Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Die Bundesregierung lässt Donald Trump abblitzen: Mehrfach erteilte sie einer deutschen Beteiligung an einer Marine-Begleitung von Schiffen in der Straße von Hormus eine klare Absage. Doch die Geschichte mahnt zur Vorsicht: Gordon Repinski analysiert, warum Friedrich Merz Gefahr läuft, in eine „Schröder-Fischer-Falle“ wie im Jahr 2003 zu tappen. Damals wurde ein öffentliches „Nein“ zur Irak-Invasion hinter den Kulissen durch operative Unterstützung aufgeweicht. Droht nun erneut die Beteiligung durch die Hintertür? Und wie kann sich Merz aus dieser Falle befreien? Im 200-Sekunden-Interview spricht der außenpolitische Sprecher der SPD, Adis Ahmetovic, über Trumps strategielose und sinnlose Forderungen. Er erklärt, warum Deutschland trotz der bestehenden Mission im Roten Meer eine Ausweitung auf den Iran-Konflikt ablehnt und wie die Bundesrepublik dennoch ihre diplomatische Handlungsfähigkeit bewahren kann. Während Merz in Berlin auf Distanz zu Washington geht, brodelt es in der EVP: Berichte über eine geheime Zusammenarbeit von EVP-Mitarbeitern mit rechten Fraktionen im EU-Parlament bringen Merz und Markus Söder unter Zugzwang. Hans von der Burchard ordnet ein, wie dieser Skandal das Treffen mit EU-Parlamentspräsidentin Roberta Metsola überschattet und warum ein wackelnder EU-US-Handelsdeal das nächste große Risiko für den Kanzler darstellt. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. ⁠Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren.⁠ Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: ⁠@gordon.repinski⁠ | X: ⁠@GordonRepinski⁠. POLITICO Deutschland – ein Angebot der Axel Springer Deutschland GmbH Axel-Springer-Straße 65, 10888 Berlin Tel: +49 (30) 2591 0 ⁠information@axelspringer.de⁠ Sitz: Amtsgericht Berlin-Charlottenburg, HRB 196159 B USt-IdNr: DE 214 852 390 Geschäftsführer: Carolin Hulshoff Pol, Mathias Sanchez Luna

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Zwei Wochen nach Beginn der US-Invasion im Iran treten die massiven globalen Nebenwirkungen zutage. Während Donald Trump durch die Lockerung der Sanktionen gegen russisches Öl die Ukraine-Front schwächt, entstehen im Nahen Osten völlig neue Zweckbündnisse. Gordon Repinski analysiert gemeinsam mit der Strategie-Expertin Florence Gaub (NATO Defense College), warum die USA derzeit eher operationell getrieben als strategisch klug handeln und welche langfristigen Dominoeffekte dieser Einsatz für die europäische Sicherheitsarchitektur hat. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. ⁠Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren.⁠ Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: ⁠@gordon.repinski⁠ | X: ⁠@GordonRepinski⁠. POLITICO Deutschland – ein Angebot der Axel Springer Deutschland GmbH Axel-Springer-Straße 65, 10888 Berlin Tel: +49 (30) 2591 0 ⁠information@axelspringer.de⁠ Sitz: Amtsgericht Berlin-Charlottenburg, HRB 196159 B USt-IdNr: DE 214 852 390 Geschäftsführer: Carolin Hulshoff Pol, Mathias Sanchez Luna

The Trump administration believes it can withstand a brief spike in oil prices — for as many as four weeks, as one person close to the White House suggested — before the political hit does lasting damage. Administration officials’ confidence was bolstered Tuesday when oil dropped to $80 per barrel, down from $120 this weekend, reinforcing their view that the spikes are temporary and manageable. They have three to four weeks “where they can ride out what they need to” before oil prices become a more durable political problem, said the person close to the White House, who like others in this story was granted anonymity to share details of private conversations. “Assuming the economy continues to turn around once the active part of the war is concluded, you’ll have the whole summer from May through August to ride the turnaround,” the person said. A former Trump administration official added that the administration needs a “consistent, multi-week read” of oil prices before it shifts its approach. “These temporary little gyrations are not what they’re going to be basing their policy on,” the official said. Those two people, as well as a current U.S. official, said the administration never seriously considered altering its military strategy in the face of oil price hikes. Still, the administration was caught off guard by the speed and severity of the Sunday spike, a fourth person close to the White House said. “At the worst moments [Sunday] night, it was insane,” the fourth person said. “That definitely surprised me, and it absolutely surprised them.” Instead of changing course, the administration spent much of Monday trying to soothe spooked traders worried about the disruptive impact of a prolonged war on oil supply chains. Officials also tried to allay the fears of uneasy Republicans, who see the Iran war as counter to the affordability message they believe the GOP should be pushing as it battles to retain control of Congress in the midterms. More than 7 in 10 voters said they are very concerned or somewhat concerned that the war will cause oil and gas prices to rise in the United States, according to a recent Quinnipiac Poll. White House spokesperson Taylor Rodgers said that Trump has made it clear that increased oil and gas prices are “short-term disruptions.” “Ultimately, once the military objectives are completed and the Iranian terrorist regime is neutralized, oil and gas prices will drop rapidly again, potentially even lower than before the strikes begin,” Rogers said. “As a result, American families will benefit greatly in the long-term.” In the meantime, the White House is taking steps to address oil prices, such as considering lifting sanctions on Russian oil, and continuing to telegraph that the war will be a short one. “I get a sense of concern from the administration, but not panic,” said another U.S. official, familiar with energy issues. “It’s more a curiosity — ‘Why is this happening? Aren’t there ways to counteract this? Aren’t there quick fixes to deal with this?’” Still, it’s not clear that oil prices will immediately return to their prewar levels. When it comes to oil prices, there’s the market psychology and there’s reality, including how long it takes Gulf countries to restart production if problems in the