deployment in the region since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. If the target is just drug-runners in open waters, clearly this is overkill — but they aren’t. The real reason for deploying such overwhelming firepower is for Trump to intimidate the leaders and regimes he doesn’t like, if not actually force them from office. Drugs are just the excuse to enable such action. The most obvious target is Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, who blatantly stole an election to retain power last year. The White House has declared Maduro “an illegitimate leader heading an illegitimate regime,” and Trump has made clear that “there will be land action in Venezuela soon.” However, Maduro isn’t the only one Trump has his eye on. After Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the U.S. of killing innocent fishermen, Trump cut off all aid to the country and accused Petro of being “an illegal drug leader,” which potentially sets the stage for the U.S. to go after another regime. All this firepower and rhetoric is meant to underscore one point: To Trump, the entire Western hemisphere is America’s. Leaders he doesn’t like, he will remove from power. Countries that take action he doesn’t approve of — whether jailing those convicted of trying to overthrow a government like in Brazil, or running ads against his tariffs as in Canada — will be punished economically. Greenland will be part of the U.S., as will the Panama Canal, and Canada will become the 51st state. Overall, Trump’s focus on dominating the Western hemisphere represents a profound shift from nearly a century’s-long focus on warding off overseas threats to protect Americans at home. And like it or not, for Trump, security in the second quarter of the 21st century lies in concepts and ideas first developed in the last quarter of the 19th century.

Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s From Across the Pond column. When U.S. President Donald Trump first met with then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel after his first term began, he told her that Germany’s lack of defense spending was a problem. It meant the U.S. had to spend too much. “Angela, you owe me $1 trillion,” he said. In the end, Germany never paid a penny. But this exchange set the tone for how Trump would approach the presidency in his second term. Whether a person, business, university, law firm, media company or country — Trump has used the power of the presidency to exact a price, often in dollar terms, from whoever he interacts with. It’s the unifying theme of his leadership and his approach to the world. Donald Trump is the “Shakedown President.” It started even before he won reelection. At a dinner in Mar-a-Lago with some 20 top oil executives in April 2024, Trump told attendees to raise $1 billion for his reelection campaign, which, he promised, would be a great “deal” because he’d cut red tape and lower their taxes on “Day One” of his presidency — and that was just the beginning. Since returning to the White House, Trump has turned the Oval Office into the pay-to-play room: It’s where he met the managing head of venerable New York litigation firm Paul, Weiss and twisted arms to get $40 million in annual pro bono work for causes he deems worthwhile. In return, he rescinded an executive order he’d signed, barring the firm from federal contracts and its employees from holding security clearances. Seeing the writing on the wall, eight other white-shoe law firms then followed in Paul, Weiss’s footsteps, signing deals with the administration that collectively promised more than $1 billion in pro bono services for Trump’s priorities. Smelling victory, the president soon set his sights on other industries, starting with big media: He sued ABC and CBS News when they broadcast interviews he didn’t like and got them to pay $15 million and $16 million, respectively. The president reached multimillion dollar settlements with tech companies Meta and X. And while his multi-billion-dollar suit against the New York Times was thrown out, the Wall Street Journal’s is still pending. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images Aside from the steep monetary value, these shakedowns have also made media companies more adverse to reporting criticism of the president and his administration’s actions. Next came universities: Long the foundation of America’s scientific and technological supremacy, Trump cut off federal research funding for major universities in order to force them to adopt policies favored by his administration. Some institutions, like Columbia University, Brown University and the University of Pennsylvania, obliged, agreeing to pay eight-to-nine figure “fines.” Others, like Harvard University, resisted and have been financially squeezed, seeing their critical scientific research grants cancelled. Corporations haven’t escaped Trump’s crosshairs either, despite much of corporate America backing Trump in the latest election. He approved Nippon Steel’s takeover of U.S. Steel, but only after demanding a “Golden Share” in the company, which grants his administration extraordinary control and veto authority over operations and decisions. He also turned a government subsidy to Intel into a 10 percent stake in the company — with the option for another 5 percent down the road — and approved chip sales to China by Nvidia and AMD in return for a 15 percent levy on all sales. Then, there are America’s trading partners, which are, notably, some of its closest allies. Here, Trump brokered remarkably similar and extraordinarily one-sided deals with the EU, Japan and South Korea, after threatening to impose tariffs of 25 percent or more on all imports from America’s largest trading partners in the Europe and Asia. He finally “compromised” at a 15 percent levy that was still six times higher than before and, of course, his victory has left the U.S. public as the real losers, facing higher prices on a wide variety of goods. But that wasn’t all. Trump also exacted commitments from these governments to make large-scale investments in the U.S. — $350 billion by South Korea, $550 billion by Japan and up to $600 billion by European companies. Europe also agreed to purchase $750 billion in gas and other energy products over four years. And here’s the kicker: In most cases, Trump will control where the investment goes, and the U.S. will receive most of the profits — up to 90 percent in the case of Japanese investments. In the short term, the Shakedown Presidency works. Individuals, law firms, media companies, universities and even countries calculate they’re better off paying a little than fighting a lot. And once one of them does, others follow. Pretty soon, it’s a billion here, a few hundred billion there, and it all adds up to real money. But — and this is crucial — in the long term, this is bound to fail. These shakedowns create massive resentment among those who bear the consequences. Clients, partners and associates search out other firms to bring their business to; readers, listeners and viewers tune out media companies they can no longer trust; and countries begin to shift to markets and partners that won’t use their interconnectedness to serve the narrow, selfish ends of one man and his administration. So far, Trump has been able to shake down a good many individuals, succeeding as he picks off firms and countries one by one. But soon, everyone will get wiser and realize they have alternatives — and that when they unite, Trump will be unable to continue his shake down operations.

Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s From Across the Pond column. Russia is at war with Europe. It has been waging an overt war in Ukraine for over a decade now, and with increasing ferocity since its full-scale invasion in 2022. But the fighting in Ukraine is only part of Russia’s wider war against Europe as a whole. This month’s drone incursions on Poland and Romania and flying into Estonian airspace underscore Moscow’s broader intent: dividing Europe and the U.S., weakening public support for strong military action and ending the continent’s support for Ukraine. But until now, Europe hadn’t taken this threat seriously. It preferred to view Russia’s escalating operations — the assassinations, cyberattacks, sabotage of critical infrastructure, disinformation campaigns and more — as falling into a gray zone below the level of armed conflict. And its chosen response was to improve resilience while, at times publicly, condemning Russia for its actions. Essentially, Europe imposed no cost on Moscow for its covert agitation against the continent — and that’s a mistake. This failure is behind the significant escalation in the Kremlin’s attacks on Europe over the past three years. As a new report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) underscores, the number of such attacks grew while the full-scale war got underway, and the reason is clear: Russia was stymied by Ukraine’s stubborn defense on the battlefield and the support it has received from Europe and the U.S. “Russia simply does not have the wherewithal to fully subjugate Ukraine by force,” Britain’s MI6 chief Richard Moore noted the other day. “Yes, they are winding forward on the battlefield, but at a snail’s pace and horrendous cost, and Putin’s army is still far short of its original invasion objectives,” he added. “Bluntly, Putin has bitten off more than he can chew.” The only way Moscow can now achieve its objectives is by weakening Europe’s support for Ukraine and exploiting divisions within and among NATO nations. This is what its covert war against Europe aims to do. The IISS report details just how many of Russia’s attacks on European infrastructure consist of facilities linked to the war in Ukraine. As the country’s military faltered in 2023, the number of attacks on Europe nearly quadrupled, and they increasingly targeted “bases, production facilities and those facilities involved in transporting military aid to Ukraine.” Then, in the first half of this year, the attacks declined significantly, likely reflecting Moscow’s assessment that U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to office would weaken support for Ukraine. And, indeed, it did — Washington ended its military and economic assistance to Ukraine and sought a diplomatic conclusion to the war that accepts many of Moscow’s conditions. But even as the U.S. shifted course, Europe’s commitment to Ukraine has remained steadfast — and even increased: Key European countries are now seriously discussing the deployment of a significant security force in Ukraine once fighting ends; European governments, led by Germany, are sending large amounts of weapons to Ukraine — including some bought from the U.S.; financial support for the country’s economy and rapidly expanding defense industry is growing; additional sanctions are in the offing; and the EU is seriously considering seizing Russia’s frozen assets. Faced with such staunch commitment, Putin is now pushing even harder. It’s probably no accident this all started after the Russian leader’s Alaska meeting with Trump, where he assessed the U.S. was unlikely to resist further escalation from Moscow. And clearly, escalation there has been: Since that meeting, Russia’s bombing of Ukraine has intensified— including the largest drone and missile attack of the war, which came in early September. And even as his military efforts inside Ukraine grew increasingly brazen, Putin decided to test Europe and NATO. Another action is to make clear that any further Russian incursion into European airspace, territory or maritime domain will lead to military action designed to destroy or disable the violating system in question. | Federico Gambarini/Picture Alliance via Getty Images First, Russia sent 19 drones across the Polish border on Sept. 10, followed by another drone crossing the Romanian border a few days later. Then, last week, three Russian MiG-31 warplanes crossed into Estonian airspace and loitered for 12 minutes (Though used as an interceptor, the MiG-31 is capable of carrying and launching the Kinzhal hypersonic missile that Russia has repeatedly used against Ukraine). In all three instances, European forces met the military test of effectively neutralizing the threat, including shooting down some of the drones headed toward an air base in Poland. But NATO countries failed the political test. The U.S. response to the repeated violations has been notably tepid, with Trump and other officials suggesting the drone attack on Poland might have been a mistake. The president also made clear that he’s “not gonna defend anybody.” NATO, for its part, convened twice for Article 4 consultations — first at the behest of Poland and then Estonia. It also announced a beefed-up military presence along the Eastern flank. But still, Putin has paid no price — and until he does, Russia will continue escalating, aiming to weaken European support for Ukraine and divide the alliance. What, then, could and should Europe do? One idea, supported by Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski, is to extend NATO’s defenses by intercepting drones and missiles over Ukrainian territory. This could be done with European fighters and air defense systems operating from European airspace or territory, or over the skies of Ukraine. It would be a defensive measure that directly contributes to Ukraine’s defense as well. Another action is to make clear that any further Russian incursion into European airspace, territory or maritime domain will lead to military action designed to destroy or disable the violating system in question. This, too, would constitute a defensive measure — one that would reduce the likelihood of Russia continuing to breach European territory. Finally, Europe should provide Ukraine with the capacity to strike critical logistical nodes and war-supporting facilities in Russia. Kyiv has produced long-range drones and is now finalizing the development of ballistic missiles that have already struck Russian energy and other facilities. The continent could help in that effort with more sophisticated weapons and support. Europe is at war with Russia, whether it likes it or not. It’s high time to recognize this reality and act accordingly.