Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe. Over the past few days, Ukraine has been hitting Russia back as hard as it can with long-range drone strikes, and it has three objectives in mind: lifting Ukrainian spirits as the country suffers blackouts from Russia’s relentless air attacks; demonstrating to Western allies that it has plenty of fight left; and, finally, cajoling Moscow into being serious about peace negotiations and offering concessions. However, the latter is likely to be a forlorn endeavor. And at any rate, amid the ongoing diplomatic chaos, which negotiations are they aiming for? U.S. President Donald Trump’s negotiators have been talking up the prospects of a peace deal — or at least being closer to one than at any time since Russia’s invasion began nearly four years ago. But few in either Kyiv or Europe’s other capitals are persuaded the Kremlin is negotiating in good faith and wants a peace deal that will stick. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz certainly doesn’t think so. Last week, he argued that Russian President Vladimir Putin is just spinning things out, “clearly playing for time.” Many Ukrainian politicians are also of a similar mind, including Yehor Cherniev, deputy chairman of the Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence of Ukraine’s Rada: “We see all the signals they’re preparing to continue the war, increasing arms production, intensifying their strikes on our energy infrastructure,” he told POLITICO.  “When it comes to the talks, I think the Russians are doing as much as they can to avoid irritating Donald Trump, so he won’t impose more sanctions on them,” he added. Indeed, according to fresh calculations by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs’ Janis Kluge, Russia has increased its military spending by another 30 percent year-on-year, reaching a record $149 billion in the first nine months of 2025. The war effort is now eating up about 44 percent of all Russian federal tax revenue — a record high. And as social programs are gutted to keep up, some Western optimists believe that Russia’s anemic growing economy and the staggering cost of war mean Putin soon won’t have any realistic option but to strike an agreement. But predictions of economic ruin forcing Putin’s hand have been made before. And arguably, Russia’s war economy abruptly unwinding may pose greater political and social risks to his regime than continuing his war of attrition, as Russian beneficiaries — including major business groups, security services and military combatants — would suffer a serious loss of income while seeking to adapt to a postwar economy. The war also has the added bonus of justifying domestic political repression. War isn’t only a means but an end in itself for Putin, and patriotism can be a helpful tool in undermining dissent. Nonetheless, the introduction of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner as a key negotiator is significant — he is “Trump’s closer” after all, and his full engagement suggests Washington does think it can clinch a deal with one last heave. Earlier this month, U.S. Special Envoy Gen. Keith Kellogg had indicated a deal was “really close,” with a final resolution hanging on just two key issues: the future of the Donbas and the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The negotiations are in the “last 10 meters,” he said. But again, which negotiations? Those between Washington and Moscow? Or those between Washington and Kyiv and the leaders of Europe’s coalition of the willing? Either way, both have work to do if there is to be an end to the war. Putin has refused to negotiate with Kyiv and Europe directly, in effect dispatching Trump to wring out concessions from them. And no movement Trump’s negotiators secure seems to satisfy a Kremlin that’s adept at dangling the carrot — namely, a possible deal to burnish the U.S. president’s self-cherished reputation as a great dealmaker, getting him ever closer to that coveted Nobel Peace Prize. Of course, for Putin, it all has the added benefit of straining the Western alliance, exploiting the rifts between Washington and Europe and widening them. All the frenzied diplomacy underway now seems more about appeasing Trump and avoiding the blame for failed negotiations or for striking a deal that doesn’t stick — like the Minsk agreements. For example, longtime Putin opponent Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s New Eurasian Strategies Center believes the Russian president remains “convinced that Russia retains an advantage on the battlefield,” and therefore “sees no need to offer concessions.” “He prefers a combination of military action and diplomatic pressure — a tactic that, in the Kremlin’s view, the West is no longer able to resist. At the same time, any peace agreement that meets Russia’s conditions would set the stage for a renewed conflict. Ukraine’s ability to defend itself would be weakened as a result of the inevitable political crisis triggered by territorial concessions, and the transatlantic security system would be undermined. This would create an environment that is less predictable and more conducive to further Russian pressure,” they conclude. Indeed, the only deal that might satisfy Putin would be one that, in effect, represents Ukrainian capitulation — no NATO membership, a cap on the size of Ukraine’s postwar armed forces, the loss of all of the Donbas, recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and no binding security guarantees. But this isn’t a deal Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy can ink — or if he did, it would throw Ukraine into existential political turmoil. “I don’t see the Parliament ever passing anything like that,” opposition lawmaker Oleksandra Ustinova told POLITICO. And if it did, “it might lead to a civil war” with many patriots who have fought, seeing it as a great betrayal, she added. “Everybody understands, and everybody supports Zelenskyy in doing what he’s doing in these negotiations because we understand if he gives up, we’re done for.” Not that she thinks he will. So, don’t expect any breakthroughs in the so-called peace talks this week. Putin will maintain his maximalist demands while sorrowfully suggesting a deal could be struck if only Zelenskyy would be realistic, while the Ukrainian leader and his European backers will do their best to counter. And they will all be performing to try and stay in Trump’s good books.  