Strait of Hormuz force them to shutter operations, said Ilan Goldenberg, a former Biden administration official who dealt with the Middle East. “I have very little confidence in this White House, given how little they planned for the outcome of this war, that they have mapped out all the second- and third- order effects to oil supplies and the oil markets,” Goldenberg said. U.S. intelligence has also started to see signs that Iran is preparing to deploy mines in the Strait of Hormuz, according to CBS News, which could further complicate a return to normal oil production post-war. Trump said Tuesday he has seen no official reports that Iran is doing that. While temporary spikes in oil prices aren’t making the White House balk publicly, it is grappling with a host of other pain points. The public remains skeptical about the war and uncertain about its goals, and support is likely to erode if service member casualties increase. Seven service members have died since the start of the war a little more than a week ago. That includes six Americans who were killed after an Iranian drone strike in Kuwait and a seventh who died from injuries sustained when Iran struck a Saudi military base where U.S. troops were stationed. The Pentagon said Tuesday that about 140 U.S. service members have been injured since the war started. “This war is already unpopular with the American public, but it can get even more so,” a former administration official said. “A mass casualty event, either on the battlefield or from a terror attack here at home, is a real risk. If that were to occur, coinciding with a spike in oil prices and the inflationary implications of shipping lanes being shut down, it could set off a much wider panic both on Wall Street and on Main Street. One thing that doesn’t appear to be driving White House decisionmaking on Iran: outcry over civilian casualties. The U.S. is investigating who is responsible for a Tomahawk missile that hit an Iranian elementary school, killing 175 people, many of them children. “No nation takes more precautions to ensure there’s never targeting of civilians than the United States of America,” Hegseth said during a press conference Tuesday morning. “We take things very very seriously and investigate them thoroughly.” The U.S., meanwhile, is facing pressure from its Middle East allies to soon bring the war to a close. A person familiar with Saudi Arabia’s discussions on Iran said that the Saudis want the war to end and they “are telling the U.S. to make sure the Iranian infrastructure of oil is not hit so Iranians don’t become desperate. They have to give the Iranians an off-ramp.” If the war does drag on, however, there may be little the administration can substantively do to undo the economic damage caused by spiked oil prices. “One good thing that Trump did say was, ‘We’re a strong economy. Look, a short term spike in energy prices isn’t something to panic about.’ And, yeah, I think that’s exactly right … If somehow there’s some kind of real settlement and things go back to normal, prices will gradually go down,’” said a former Treasury official. But if it doesn’t, “there’s no magic button that’s going to address high energy prices.” Eli Stokols and Jack Detsch contributed to this report.

LONDON — Donald Trump’s German grandparents may have known the word for what some European officials now feel, as they watch him complain that America’s traditional allies have let him down: Schadenfreude.  Having spent a year criticizing, insulting and threatening European leaders, Trump now sees the value of having friends in strategically important places — if they have military assets he can use, anyway. The U.S-Israel war against Iran would have been a lot easier in its opening days if British Prime Minister Keir Starmer hadn’t denied American bombers permission to take off from U.K. airbases, Trump complained this week.  Starmer, however, is standing his ground, refusing to authorize anything more than “defensive” operations from Royal Air Force facilities in the U.K. and overseas.  Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is also playing hardball with Trump, condemning what he regards as a law-breaking operation in the Middle East and similarly refusing to let American planes take off from airfields under his control. Sánchez incurred Trump’s rage as a result.  And French President Emmanuel Macron — ever the critical friend — called the Iran war dangerous, warning it doesn’t comply with international law and couldn’t be supported.  Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez leaving an International Women’s Day event in Madrid. Sánchez is also playing hardball with the U.S. president, incurring Donald Trump’s rage as a result. | Cesar Vallejo Rodriguez/Europa Press via Getty Images The rift now threatens to escalate into a major trade confrontation between the United States and the European Union, while the mythologized “special relationship“ between the U.K. and America is on life support, as the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence approaches.  “This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with,” Trump said, as he explained his particular frustration with Starmer.  On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said “the President expects all Europe — all of our European allies, of course — to cooperate in this long-sought-after mission, not just for the United States, but also for Europe, to crush the rogue Iranian regime that not only threatens America, but also threatens our European allies as well.” She told reporters that Spain had now “agreed to cooperate” with the U.S. military — but the Spanish government immediately hit back with a denial. The hardening position of European leaders on Iran marks a watershed moment, just as U.S. President George W. Bush’s doomed and divisive invasion of Iraq in 2003 undermined transatlantic trust for years. The tensions over such a consequential new conflict in the Middle East may even prove existential for the Western alliance, after 12 months that had already strained U.S.-European relations to the breaking point.  “I presume President Trump hasn’t tried to get NATO support for the war in Iran — perhaps he didn’t think it was worthwhile,” Emily Thornberry, chair of the U.K. Parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a member of Starmer’s Labour Party, told POLITICO. “I suspect he may now be learning a lesson about the value of having a broad base of allies.” GHOSTS OF IRAQ Trump’s belligerent approach since returning to office in January 2025 has been hard for many officials in Europe to swallow. He has slashed U.S. support for Ukraine and moved to push Kyiv toward an unwelcome and unbalanced peace deal; castigated “weak” EU leaders for failing to get a grip on immigration; demanded Greenland be handed to America; and is now attacking Iran without so much as consulting key NATO allies.  Now that those allies are alarmed and unwilling to join in, Trump and his MAGA lieutenants are clearly no more forgiving than Bush’s Republicans were when France refused to back the Iraq War two decades ago.  On Tuesday night the president slammed Sánchez’s government as “terrible” and “unfriendly” over its decision to bar U.S. military planes from using Spanish air bases to attack Iran, before threatening to cut all trade with the EU’s fourth-biggest economy. Sánchez hit back on Wednesday, insisting he would not budge.  “We are not going to take a position that goes against our values and principles out of fear of reprisals from others,” Sánchez said during a televised address to the nation.  American air-refueling tankers that had been stationed in Spain left for other military bases in Europe after the Iran war began, according to Reuters. One official told POLITICO that some U.S. tankers had been moved to France on a temporary basis.  U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent piled on against Spain Wednesday morning during a TV interview. Madrid’s “highly uncooperative” attitude toward American use of the bases would affect the U.S. military’s ability to carry out operations against Iran, he said. “The Spanish put American lives at risk.”  A U.S. Navy ship docked at Naval Station Rota in Spain on March 4. Trump has criticized Spain for refusing to allow American forces to use jointly operated military bases in Rota and Morón to launch attacks on Iran. | Juan Carlos Toro/Getty Images Some Europeans remain in Trump’s good books. During a visit to the White House this week, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz received a glowing review from the U.S. president after the Ramstein airbase in Germany was made available to U.S. forces. “Germany’s been great. He’s been terrific,” Trump said. “They’re letting us land in certain areas, and we appreciate it.”  Trump stressed that Washington didn’t want direct German participation in the fighting. “We’re not asking them to put boots on the ground or anything,” he said. WHAT ABOUT UKRAINE? Even if Sánchez, Starmer and Macron — three of Europe’s leading centrists — maintain their stand in the face of American anger, European officials know that ultimately they still need the United States for their security.  Without the president’s pressure, Russia is unlikely to come to the negotiating table to strike a peace deal with Ukraine; without American-made weapons, Ukraine will be in danger of defeat on the battlefield anyway.  A European diplomat from another country said they hoped more EU leaders would follow Spain’s example. “If we want international law, rule-based order and any form of multilateralism to prevail, we must be able to express worry about the American actions,” the diplomat said. “What will our leverage be for Putin’s war in Ukraine if Europe cannot express any objections over the U.S. war on Iran? We would lose credibility.” In the U.S., some saw the risks coming. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, reportedly warned Trump that going to war with Iran would be more dangerous without the support of key allies, according to the Washington Post. In private, EU government officials agreed. “Trump needs Europe for this,” one said.  Before the military offensive began, America’s allies in the Gulf were also reported to have urged Trump not to go to war against Iran. He ignored them too.   NOT WORRIED According to a senior White House official, granted anonymity to speak candidly about diplomatic relationships, Trump’s expectation of full European support is not as unrealistic as some Europeans believe. That’s because the U.S. is still critical to NATO.  “They acknowledged that he was right about the spending,” the official said, referring to last year’s pledge by NATO members to boost defense budgets, driven largely by pressure from Trump. “We still do a lot for Europe.” The official also downplayed the impact of Trump’s Greenland gambit on the broader transatlantic relationship, stating that “it’s no longer an issue for us.” But European reliance on America has not been in doubt. What may be new is an appreciation in Washington that America is not as strong without its traditional alliances.  HMS Dragon docked in Portsmouth, England, on March 4 ahead of deployment to Cyprus. Britain is among several European nations now sending military assets towards the Middle East. | Peter Nicholls/Getty Images “A power that is secure in the reality and legitimacy of its own power does not treat people or other powers like that,” said Constance Stelzenmüller, an expert on Germany and transatlantic relations at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. “What Europeans are really worried about when we look at all this is American bluster and overstretch,” Stelzenmüller said. “The thought that we might be witnessing the self-destruction of American power — that is what I think is really putting fear into the minds of even the most critical of allies.”  And there is plenty to be afraid of. Britain, France and Germany are among the European nations now sending their warships and other assets toward the Middle East. Their motive is to protect their own interests, for example by reinforcing the defense of Cyprus, where an Iranian drone hit a British airbase.  But any military deployment to the edge of an escalating war carries the risk that even “defensive” forces could be drawn into the shooting. Then it won’t just be American or Israeli lives on the line, one European diplomat said. “And that’s a big decision.”  Laura Kayali, Chris Lunday and Clea Caulcutt contributed reporting.  

