-Analysis-
PARIS — It’s easy to negotiate with Vladimir Putin: Just give him what he wants — and then present the deal as a success.
Donald Trump seems to be taking inspiration from the example set by Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008 on the Georgian question, when the French president “negotiated” with the master of the Kremlin on the future of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as Putin was beginning to “nibble” away at the territories of his former empire by force. Of course, some observers then thought (as they do today about Ukraine) that the words “treason” and “surrender” would have been more accurate than “negotiation.”
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Historical references are always interesting to look at. What was being laid out last week at the Munich security conference, and then no doubt in direct diplomatic talks this week in Saudi Arabia (what an honor for Riyadh), is less likely to be a new division of the world, like Yalta in 1944, than a new Munich 1938. An attempt at appeasement that could bear catastrophic consequences.
What is interesting in 2025 is not so much the announced meeting between Trump and Putin, as the fact that one of the parties is giving the other – even before negotiations have begun– what it has wanted. Yes, you will keep all the territories you have conquered, Trump is telling Putin. No, you will not join Nato, he is saying to Zelensky, whom he called after calling Putin, and spoke to for much less time.
Strategic realism on the one hand: Ukraine does not have the means to reconquer its lost territories. Diplomatic realism on the other: Ukraine’s entry into NATO is not acceptable to Russia.
It is of course worth noting that in calling Europe to account – the world is a dangerous place, and you need to spend much more on defense (up to 5% of your budget) – Donald Trump continues to speak the truth. Yet in just a few hours last week, the U.S. president has turned Putin’s Russia, a pariah state since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, into a partner that is not only acceptable but sought after.
Rude awakening
For anyone doubting Donald Trump’s radicalism, this is a rude awakening. It should also be a rude awakening for all those Europeans who – perhaps motivated by a desire for a “happy vassalization,” to use the phrase from Italian President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella – are delighted by America’s evolution.
If Moscow wants to push any advantages on the Old Continent, it’s the Europeans’ problem — no longer America’s problem.
Yet the “vassalization” may not turn out so happy. Especially if Putin considers Trump’s words to be a “green line,” that is a signal that if Moscow wants to push any advantages on the Old Continent, that it’s the Europeans’ problem — no longer America’s problem.
Trump seems to be convinced that, since 1917 and the United States’ entry into the war on the side of the democratic powers, America has given far too much to this arrogant, egotistical, decadent “old continent”, which, in the end, is no longer all that important. The irony is that by marginalizing Europe in its eyes, America has accelerated and deepened the process of marginalizing the West at a global scale.
What if Donald Trump were not (as he has the arrogance to believe) the new master of the clocks, but rather Putin’s “useful idiot,” today before becoming Xi Jinping’s tomorrow?
Decline and fall
At the end of his seminal book The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, British historian Edward Gibbon insisted on the dual nature of the empire: aren’t two emperors too much for one empire? I couldn’t help but think of Gibbon, as I watched Elon Musk’s press conference a few days ago in the Oval Office of the White House. There was something surreal about the odd couple formed by this duo of narcissistic soloists that are Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
“Europe’s time has come”, proclaimed Jacques Poos, Luxembourg’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, in 1991, at the very start of the Balkan Wars. Today, with the Russian threat closing in and an American protection that is virtually non-existent, Europe’s time has truly come, whether they want it or not.
How can we convince Europeans that, if we’re not careful, our future lies not in one “happy vassalization” but in plain and simple vassalization, which would be very painful indeed.