Mujtaba Rahman is the head of Eurasia Group’s Europe practice. He posts at @Mij_Europe. It all looked rather bleak for France a little over a week ago, as President Emmanuel Macron’s former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe seemingly wrecked his successor’s deficit-cutting strategy. While Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu was working toward a deal with the Socialists in his country’s fractured National Assembly, the 34 centrist lawmakers of Philippe’s Horizons party unceremoniously announced they would abstain or oppose the government in a key vote on the social security budget set to be held Tuesday evening. The eventual narrow win in favor of a relatively generous social security budget, covering pensions, health and welfare, is thus a godsend for Macron’s embattled prime minister — turns out, he may just survive. However, it doesn’t guarantee an agreement on the main state budget before the Dec. 23 deadline, and Lecornu will likely struggle to deliver another surprise victory over the next two weeks. Ahead of Tuesday evening’s final tally, the prime minister made a string of last-minute concessions to the Socialists and the Greens on health spending to get their votes or abstentions. And he eventually succeeded in securing a small majority by 247 to 234 votes. However, to keep next year’s welfare deficit below €20 billion — already up from the €17.5 billion originally proposed — Lecornu transferred an extra subsidy of at least €4.5 billion from the main budget, which covers everything from education to defense. And it remains unclear where exactly this money will be found, while still meeting the government’s promise to reduce France’s overall deficit from 5.4 percent of gross domestic product to “below 5 percent” next year. Still, Lecornu hopes his unlikely success with the social security budget in the National Assembly will create momentum for a deal on the main budget. Moreover, Tuesday’s victory — though limited and hard fought — is without precedent. No previous budget in France’s Fifth Republic has been negotiated and agreed on by an ad hoc coalition of government and opposition. So, as attention now turns to the main state budget, Lecornu’s balancing act will prove even trickier. | Julien De Rosa/AFP via Getty Images The problem is, the prime minister’s concessions to the moderate left — abolishing a planned freeze on pensions and welfare payments, boosting a 2 percent planned increase in health spending to 3 percent, and suspending pension reform — infuriated two of the four parties in his fragile centrist coalition. So, as attention now turns to the main state budget, Lecornu’s balancing act will prove even trickier. Upon its first reading in the National Assembly, this budget was rejected by 404 votes to one. And the French leader will be hard-pressed to find concessions for the moderate left, appease his coalition and keep his promise to reduce the deficit. As France’s third prime minister in the last 12 months, Lecornu has no majority in a National Assembly that’s currently split into 11 groups. In order to avoid a censure motion, he has also promised not to use his government’s special constitutional powers (Article 49.3) to impose legislation without a parliamentary vote, and has so far rejected pressure from within his own camp to reverse that decision. Simply put, using this power and facing censure is not a risk Lecornu is likely to take — especially since he wouldn’t resign if he lost the upcoming budget vote. He would instead argue the rejected budget deal was an attempted compromise and not his responsibility alone. Paradoxically, part of Lecornu’s problem is that he’s now expected to survive. Previously, the center, center right and Socialists agreed to abstain from voting, as they feared a government collapse and snap parliamentary elections in January, right before the important municipal elections in March. But now that this fear has subsided, Philippe and the center right can take the risk of wrecking the budget deal. To that end, Lecornu and his government are now preparing emergency legislation to roll over this year’s budget to keep the French state operational, and lawmakers have been warned they may be called in for a special session to pass such a stopgap budget in late December. According to the ministry of finance, though, if a rolled-over 2025 budget were to last throughout next year, it would push France’s deficit beyond 6 percent of GDP. In fact, even a delay of two or three months could, in theory, significantly weaken efforts to reduce the budget deficit, as under French law, authorities can’t retroactively apply any tax increases that lawmakers eventually approve. Still, it would at least allow Lecornu to hang on and fight another day. But the outlook for France is looking no brighter than before.