A top Pentagon policy official went to Munich this week to deliver a wake-up call to America’s NATO allies. Elbridge Colby, an under secretary of defense, warned them that the days when the U.S. served as the primary guarantor of European security are gone: “The core strategic reality …. is this: Europe must assume primary responsibility for its own conventional defense.” It’s a message that President Donald Trump himself conveyed in his own brash way to America’s allies across the Atlantic, and which his administration has forcefully underscored in its latest strategic documents. But it’s still an idea that leaves Europeans scratching their heads: Where is Trump’s aggressive new stance toward the NATO alliance coming from? One answer can be found in an unexpected place: a 2023 white paper authored by the British academic and conservative historian Sumantra Maitra. In the paper, published by the Trump-aligned think tank Center for Renewing America, Maitra sketched out a theory of what he called “Dormant NATO” — a radically re-imagined Western alliance in which America plays a much more minor role relative to its European allies. This new NATO would be “dormant,” Maitra wrote, kept in a kind of cryogenic sleep unless a “hegemonic” threat to Western security emerged. Maitra’s paper — which he later turned into a much-talked about essay in Foreign Affairs — was reportedly handed around among Trump’s inner circle of foreign policy advisors, and his major policy recommendations have since been incorporated into the administration’s National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy. Both documents stressed the importance of “burden shifting” between the United States and its European allies — a term that Maitra has pushed in lieu of the gentler “burden sharing” advocated by past administrations. As this year’s Munich Security Conference got underway, POLITICO Magazine spoke with Maitra about the rationale for Trump’s new policy and what Europeans should expect as the U.S. pushes the alliance into this more “dormant” posture. “If I were advising a European government, I would say to sit down with the U.S. and ask for a timeline and an outline of a troop drawdown,” Maitra said. “That is inevitably going to happen someday, so they might as well prepare for it.” This interview has been edited for length and clarity. What is “Dormant NATO?” Dormant NATO is a theoretical doctrine which deals with the concept of burden shifting. It tries to find a middle ground between complete U.S. retrenchment from Europe on the one hand and the continuation of the current U.S. strategy of forward defense and forward positioning and complete primacy over the European continent. Essentially, it has three components, which are very similar to the kind of thing that you’re going to find in the National Security Strategy — but Dormant NATO said it first. First, it has “burden shifting,” a phrase I helped coin. The debate was about “burden sharing,” but now it is about“burden shifting” — the United States can keep the nuclear umbrella or the naval power in Europe, but most of the logistics, the intelligence, the army and the infantry are going to be in the hands of the Europeans. The second thing is that the Europeans will have commands. Right now, the United States is the head of the combatant commands in NATO, and that will transfer to the hands of the European generals and European admirals. And the final phase would be a pledge to have no new expansion of NATO. NATO needs to be finite, because you cannot have a grand strategy of an entity if it’s constantly mutating and shifting. NATO, the way it is now, is going to be a closed club, and that is it. Why is this shift in posture necessary? What problem is it trying to solve? The foreign policy of any country is determinant on structural factors, and the structural reality of the world that we live now is this: On one hand, you have the rise of China as a peer rival in Asia, which is in a different league compared to pretty much every other great power rival the United States has faced in his entire history. The second thing is the Global War on Terror that went on for 20 years, and it’s decimated American coffers. The U.S. is in massive debt, and people are unhappy about forever wars. So I think the best way to move forward would be to radically change the grand strategy to an offshore balancing of position. That means that Europe is extremely important to us, but fundamentally we are going to be a Western Hemisphere power. We will obviously go to Europe if there is a hegemonic threat, but if there is no hegemonic threat, Europe is stable, it’s rich, it’s powerful, and they’re allied to us, so they can take a lot more burden when it comes to continental security. How are you seeing these ideas reflected in the administration’s policy? There is a lot of overlap. I don’t speak for the administration, but I know the administration has read Dormant NATO, and if you look at the policy suggestions coming out of the administration, you know you’re going to see a lot of similarity between the two doctrines — even using the phrase “burden shifting.” So there are quite a few things that are happening. Secretary of Defense [Pete] Hegseth gave a speech in Brussels last year where he talked about no NATO expansion [into Ukraine]. Obviously the NSS and the NDS talk about burden shifting and they talk about no NATO expansion. The NSS specifically mentions that there shouldn’t be any NATO expansion. You have seen combatant commands being handed over to the British, to the Germans, the Poles and the Italians — so that is another pillar of Dormant NATO that is being utilized in the American strategy. The administration is signaling a major pullback from Europe, but at the same time it’s announcing relatively minor troop withdrawals. How do you square the ambition of its rhetoric with the relatively small-bore nature of its with troop withdrawal commitments? The troop withdrawal could do a little bit more, if I’m being honest with you, but I also don’t think that troop withdrawals are the be-all-and-end-all of the administration strategy. At the end of the day, troop deployment is completely in the hands of the president, depending on the president’s will, so that is not the big part of it. The bigger shifts are happening in two directions: One, we are handing over the combatant commands and the Joint Forces commands to the Europeans. That trains the European officer class to be in a position where they are going to have a lot more power and commanding interoperability, and where they can do things in Europe without the Americans having to spoonfeed them every single detail. That itself is a