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe. “It must be a policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressure,” said former U.S. President Harry Truman during a speech to Congress in 1947. The Truman Doctrine, as this approach became known, saw the defense of democracy abroad as of vital interest to the U.S. — but that’s not a view shared by President Donald Trump and his acolytes. If anyone had any doubts about this — or harbored any lingering hopes that Vice President JD Vance was speaking out of turn when he launched a blistering attack on Europe at the Munich Security Conference earlier this this year — then Washington’s new National Security Strategy (NSS) should settle the matter. All U.S. presidents release such a strategy early in their terms to outline their foreign policy thinking and priorities, which in turn shapes how the Pentagon’s budget is allocated. And with all 33 pages of this NSS, the world’s despots have much to celebrate, while democrats have plenty to be anxious about — especially in Europe. Fleshing out what the Trump administration means by “America First,” the new security strategy represents an emphatic break with Truman and the post-1945 order shaped by successive U.S. presidents. It is all about gaining a mercantilist advantage, and its guiding principle is might is right. Moving forward, Trump’s foreign policy won’t be “grounded in traditional, political ideology” but guided by “what works for America.” And apparently what works for America is to go easy on autocrats, whether theocratic or secular, and to turn on traditional allies in a startling familial betrayal. Of course, the hostility this NSS displays toward Europe shouldn’t come as a surprise — Trump’s top aides have barely disguised their contempt for the EU, while the president has said he believes the bloc was formed to “screw” the U.S. But that doesn’t dull the sting. Over the weekend, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas sought to present a brave face despite the excoriating language the NSS reserves for European allies, telling international leaders at the Doha Forum: “We haven’t always seen eye-to-eye on different topics. But the overall principle is still there: We are the biggest allies, and we should stick together.” But other seasoned European hands recognize that this NSS marks a significant departure from what has come before. “The only part of the world where the new security strategy sees any threat to democracy seems to be Europe. Bizarre,” said former Swedish Prime Minister and European Council on Foreign Relations co-chair Carl Bildt. He’s right. As Bildt noted, the NSS includes no mention, let alone criticism, of the authoritarian behavior of the “axis of autocracy” — China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. It also rejects interventionist approaches to autocracies or cajoling them to adopt “democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories.” For example, the 2017 NSS framed China as a systemic global challenger in very hostile terms. “A geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions of world order is taking place in the Indo-Pacific region,” that document noted. But the latest version contains no such language amid clear signs that Trump wants to deescalate tensions; the new paramount objective is to secure a “mutually advantageous economic relationship.” All should be well as long as China stays away from the Western Hemisphere, which is the preserve of the U.S. — although it must also ditch any idea of invading Taiwan. “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority” the NSS reads. Likewise, much to Moscow’s evident satisfaction, the document doesn’t even cast Russia as an adversary — in stark contrast with the 2017 strategy, which described it as a chief geopolitical rival. No wonder Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov welcomed the NSS as a “positive step” and “largely consistent” with Russia’s vision. “Overall, these messages certainly contrast with the approaches of previous administrations,” he purred. While Beijing and Moscow appear delighted with the NSS, the document reserves its harshest language and sharpest barbs for America’s traditional allies in Europe. “The core problem of the European continent, according to the NSS, is a neglect of ‘Western’ values (understood as nationalist conservative values) and a ‘loss of national identities’ due to immigration and ‘cratering birthrates,’” noted Liana Fix of the Council on Foreign Relations. “The alleged result is economic stagnation, military weakness and civilizational erasure.” The new strategy also lambasts America’s European allies for their alleged “anti-democratic” practices,accusing them of censorship and suppressing political opposition in a dilation of Vance’s Munich criticism. Ominously, the NSS talks about cultivating resistance within European nations by endorsing “patriotic” parties — a threat that caused much consternation when Vance made it, but is now laid out as the administration’s official policy. Regime change for Europe but not for autocracies is cause for great alarm. So how will Europe react? Flatter Trump as “daddy,” like NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte did in June? Pretend the U.S. administration isn’t serious, and muddle through while overlooking slights? Take the punishment and button up as it did over higher tariffs? Or toughen up, and get serious about strategic autonomy? Europe has once again been put on the spot to make some fundamental choices — and quickly. But doing anything quickly isn’t Europe’s strong point. Admittedly, that’s no easy task for a bloc that makes decisions by consensus in a process designed to be agonizingly slow. Nor will it be an easy road at the national level, with all 27 countries facing critical economic challenges and profound political divisions that Washington has been seeking to roil. With the assistance of Trump’s ideological bedfellows like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, the impasse will only intensify in the coming months. Trump 2.0 is clearly a disorienting step change from the president’s first term — far more triumphalist, confident, uncompromisingly mercantilist; and determined to ignore guardrails; and more revolutionary in how it implements its “America First” agenda. The NSS just makes this clearer, and the howls of disapproval from critics will merely embolden an administration that sees protest as evidence it’s on the right track. Europe’s leaders have had plenty of warnings, but apart from eye-rolling, hand-wringing and wishful thinking they failed to agree on a plan. However, trying to ride things out isn’t going to work this time around — and efforts to foist a very unfavorable “peace” deal on Ukraine may finally the trigger the great unraveling of the Western alliance. The bloc’s options are stark, to be sure. Whether it kowtows or pushes back, it’s going to cost Europe one way or another.

John Kampfner is a British author, broadcaster and commentator. His latest book “In Search of Berlin” is published by Atlantic. He is a regular POLITICO columnist. When it comes to the war in Ukraine, predictions don’t last long. One minute U.S. President Donald Trump’s acting like his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin’s emissary, the next he’s giving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a reasonable hearing, and then it’s back again to the Kremlin camp. With the U.S. administration increasingly taking on the role of unreliable broker over a staunch ally, Europe is in a parlous position. And what has struck me most during a series of security briefings and conferences I’ve attended in Berlin and elsewhere this autumn, is the extent of the alarm. Yet, much of the time, this remains hidden behind closed doors. One of the few crumbs of comfort is that the E3 nations of Germany, France and Britain are seeking to confront this cold reality in unison. After the trauma of Brexit, and all the bickering between former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron in recent years, the mood has changed — because it had to. If Europe is to survive a future attack by Russia — and that is the kind of language being used — its big players must behave in a way they haven’t done before. They must be joined at the hip. As more than a dozen officials have made clear in a series of discussions, the cost of inaction would be far greater than the cost of supporting Ukraine has been so far. Not only would Putin be emboldened to go even further, Europe would also be engulfed by a wave of Ukrainian refugees far greater than anything experienced before. And this realignment was visible amid the pomp and circumstance of German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s state visit to the U.K. last week, as both he and King Charles affirmed what they described as a deep bond between the two countries — one that’s been reinforced by the shared threat of Russian expansionism. Meanwhile, the real business taking place at the government level is intense. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have developed a genuine affinity, stemming from a shared view of current foreign-policy perils and their domestic-policy troubles. A British prime minister of the center-left and German chancellor of the center-right are finding common cause in their double adversity. The loss of the U.S. as a friend in need is what’s forcing this realignment for both countries. Of course, neither publicly dares admit the situation is as bad as it is, but the optics say everything that needs to be said. Just compare Trump’s state visit in September — with its high security, taut smiles and desperate obsequies by his hosts – and the relaxed conviviality of Steinmeier’s. And dominating everything is security — though it’s less a “coalition of the willing” and more a “coalition of the surrounded.” Or, as one German security official, granted anonymity to speak freely, explained: “If the Americans are now acting as mediators between Russia and Europe, they no longer see themselves as partners within NATO.” In practical terms, the U.S. is still the driving force behind the alliance, notionally at least. As another German military figure, also granted anonymity to express their views, put it: “The harsh truth is that Europe’s readiness level to combat any Russian aggression doesn’t yet exist. Until that time, we are reliant on the U.S. to act as a backstop.” But that penny should have dropped last February, when U.S. Vice President JD Vance dropped his various bombshells at the Munich Security Conference, attacking European democracies, praising the far-right Alternative for Germany party and serving notice that the U.S. no longer felt beholden to past allegiances. The real surprise is that anyone’s been surprised by the Trump administration’s actions since then. Even now, some are continuing to cling to the hope that this isn’t the united view in Washington, and that others within the administration still wield a certain influence. This isn’t how security planners in Germany or the U.K. see things, but it seems many politicians — and much of the public — are yet to be convinced of just how serious the situation has become. One minute U.S. President Donald Trump’s acting like his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin’s emissary, the next he’s giving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy a reasonable hearing. | Pool Photo by Will Oliver via EPA Their alarm will have been reinforced by the second Trump administration’s first National Security Strategy. Published only a few days ago, it condemns many of the liberal values underpinning European democracy, while praising the nativist, nationalist rhetoric of the far-right — and implicitly of Putin.  Previously, the dominant narrative around Europe was about German reluctance, whether brought about by postwar guilt and pacificism or complacency. But while that has been replaced by a new determination, exactly how deeply is it entrenched? The commitment across NATO to increase defense spending to 5 percent of national GDP — 1.5 percent of which can be spent on “critical infrastructure” — certainly allows for much budgetary dexterity. But Berlin’s borrowing power gives it a freedom its neighbors can only envy. Britain’s financial travails are considerably more acute, and for all his tough talk, several defense contractors suspect Starmer is going slow on defense orders. As it stands, Germany is expected to spend €153 billion a year on defense by 2029. France, by comparison, plans to reach about €80 billion by 2030, and the U.K. currently spends £60 billion — a figure set to rise to £87 billion by 2030 — but looking at current predictions, will only hit its 3.5 percent target in 2035. For the governments in London and Paris, budgets are so tight and public service spending requirements so great — not to mention debt interest payments — the push-and-pull with security needs will only become more intense. And while opinion polls vary from country to country and depending on how questions are phrased, the growing concern among many defense officials is that if Ukraine is pressured enough to accept some form of Trump-Putin dirty deal, public support for military spending will decrease. “Job done” will be the sentiment — except, of course, it won’t be. For Putin, it can’t be. The Russian leader has tied his political survival, his power infrastructure and his country’s economy to the notion of an encircling Western “threat.” Hence his recent remarks about Russia being “ready” for war if Europe wants to start one — he simply can’t afford to stop invoking threats. But the original 28-point plan for Ukraine — which the U.S. initially denied came directly from the Kremlin — represents Europe’s worst nightmare. And if a spurious “peace” is imposed by any deal approximating that one, Germany, the U.K., France and their other European allies, including Poland, Finland, the Baltics, Nordics and (more cautiously) Italy, will know they’re out on their own. It would mark the return of big-power politics, a Yalta 2.0. It would enshrine NATO’s de-Americanization, a structural incapacity for Ukraine to defend itself, and confirm that, as far as the U.S. is concerned, Russia enjoys a veto on European security. “We say it’s existential, but we don’t yet act as if it is,” said one British defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The task for Merz, Starmer and Macron is then to accept — and admit to their publics — that they only have each other to rely 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. 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.