major change. The second thing that’s happening is that, at the end of the day, a country’s strategy is dependent on the documents that it puts out — so, for example, if the National Security Strategy comes out and includes burden shifting, the Europeans will take that as the grand strategy of the Republic, and they, in turn, develop their forces depending on that strategy. We have seen that before with George H.W. Bush’s New World Order, or George W Bush’s War on Terror, or Biden’s “autocracy versus democracy” framing. The NSS shapes how European powers position their military and their capability, so I think the fact that we are pretty openly talking about burden shifting will in itself shape the European capability in a way. They are going to be like, “Fine, these guys are moving out, and we have to do something about it,” and that will create a snowballing effect in Europe. Some of your critics charge that a dormant NATO will inevitably become a “dead NATO” because it would neuter the Article 5 commitment. How do you respond to that? In what type of scenario would a dormant NATO reactivate and wake up? For pretty much the entirety of its first phase [between 1949 and 1991], NATO was essentially a dormant NATO. It was a defensive alliance which was only there in case of a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency scenario. And if you actually read Dormant NATO, you will see that at no point does it suggest a complete withdrawal, and at no point does it suggest that we shouldn’t be part of the common defense or Europe. NATO Article 5 says one single thing: if one of the countries is attacked, it has the right to call the other countries and they’re going to come to the table. And depending on the kind of threat, they’re going to decide on what kind of participation they’re going to have in the future. That isn’t changing with Dormant NATO. If we are called to the defense of Europe, and if we foresee a hegemonic threat, the U.S Congress still has the power to decide that we are going to go there and defend. The question then becomes what kind of threat Europe is facing. If it’s genuinely facing something like the Third Reich or something like the USSR, that’s a whole different thing. At that point of time, clearly the United States has to go and defend, because the U.S. grand strategy has forever been to oppose a unified Europe under one single hegemon. That hasn’t changed. Other than that, I think Dormant NATO is essentially how NATO was in its first phase. There is a revanchist power in Europe at this point in Putin’s Russia, so how do you respond to the counterargument that now is simply not the time for the U.S. to carry through on this strategy? I think Colby is completely right in his assessment that Russia is a regional nuisance. It is a power, but it’s also a very odd kind of power. It can be revanchist, but, like, I can want to be James Bond, but I’m not capable of doing that. Putin’s Russia is not capable of being a hegemonic threat to the European continent. Under no military scenario can one foresee Russian tanks rolling through Poland or Germany or France. Russia is, though, a big power with 6,000 nukes, so we have to figure out a way that Russian interests are sort of satiated without them being any kind of genuine revanchist threat. So we have to talk to the Russians and to the Germans and say, “Hey, by the way, you guys have to talk too, and we can only do so much from this distance.” And if this is not the time, when will it be the time? If Russians are a revanchist threat to Europe, does that not push the Europeans to rearm rapidly? If that doesn’t push the Europeans to rearm rapidly, what would? In his speech, Colby said there’s nothing “anti-European” about this strategy, but other administration officials have made some rather pointed comments about Europe, and the NSS openly criticized Europe for overseeing “civilizational erasure.” What do you make of the administration’s rhetoric around this sort of civilizational politics? Personally, I’m a military historian and a realist, so let me put it this way: Historically, there is no evidence that kinship or culture is solid ground for any kind of solidarity or alliance. Alliances are built on interest. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who’s ruling Western Europe — Germany, France or the U.K. Those are the countries which will be the most important to us purely because of geography and because of manpower and production capacity. So I don’t really buy some of those civilizational arguments, and I think some of that is basically rhetorical. But is it counterproductive? Does it make it harder to effectuate this change in military strategy if America’s political leaders are privately and publicly casting aspersions on European political leadership? If it were me, I would probably be a little bit more disciplined when it comes to rhetorical extremes about Europe. But that being said, one has to differentiate between a private chat, for example, and the actual grand strategy. I might hate my neighbor, but if their house is on fire, I’m still going to try and save it. So spin this forward a bit. What moves in this direction should Europe expect next from the U.S., and how should they best prepare for them? If I were advising a European government, I would say to sit down with the U.S. and ask for a timeline and an outline of a troop drawdown. That is inevitably going to happen someday, so they might as well prepare for it. The way that they have reacted to the combatant command change to and the burden shifting is pretty optimistic. They were expecting that, and they saw it coming, so that was fine. I think they have to figure out two things. One, they have to accept that it is the U.S. that is ideally positioned to provide the nuclear deterrence to Europe, so any idea of a European nuclear weapon is completely dead on arrival. That is not going to happen, and they are just wasting time if they keep on talking about that nonsense. Second, I think they need to sit down among themselves and figure out the nitty-gritty details of basic things like troop movements and logistical movements. They need to talk to Americans and say “Fine, we understand that you want to shift some of the logistical burden on the infantry, so give us a timeline, and let’s decide on when you’re going to do it.” For example, if the U.S. wants to move back the surge of 20,000 troops that happened after the Russian invasion [of Ukraine] under Biden, the Americans should just tell the Europeans, “By the way, this is 2026, and by 2028 we’re moving that out, so figure it out.” That kind of simple logistical conversation is going to be very helpful.

BRUSSELS — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is softening a push to take greater control of EU intelligence sharing after a standoff with her foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas, four officials with knowledge of the discussion told POLITICO. The EU executive said in November it wanted to set up an internal cell to collect intelligence from across Europe, overseen by the president herself, as part of an effort to protect the bloc from Russian digital attacks and sabotage. But the plan triggered a backlash from European capitals and the EU’s diplomatic service, which has its own center for Europe-wide intel sharing. The Commission is now scaling back its ambitions for the intelligence cell, according to the officials, who include two EU officials and two EU diplomats. The cell will likely become a security unit and will leave much of the intelligence sharing to the INTCEN center of the European External Action Service (EEAS), two of the officials said. The move would see Kallas retain greater control over intelligence. The Estonian top diplomat, who heads the EEAS, repeatedly clashed with the EU executive president last year, including when she attempted to hire Martin Selmayr, the former head of cabinet of von der Leyen’s predecessor Jean-Claude Juncker, for a top job. The recruitment initiative stirred unease in the Commission under von der Leyen, who has tried to centralize power under the EU executive. Europe aims to boost information sharing among national spy agencies as relations with Washington over intelligence sharing deteriorate and Europe scrambles to strike back against hybrid attacks by Russia, from disinformation campaigns to hacks and sabotage. Intelligence and security officials gather in Germany later this week for the Munich Security Conference, where transatlantic ties and the war on Europe’s eastern border are expected to top the agenda. The European Union has been trying to scale up intelligence sharing in past years, but national governments have competence over national security and are wary to grant the EU much control over sensitive and classified information. The INTCEN directorate has built up credibility with some national capitals in the past year. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz backed the division in January, when they said the “hybrid fusion cell” housed within INTCEN should be better supported to fight hybrid threats. The directorate, which is in charge of handling civilian intelligence and reports to Kallas, has briefed the weekly College meeting of commissioners and the Foreign Affairs Council of foreign ministers in past months. While von der Leyen never officially presented a plan for the “dedicated cell” or provided a staff count, the Commission said it would “play a key role in the preparation of the Security College.” “There is no point in having another cell,” said the first EU diplomat who, like the other officials and diplomats consulted for this story, asked to remain anonymous given the sensitivity of the matter. “Even at the level of INTCEN there is not much sharing yet. It is better, but there is no need for the creation of another cell.” In a response to POLITICO, a Commission official, granted anonymity because they were not allowed to speak on the record, said that in a “challenging geopolitical and geo-economic landscape” INTCEN was looking at how to strengthen its security and intelligence capabilities. The official added that the cell would complement the work of the Security Directorate within the Commission and would “closely cooperate with respective services of EEAS.” The second EU diplomat was supportive of the Commission’s plan to create the cell, arguing that the initiative would help improve decision making because it would allow a handful officials to interpret and use intel, a cumbersome process among 27 member countries. Kallas herself was critical of the idea of a Commission intelligence cell in November: “Having been a prime minister of a country, I know that all the member states are struggling with the budget, and asking that we should do something in addition to the things that we have already is not a wise idea,” she told the European Parliament. This article has been updated.

This article is also available in French and German. President Donald Trump denounced Europe as a “decaying” group of nations led by “weak” people in an interview with POLITICO, belittling the traditional U.S. allies for failing to control migration and end the Russia-Ukraine war, and signaling that he would endorse European political candidates aligned with his own vision for the continent. The broadside attack against European political leadership represents the president’s most virulent denunciation to date of these Western democracies, threatening a decisive rupture with countries like France and Germany that already have deeply strained relations with the Trump administration. “I think they’re weak,” Trump said of Europe’s political leaders. “But I also think that they want to be so politically correct.” “I think they don’t know what to do,” he added. “Europe doesn’t know what to do.” Trump matched that blunt, even abrasive, candor on European affairs with a sequence of stark pronouncements on matters closer to home: He said he would make support for immediately slashing interest rates a litmus test in his choice of a new Federal Reserve chair. He said he could extend anti-drug military operations to Mexico and Colombia. And Trump urged conservative Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, both in their 70s, to stay on the bench. Trump’s comments about Europe come at an especially precarious moment in the negotiations to end Russia’s war in Ukraine, as European leaders express intensifying alarm that Trump may abandon Ukraine and its continental allies to Russian aggression. In the interview, Trump offered no reassurance to Europeans on that score and declared that Russia was obviously in a stronger position than Ukraine. Trump spoke on Monday at the White House with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for a special episode of The Conversation. POLITICO on Tuesday named Trump the most influential figure shaping European politics in the year ahead, a recognition previously conferred on leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Trump’s confident commentary on Europe presented a sharp contrast with some of his remarks on domestic matters in the interview. The president and his party have faced a series of electoral setbacks and spiraling dysfunction in Congress this fall as voters rebel against the high cost of living. Trump has struggled to deliver a message to meet that new reality: In the interview, he graded the economy’s performance as an “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus,” insisted that prices were falling across the board and declined to outline a specific remedy for imminent spikes in health care premiums. Even amid growing turbulence at home, however, Trump remains a singular figure in international politics. In recent days, European capitals have shuddered with dismay at the release of Trump’s new National Security Strategy document, a highly provocative manifesto that cast the Trump administration in opposition to the mainstream European political establishment and vowed to “cultivate resistance” to the European status quo on immigration and other politically volatile issues. In the interview, Trump amplified that worldview, describing cities like London and Paris as creaking under the burden of migration from the Middle East and Africa. Without a change in border policy, Trump said, some European states “will not be viable countries any longer.” Using highly incendiary language, Trump singled out London’s left-wing mayor, Sadiq Khan, the son of Pakistani immigrants and the city’s first Muslim mayor, as a “disaster” and blamed his election on immigration: “He gets elected because so