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor and a foreign affairs columnist at POLITICO Europe. “These are the times that try men’s souls,” wrote pamphleteer Thomas Paine in the dark days of December 1776, as America’s war to free itself of the British seemed doomed. In a bid to lift flagging spirits, he continued: “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” That victory was sorely in doubt for much of the war, but the revolutionaries persevered, and with French assistance — which has often been downplayed since — they triumphed after eight years of brutish conflict. Ukraine’s struggle has been longer. In effect, the country has been fighting to be free of Russia since 2014, and right now, these times are, indeed, trying Ukrainian souls. As it stands, there is scant grounds for optimism that, for all its heroism, Ukraine can turn things around. The country is unlikely to emerge from its most perilous winter of the war in a stronger position, better able to withstand what’s being foisted upon it. In fact, it could be in a much weaker state — on the battlefield, the home front, and in terms of its internal politics. Indeed, as it tries to navigate its way through America’s divisive “peace plan,” this might be the best Ukraine can hope for — or at least some variation that doesn’t entail withdrawing from the territory in eastern Ukraine it has managed to retain. On the battlefield, Ukraine’s forces are currently hard pressed and numerically disadvantaged. Or, as lawmaker Mariana Bezuhla recently argued: “Ukrainian commanders simply can’t keep up” and are “being jerked around within a framework set by the enemy.” Meanwhile, on the home front, pummeling Russian drone attacks and airstrikes are degrading the country’s power system and wrecking its natural gas infrastructure, which keeps 60 percent of Ukrainians warm during the frigid winter months. The country is also running out of money. It’s hard to see a Europe mired in debt providing the $250 billion Kyiv will need in cash and arms to sustain the fight for another four years — and that’s on top of the $140 billion reparations loan that might be offered if Belgium lifts its veto on using Russia’s immobilized assets held in Brussels. If all that weren’t enough, Ukraine is being roiled by a massive corruption scandal that appears to implicate Ukrainian presidential insiders, sapping the confidence of allies and Ukrainians alike. It’s also providing those in the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement with ammunition to argue that Washington should be done with Ukraine. And now, of course, Kyiv is having to cope with a contentious U.S. effort to end Russia’s war, which has been advanced in such a chaotic diplomatic process that it wouldn’t be out of place in an episode of “The West Wing.” At times, negotiations have descended into farce, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio forswearing the original peace plan one minute, saying it came from Russia and not a Trump administration proposal, only to swiftly backtrack. And earlier this week, a Reuters report suggested the 28-point plan was, in fact, modeled on a Russian proposal that Kremlin officials shared with their U.S. counterparts in mid-October. Meanwhile, on the home front, pummeling Russian drone attacks and airstrikes are degrading the country’s power system and wrecking its natural gas infrastructure. | Mykola Tys/EPA But for all the buffoonery — including reports that Special Envoy Steve Witkoff coached high-ranking Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov on how Russian President Vladimir Putin should speak to Trump — a tweaked 19-point version of the “peace plan” may well be the best Ukraine can realistically expect, even though it heavily favors Russia. As this column has argued before, a Ukrainian triumph was always unlikely — that is if by triumph one means the restoration of the country’s 1991 borders and NATO membership. This isn’t through any fault of Ukraine, the David in the fight against Goliath, but rather that of Kyiv’s Western allies, who were never clear-sighted or practical in their thinking, let alone ready to do what was necessary to defeat Russia’s revanchism and vanquish a Putin regime heedless of the death toll of even its own troops. Despite their high-blown rhetoric, at no stage in the conflict have Ukraine’s allies agreed on any clear war aims. Some pressed for a debate, among them former Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis, who was worried about a mismatch between Western magniloquence and what the U.S. and Europe were actually prepared to do and give. “We talk about victory, and we talk about standing with Ukraine to the very end — but let’s also talk about this,” he told POLITICO in a 2023 interview. But that debate never happened because of fears it would disunite allies. Nonetheless, Western leaders continued to characterize the war as a contest between good and evil, with huge stakes for democracy. They cast it as a struggle not only for territory but between liberal and autocratic values, and as one with global consequences. But in that case, why be restrained in what you supply? Why hold back on long-range munitions and tanks? Why delay supplying F-16s? And why prevent Ukraine from using Western-supplied long-range missiles to strike deeper into Russia? Or, as Ukraine’s former top commander Gen. Valery Zaluzhny fumed in the Washington Post: “To save my people, why do I have to ask someone for permission what to do on enemy territory?” For former Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba, for all its talk of standing with Ukraine for as long as it takes, the West never really grasped the war’s importance or consequences: “You cannot win a war where Russia clearly knows what its strategic goal is in every detail; [where] Ukraine knows what its strategic goal is in every detail; but [where] the West, without whom Ukraine cannot win, does not know what it is fighting for,” he told POLITICO last year. “This is the real tragedy of this war.” At times, negotiations have descended into farce, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio forswearing the original peace plan one minute, saying it came from Russia and not a Trump administration proposal, only to swiftly backtrack. | Martial Trezzini/EPA The currently discussed 19-point plan is, of course, an improvement on the original 28-point plan — nonetheless, it is an ugly and shameful one. But this is what happens if you run down your military forces and arms production for decades, fail to draw enforceable red lines and don’t ask hard questions before making grand promises. For Ukraine, such a poor deal that leaves it with weak security guarantees, without 20 percent of its territory and prohibits it from joining NATO, will have great domestic consequences and carry the high likelihood of civil strife. It isn’t hard to see how the army and its veterans might react. Many of them will see it as a stab in the back, an enraging betrayal that needs to be punished. It will also mean rewarding Putin’s thuggishness and no real accountability for the bestial nature of his army’s atrocious behavior or the unlawful, detestable deportations from occupied parts of Ukraine to Russia. And it will, no doubt, embolden the axis of autocrats. The American Revolution had lasting global consequences — so, too, will this war.