many people have come in. They vote for him now.” The president of the European Council, António Costa, on Monday rebuked the Trump administration for the national security document and urged the White House to respect Europe’s sovereignty and right to self-government. “Allies do not threaten to interfere in the democratic life or the domestic political choices of these allies,” Costa said. “They respect them.” Speaking with POLITICO, Trump flouted those boundaries and said he would continue to back favorite candidates in European elections, even at the risk of offending local sensitivities. “I’d endorse,” Trump said. “I’ve endorsed people, but I’ve endorsed people that a lot of Europeans don’t like. I’ve endorsed Viktor Orbán,” the hard-right Hungarian prime minister Trump said he admired for his border-control policies. It was the Russia-Ukraine war, rather than electoral politics, that Trump appeared most immediately focused on. He claimed on Monday that he had offered a new draft of a peace plan that some Ukrainian officials liked, but that Zelenskyy himself had not reviewed yet. “It would be nice if he would read it,” Trump said. Zelenskyy met with leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom on Monday and continued to voice opposition to ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia as part of a peace deal. The president said he put little stock in the role of European leaders in seeking to end the war: “They talk, but they don’t produce, and the war just keeps going on and on.” In a fresh challenge to Zelenskyy, who appears politically weakened in Ukraine due to a corruption scandal, Trump renewed his call for Ukraine to hold new elections. “They haven’t had an election in a long time,” Trump said. “You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.” Latin America Even as he said he is pursuing a peace agenda overseas, Trump said he might further broaden the military actions his administration has taken in Latin America against targets it claims are linked to the drug trade. Trump has deployed a massive military force to the Caribbean to strike alleged drug runners and pressure the authoritarian regime in Venezuela. In the interview, Trump repeatedly declined to rule out putting American troops into Venezuela as part of an effort to bring down the strongman ruler Nicolás Maduro, whom Trump blames for exporting drugs and dangerous people to the United States. Some leaders on the American right have warned Trump that a ground invasion of Venezuela would be a red line for conservatives who voted for him in part to end foreign wars. “I don’t want to rule in or out. I don’t talk about it,” Trump said of deploying ground troops, adding: “I don’t want to talk to you about military strategy.” But the president said he would consider using force against targets in other countries where the drug trade is highly active, including Mexico and Colombia. “Sure, I would,” he said. Trump scarcely defended some of his most controversial actions in Latin America, including his recent pardon of the former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was serving a decades-long sentence in an American prison after being convicted in a massive drug-trafficking conspiracy. Trump said he knew “very little” about Hernández except that he’d been told by “very good people” that the former Honduran president had been targeted unfairly by political opponents. “They asked me to do it and I said, I’ll do it,” Trump acknowledged, without naming the people who sought the pardon for Hernández. HEALTH CARE AND THE ECONOMY Asked to grade the economy under his watch, Trump rated it an overwhelming success: “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.” To the extent voters are frustrated about prices, Trump said the Biden administration was at fault: “I inherited a mess. I inherited a total mess.” The president is facing a forbidding political environment because of voters’ struggles with affordability, with about half of voters overall and nearly 4 in 10 people who voted for Trump in 2024 saying in a recent POLITICO Poll that the cost of living was as bad as it had ever been in their lives. Trump said he could make additional changes to tariff policy to help lower the price of some goods, as he has already done, but he insisted overall that the trend on costs was in the right direction. “Prices are all coming down,” Trump said, adding: “Everything is coming down.” Prices rose 3 percent over the 12 months ending in September, according to the most recent Consumer Price Index. Trump’s political struggles are shadowing his upcoming decision on a nominee to chair the Federal Reserve, a post that will shape the economic environment for the balance of Trump’s term. Asked if he was making support for slashing interest rates a litmus test for his Fed nominee, Trump answered with a quick “yes.” The most immediate threat to the cost of living for many Americans is the expiration of enhanced health insurance subsidies for Obamacare exchange plans that were enacted by Democrats under former President Joe Biden and are set to expire at the end of this year. Health insurance premiums are expected to spike in 2026, and medical charities are already experiencing a marked rise in requests for aid even before subsidies expire. Trump has been largely absent from health policy negotiations in Washington, while Democrats and some Republicans supportive of a compromise on subsidies have run into a wall of opposition on the right. Reaching a deal — and marshaling support from enough Republicans to pass it — would likely require direct intervention from the president. Yet asked if he would support a temporary extension of Obamacare subsidies while he works out a large-scale plan with lawmakers, Trump was noncommittal. “I don’t know. I’m gonna have to see,” he said, pivoting to an attack on Democrats for being too generous with insurance companies in the Affordable Care Act. A cloud of uncertainty surrounds the administration’s intentions on health care policy. In late November, the White House planned to unveil a proposal to temporarily extend Obamacare subsidies only to postpone the announcement. Trump has promised on and off for years to unveil a comprehensive plan for replacing Obamacare but has never done so. That did not change in the interview. “I want to give the people better health insurance for less money,” Trump said. “The people will get the money, and they’re going to buy the health insurance that they want.” Reminded that Americans are currently buying holiday gifts and drawing up household budgets for 2026 amid uncertainty around premiums, Trump shot back: “Don’t be dramatic. Don’t be dramatic.” SUPREME COURT Large swaths of Trump’s domestic agenda currently sit before the Supreme Court, with a generally sympathetic 6-3 conservative majority that has nevertheless thrown up some obstacles to the most brazen versions of executive power Trump has attempted to wield. Trump spoke with POLITICO several days after the high court agreed to hear arguments concerning the constitutionality of birthright citizenship, the automatic conferral of citizenship on people born in the United States. Trump is attempting to roll back that right and said it would be “devastating” if the court blocked him from doing so. If the court rules in his favor, Trump said, he had not yet considered whether he would try to strip citizenship from people who were born as citizens under current law. Trump broke with some members of his party who have been hoping that the court’s two oldest conservatives, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, might consider retiring before the midterm elections so that Trump can nominate another conservative while Republicans are guaranteed to control the Senate. The president said he’d rather Alito, 75, and Thomas, 77, the court’s most reliable conservative jurists, remain in place: “I hope they stay,” he said, “’cause I think they’re fantastic.”