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. Russia’s shadow fleet just won’t go away. Countries in the Baltic Sea region have tried virtually every legal means of stopping this gnawing headache for every country whose waters have been traversed by these mostly dilapidated vessels — and yes, sinking them would be illegal. Now, these rust buckets are starting to cause an additional headache. Because they’re usually past retirement age, these vessels don’t last long before they need to be scrapped. This has opened a whole shadow trade that’s bound to cause serious harm to both humans and the environment. Earlier this month, the globally infamous Eagle S ship met its end in the Turkish port of Aliağa. The bow of the 229-meter oil tanker was on shore, its stern afloat, with cranes disassembling and moving its parts into a sealed area. The negative environmental impact of this landing method “is no doubt higher than recycling in a fully contained area,” noted the NGO Shipbreaking Platform on its website. But in the grand scheme of things, the Eagle S’s end was a relatively clean one. The 19-year-old Cook Islands-flagged oil tanker is a shadow vessel that had been transporting sanctioned Russian oil since early 2023. It then savaged an astonishing five undersea cables in the Gulf of Finland on Christmas Day last year, before being detained by the Finnish authorities. People are willing to own shadow vessels because they can make a lot of money transporting sanctioned cargo. However, as the tiny, elusive outfits that own them would struggle to buy shiny new vessels even if they wanted to, these ships are often on their last legs — different surveys estimate that shadow vessels have an average age of 20 years or more. Over the last few years, Russia’s embrace of the shadow fleet for its oil export has caused the fleet to grow dramatically, as tanker owners concluded they can make good money by selling their aging ships into the fleet. (They’d make less selling the vessels to shipbreakers.) Today, the shadow fleet encompasses the vast majority of retirement-age oil tankers. But after a few years, these tankers and ships are simply too old to sail, especially since shadow vessels undergo only the most cursory maintenance. To get around safely rules, less-than-scrupulous owners often sell their nearly dead ships to “final journey” firms, which have the sole purpose of disposing of them. | Ole Berg-Rusten/EPA For aged ships, the world of official shipping has what one might call a funeral process: a scrapping market. In 2024, 409 ships were scrapped through this official market, though calling it “official” makes it sound clean and safe, which, for the most part, it isn’t. A few of the ships scrapped last year were disassembled in countries like Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands, which follow strict rules regarding human and environmental safety. A handful of others were scrapped in Turkey, which has an OK record. But two-thirds were scrapped in Southeast Asia, where the shipbreaking industry is notoriously unsafe. To get around safely rules, less-than-scrupulous owners often sell their nearly dead ships to “final journey” firms, which have the sole purpose of disposing of them. These companies and their middlemen then make money by selling the ships’ considerable amount of steel to metal companies. But in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh — the latter is the world’s most popular shipbreaking country — vessels are disassembled on beaches rather than sealed facilities, and by workers using little more than their hands. Of course, this makes the process cheap, but it also makes it dangerous. According to the NGO Shipbreaking Platform, last year, 15 South Asian shipbreaking workers lost their lives on the job and 45 were injured. Just one accident involving an oil tanker claimed the lives of six workers and injured another six. This brings us to the shadow fleet and its old vessels, as they, too, need to be scrapped. But many of them are under Western sanctions, which presents a challenge to their owners since international financial transactions are typically conducted in U.S. dollars. Initially, I had suspected that coastal nations would start finding all manner of shadow vessels abandoned in their waters and would be left having to arrange the scrapping. But as owners want to make money from the ships’ metal, this frightening scenario hasn’t come to pass. Instead, a shadow shipbreaking market is emerging. Open-source intelligence research shows that shadow vessel owners are now selling their sanctioned vessels to final-journey firms or middlemen in a process that mirror the official one. Given that these are mostly sanctioned vessels, the buyers naturally get a discount, which the sellers are more than willing to provide. After all, selling a larger shadow tanker for scrap value and making something to the tune of $10 to $15 million is more profitable than abandoning it. And how are the payments made? We don’t know for sure, but they’re likely in crypto or a non-U.S. dollar currency. These shady processes make the situation even more perilous for the workers doing the scrapping, not to mention for the environment. “Thanks to a string of new rules and regulations over the past five decades, shipping has become much safer, and that has reduced the number of accidents significantly in recent decades,” explained Mats Saether, a lawyer at the Nordisk legal services association in Oslo. “It’s regrettable that the shadow fleet is reversing this trend.” It certainly is. Indeed, the scrapping of shadow vessels is a practice that demands serious scrutiny. Greenpeace, Human Rights Watch and other NGOs could do a good deed for the environment and unfortunate shipbreaking workers by conducting investigations. And surely the Bangladeshi government wouldn’t want to see Bangladeshi lives lost because Russia needs oil for war? Greenpeace, Human Rights Watch and other NGOs could do a good deed for the environment and unfortunate shipbreaking workers by conducting investigations. | Ole Berg-Rusten/EPA There’s an opportunity here for Western governments to help too. They could offer shadow vessel owners legal leniency and a way to sell their ships back into the official fleet — if the owners provide the authorities with details about the fleet’s inner workings and vow to leave the business. Does that sound unlikely to succeed? Possibly. But that’s what people said about Italy’s pentiti system, and they were proven wrong. Besides, the shadow fleet is such a tumor on the shipping industry and the world’s waterways that almost any measure is worth a try.

Mujtaba Rahman is the head of Eurasia Group’s Europe practice. He tweets at @Mij_Europe. With less than two weeks to go before the U.K. budget, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves made a spectacular U-turn. As recently as last week, Reeves was preparing the ground for a controversial move to to raise income tax rates by 2 pence and cut national insurance contributions by the same amount — a move that would have breached her party’s 2024 election manifesto. Then, after talks with Prime Minister Keir Starmer in the face of a backlash from cabinet ministers and Labour Party backbenchers, who warned that such a “betrayal of trust” would cost them the next general election, she retreated. Officially, Labour Party sources said the change of strategy was due to a better-than-expected pre-budget forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), which put the gap between planned government spending and Reeves’s fiscal rules at £20 billion. It was a boost that stemmed from a smaller government debt forecast due to gilt market movements during the 10-day window the OBR used for its projection. However, that’s only part of the story. Raw party politics also played a crucial part in this shift. And as the chancellor’s intended budget strategy has unraveled under an unprecedented public spotlight, it has exposed all the chaos at the top of the government. It’s absolutely no coincidence that Reeves’ volte-face happened just as Downing Street launched a clumsy attempt to head off a leadership challenge that was aimed at ousting Starmer after next week’s budget is revealed. A budget that breached the Labour manifesto would have made such a challenge much more likely, as many of the party’s MPs — including scores of “newbies” elected for the first time last year — fear they would lose their seats if it was ditched. And the retreat now means the prime minister will likely be able to avoid an attempted coup. That is, at least until after next May’s elections to the Scottish and Welsh parliaments and local English authorities. Meanwhile, among the options Reeves is now likely considering instead of raising tax rates is cutting income tax thresholds — less politically damaging, as thresholds weren’t covered by the manifesto promise. But even that isn’t so simple: If Reeves raised the £12,570 personal allowance at which the 20 percent basic rate starts, it would be regressive and hit many of the “working people” Labour has vowed to protect. Therefore, a cut in the £50,271 threshold, where the 40 percent rate kicks in, seems more likely. However, even that would hit those considered middle income. It would be less contentious to just lower the threshold for the 45 percent rate, which starts at the £125,140 mark. But cutting any threshold would still be controversial, and likely branded as a “stealth tax” by both Reform UK and the Conservatives. Plus, Reeves is actually expected to prolong the freeze on income tax thresholds and allowances introduced by former Chancellor Rishi Sunak, which is due to end in 2028, as a two-year extension would raise between £8 billion and £10 billion. Another potential downside to the U-turn is that Reeves may now make more enemies among those who stand to lose, resulting in a less certain revenue stream from raising several other taxes in a “bits and pieces” approach rather than a “go big” budget the markets would prefer. There is also a risk that these alternative measures would harm growth in a way that raising income taxes would not. Such measures may include a higher tax on the most expensive properties and a rise in capital gains tax. Meanwhile, plans to impose higher taxes on limited liability partnerships and to bring in an “exit tax” for wealthy individuals who leave Britain now appear to be on the back burner. If Reeves raised the £12,570 personal allowance at which the 20 percent basic rate starts, it would be regressive and hit many of the “working people” Labour has vowed to protect. | Tolga Akmen/EPA And yet, the chancellor doesn’t want to just fill the £20 billion hole, she also wants to increase the slender £9.9 billion headroom against her fiscal rules to at least £15 billion — and possibly to the £20 billion that’s sought by the markets. Then, to top it all off, came the attempt to stifle a potential leadership challenge, as the prime minister made an attempt to deter Health Secretary Wes Streeting from mounting a coup by publicly accusing him of plotting — a move that backfired as, in the words of one insider, Starmer’s allies “overshot the runway” by singling Streeting out. The official line is that Number 10’s briefings to the media were intended to make clear the prime minister would fight any attempt to depose him. But all this has only weakened Starmer and strengthened Streeting, who looked statesmanlike in his response. Overall, some ministers and Labour backbenchers have expressed relief at the abrupt shift on income tax. Though many didn’t disguise their dismay at what has been described as “a shambolic week” for both Starmer and Reeves. Indeed, with all that’s transpired, Reeves’ final package next week may prove to be less politically toxic than expected. But after such a disastrous run-up, her task of restoring order and “selling” a budget is looking much harder.