France could draft young people with useful skills in case of war, French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday. In regular times, however, France will set up a voluntary military service that will kick off next summer. “In the event of a major crisis, parliament may decide to call upon not only volunteers, but also those whose skills have been identified during the call-up day, in which case national service would become compulsory,” Macron said at Varces army base in the French Alps. “But apart from this exceptional case, this national service is a service of volunteers who are then selected to meet the needs of our armed forces,” he added. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in Ukraine, several European countries have brought back voluntary — and in the case of Latvia and Croatia, mandatory — military service. There are worries that Russia could be ready to attack NATO as soon as 2028, so beefing up understaffed armed forces with trained personnel has become a key priority for many allies. France’s new voluntary scheme, which has been long in the making, will be open mostly to 18- and 19-year-olds. It will be selective — only choosing top candidates — which draws inspiration from Nordic countries including Norway, Macron said. The goal is to enroll 3,000 people next summer, 10,000 in 2030 and 50,000 in 2035. The 10-month training program will be managed entirely by the Armed Forces Ministry. The section process starts in January and the military will choose the most-motivated candidates who meet the requirements. Volunteers will be given a uniform, military equipment and compensation — although Macron didn’t say how much they would be paid. Volunteers will only serve on French soil, the president stressed, responding to concerns that youngsters participating in the scheme could be sent to NATO’s eastern flank or Ukraine. Macron pushed back against reinstating mandatory military service for everyone — an idea floated by some political parties including the far-right National Rally. Drafting an entire age group doesn’t match “the needs of our armed forces or the threats we face,” he said. An Elysée official conceded earlier this week that France simply couldn’t afford it. “We cannot return to the days of conscription, but we need mobilization: mobilization of the nation to defend itself, not against any particular enemy, but to be ready and to be respected,” Macron said.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission on Thursday unveiled its Defense Readiness Roadmap to prepare the bloc to “credibly deter its adversaries and respond to any aggression” by 2030.  According to the document, within five years the EU must be able to respond to the “evolving threat landscape” it faces, particularly from Russia, which “poses a persistent threat to European security for the foreseeable future.” “The recent threats have shown that Europe is at risk. We have to protect every citizen and square centimeter of our territory,” said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The Commission outlined four flagship projects in the roadmap, as well as boosting the bloc’s military industrial complex while continuing to support Ukraine, which is considered an “integral part of Europe’s defense and security architecture.” Von der Leyen will present the roadmap to EU leaders at their Oct. 23 summit. The four key defense efforts in the roadmap are: the European Drone Defense Initiative; the Eastern Flank Watch; the European Air Shield; and the European Space Shield. The idea is for the Commission to help members coordinate on projects that are too large for a single country to do on its own, while being mindful of the need to preserve national sovereignty over defense. Each flagship project, with a timeline outlined in the paper, will be led by a member state, supported by the Commission, and will address capability gaps without creating an operational structure.  “The roadmap has clear objectives and deadlines for how we will achieve them. It’s up to the member states; they are in the driver’s seat. But it helps them fill the gaps and fulfill the tasks set by NATO,” said Kaja Kallas, the bloc’s top diplomat. The Commission said the flagship programs are driven by requests from the member states. “Frontline countries feel the sense of urgency and want to prepare after we saw the drone incursions in Europe,” said a Commission official prior to presenting the plans, referring to recent overflights of EU territory by Russian drones.  “This clearly shows that Europe needs a 360-degree approach to rapidly closing capability gaps in this area. Ukraine is ready to support member states in organizing this,” the official added. The Commission is in close dialogue with NATO to coordinate further steps, and more flagship projects are anticipated.  “Two more initiatives will be announced later this year: a Military Mobility Package and a Technological Transformation of the Defence Industry,” said Commission Vice President Henna Virkkunen. Kallas said the first coordinating meetings of the four groups started this week. “The first meeting of the drones coalition took place with the Netherlands and Latvia in the lead,” she said.  German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius earlier Thursday announced that Germany intends to take the lead in the European Air Shield. A Commission official said groups of at least 10 countries are aligned for each of the four efforts. The European Defence Agency is also playing a central role by providing meeting spaces for the groups and advising on projects. 

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Gordon Repinski im Gespräch mit Sicherheitsexperte Carlo Masala. Masala rechnet mit der Diplomatie der letzten Wochen ab: Den Friedensprozess, den US-Präsident Trump sehen wollte, hat es nie gegeben – weil Putin nie mitgespielt hat. Der Professor an der Universität der Bundeswehr in München analysiert die militärische Lage an der Front, warum Investitionen in die ukrainische Rüstungsindustrie jetzt wichtiger sind als westliche Waffen und wie viele tausend Soldaten Europa in der Ukraine für einen echten Frieden bräuchte. Carlo Masala erklärt zudem, warum kein deutscher Politiker bereit ist, über den Einsatz von Bodentruppen zur Friedenssicherung zu sprechen und welche fatale Signalwirkung das für die NATO hat. Mehr Analysen von Carlo Masala hört ihr in seinem Podcast „Sicherheitshalber“ und lest ihr in seinem Buch „Wenn Russland gewinnt“. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.