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.

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. Over the past two years, state-linked Russian hackers have repeatedly attacked Liverpool City Council — and it’s not because the Kremlin harbors a particular dislike toward the port city in northern England. Rather, these attacks are part of a strategy to hit cities, governments and businesses with large financial losses, and they strike far beyond cyberspace. In the Gulf of Finland, for example, the damage caused to undersea cables by the Eagle S shadow vessel in December incurred costs adding up to tens of millions of euros — and that’s just one incident. Russia has attacked shopping malls, airports, logistics companies and airlines, and these disruptions have all had one thing in common: They have a great cost to the targeted companies and their insurers. One can’t help but feel sorry for Liverpool City Council. In addition to looking after the city’s half-million or so residents, it also has to keep fighting Russia’s cyber gangs who, according to a recent report, have been attacking ceaselessly: “We have experienced many attacks from this group and their allies using their Distributed Botnet over the last two years,” the report noted, referring to the hacktivist group NoName057(16), which has been linked to the Russian state. “[Denial of Service attacks] for monetary or political reasons is a widespread risk for any company with a web presence or that relies on internet-based systems.” Indeed. Over the past decades, state-linked Russian hackers have targeted all manner of European municipalities, government agencies and businesses. This includes the 2017 NotPetya attack, which brought down “four hospitals in Kiev alone, six power companies, two airports, more than 22 Ukrainian banks, ATMs and card payment systems in retailers and transport, and practically every federal agency,” as well as a string of multinationals, causing staggering losses of around $10 billion. More recently, Russia has taken to targeting organizations and businesses in other ways as well. There have been arson attacks, including one involving Poland’s largest shopping mall that Prime Minister Donald Tusk subsequently said was definitively “ordered by Russian special services.” There have been parcel bombs delivered to DHL; fast-growing drone activity reported around European defense manufacturing facilities; and a string of suspicious incidents damaging or severing undersea cables and even a pipeline. The costly list goes on: Due to drone incursions into restricted airspace, Danish and German airports have been forced to temporarily close, diverting or cancelling dozens of flights. Russia’s GPS jamming and spoofing are affecting a large percentage of commercial flights all around the Baltic Sea. In the Red Sea, Houthi attacks are causing most ships owned by or flagged in Western countries to redirect along the much longer Cape of Good Hope route, which adds costs. The Houthis are not Russia, but Russia (and China) could easily aid Western efforts to stop these attacks — yet they don’t. They simply enjoy the enormous privilege of having their vessels sail through unassailed. The organizations and companies hit by Russia have so far managed to avert calamitous harm. But these attacks are so dangerous and reckless that people will, sooner or later, lose their lives. There have been arson attacks, including one involving Poland’s largest shopping mall that Prime Minister Donald Tusk subsequently said was definitively “ordered by Russian special services.” | Aleksander Kalka/Getty Images What’s more, their targets will continue losing a lot of money. The repairs of a subsea data cable alone typically costs up to a couple million euros. The owners of EstLink 2 — the undersea power cable hit by the Eagle S— incurred losses of nearly €60 million. Closing an airport for several hours is also incredibly expensive, as is cancelling or diverting flights. To be sure, most companies have insurance to cover them against cyber attacks or similar harm, but insurance is only viable if the harm is occasional. If it becomes systematic, underwriters can no longer afford to take on the risk — or they have to significantly increase their premiums. And there’s the kicker: An interested actor can make disruption systematic. That is, in fact, what Russia is doing. It is draining our resources, making it increasingly costly to be a business based in a Western country, or even a city council or government authority, for that matter. This is terrifying — and not just for the companies that may be hit. But while Russia appears far beyond the reach of any possible efforts to convince it to listen to its better angels, we can still put up a steely front. The armed forces put up the literal steel, of course, but businesses and civilian organizations can practice and prepare for any attacks that Russia, or other hostile countries, could decide to launch against them. Such preparation would limit the possible harm such attacks can lead to. It begs the question, if an attack causes minimal disruption, then what’s the point of instigating it in the first place? That’s why government-led gray-zone exercises that involve the private sector are so important. I’ve been proposing them for several years now, and for every month that passes, they become even more essential. Like the military, we shouldn’t just conduct these exercises — we should tell the whole world we’re doing so too. Demonstrating we’re ready could help dissuade sinister actors who believe they can empty our coffers. And it has a side benefit too: It helps companies show their customers and investors that they can, indeed, weather whatever Russia may dream up.