\n<\/p>\n
Many critical issues were left uncertain \u2014 including the fate of Ukraine \u2014 at the end of Europe\u2019s first encounter with an angry and impatient Trump administration. But one thing was clear: An epochal breach appears to be opening in the Western alliance.<\/p>\n
After three years of war that forged a new unity within NATO, the Trump administration has made clear it is planning to focus its attention elsewhere: in Asia, Latin America, the Arctic and anywhere President Trump believes the United States can obtain critical mineral rights.<\/p>\n
European officials who emerged from a meeting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said they now expect that tens of thousands of American troops will be pulled out of Europe \u2014 the only question is how many, and how fast.<\/p>\n
And they fear that in one-on-one negotiations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Trump is on his way to agreeing to terms that could ultimately put Moscow in a position to own a fifth of Ukraine and to prepare to take the rest in a few years\u2019 time. Mr. Putin\u2019s ultimate goal, they believe, is to break up the NATO alliance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Those fears spilled out on the stage of the Munich Security Conference on Saturday morning, when President Volodymyr Zelensky declared that \u201cUkraine will never accept deals made behind our backs.\u201d He then called optimistically for the creation of an \u201carmy of Europe,\u201d one that includes his now battle-hardened Ukrainian forces. He was advocating, in essence, a military alternative to NATO, a force that would make its own decisions without the influence \u2014 or the military control \u2014 of the United States.<\/p>\n
Mr. Zelensky predicted that Mr. Putin would soon seek to manipulate Mr. Trump, speculating that the Russian leader would invite the new American president to the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany. \u201cPutin will try to get the U.S. president standing on Red Square on May 9 this year,\u201d he told a jammed hall of European diplomats and defense and intelligence officials, \u201cnot as a respected leader but as a prop in his own performance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Behind closed doors, Mr. Zelensky had a different kind of confrontation with the Trump administration officials this past week: After meetings with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Kyiv, Ukraine\u2019s capital, he rejected an extraordinary proposal that the United States be granted a 50 percent interest in all of Ukraine\u2019s mineral resources, including graphite, lithium and uranium, as compensation for past and future support of the war, according to two European officials.<\/p>\n
Mr. Zelensky himself referred to the tense negotiation in Munich, after he met Mr. Vance, complaining that the administration\u2019s proposal included no security guarantees for the country should Russia attempt another invasion. \u201cWe can consider how to distribute profits when security guarantees are clear,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The security guarantee is key because Ukrainians believe the United States and Britain failed to live up to obligations to protect the country under an agreement signed at the end of the Cold War, when Ukraine gave up the Russian nuclear weapons on its territory. But European diplomats complained that the negotiation reeked of colonialism, an era of exploitation when Western countries held up smaller nations for commodities, in return for protection.<\/p>\n
Listening to the open debate at the Munich Security Conference over the past three days, and the more blunt conversations over dinners and in hallways, was to witness a relationship in crisis and confusion.<\/p>\n
It was only last July that the NATO allies gathered in Washington for the 75th anniversary of the world\u2019s largest and most successful military alliance. While officials knew that the re-election of Donald J. Trump would strain the system, they have been stunned by both the ferocity and the velocity of the effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cCompare the speeches that General Mattis and Mike Pence gave here in their first appearances in 2017,\u201d said Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, referring to Mr. Trump\u2019s first defense secretary and vice president. \u201cThey were full of reassurance and discussion of what allies can do together. Then listen to Pete Hegseth and JD Vance this week,\u201d she said. \u201cIt feels that it\u2019s their goal to create division.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fact, when Keith Kellogg, Mr. Trump\u2019s special envoy for Ukraine, spoke in Munich on Saturday, he made clear that Europe would not be at the negotiating table. He envisioned a negotiation between Russia and Ukraine in which the United States plays \u201cmediator.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
It is the uncertainty of how that negotiation will play out \u2014 and whether Europeans can count on the United States to come to their defense should Russia try to pick off a smaller NATO nation next \u2014 that is driving European anxiety. But it is also clear that the Trump administration has no clear plan for Ukraine, at least not yet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cFor those in search of Trump\u2019s strategy on Ukraine: Relax,\u201d said Douglas Lute, who served both Democratic and Republican presidents in senior national security positions. \u201cThere is no strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, President Emmanuel Macron of France has asked \u201cthe main European countries\u201d to come to Paris on Monday to discuss the war in Ukraine and European security, Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot, the foreign minister, said on Sunday in an interview on France Inter radio. He described the event as a \u201cworking meeting,\u201d and said that the government was still receiving confirmations, but that heads of state were expected to attend.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain is expected to go, saying on Saturday that this was a \u201conce-in-a-generation moment for our national security\u201d and that it was clear that Europe must take a greater role in NATO.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The Western alliance has gone through many crises before, including in the 1950s, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected with a promise to lower the price of waging the Cold War and pulled back on American troops in Europe, replacing them with nuclear weapons to keep the Soviet Union at bay. Some predict a similar move by Mr. Trump in coming months \u2014 sharply reducing manpower, but keeping an arsenal of nuclear weapons on the continent. <\/p>\n
To many in Munich, the past few weeks have already alienated Europeans and destroyed much of the unity created over the past three years in providing arms, aid and intelligence to Ukraine.<\/p>\n
It is hard to know how lasting the breach will be, but for some like Norbert R\u00f6ttgen, a member of Germany\u2019s Parliament for the Christian Democratic Union, the party expected to run the next government after elections next week, it is time for Europeans to recognize the world has changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a new reality, a break with traditional European American policy that security in Europe is a genuine U.S. national interest,\u201d he said. \u201cBut this administration does not consider it a primary U.S. interest, and this is a fundamental shift.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pointed in particular to Mr. Vance\u2019s speech on Friday. There was no talk of common bonds, or a plan for Ukraine, or the goals of a peace negotiation. Instead, Mr. Vance delivered a blistering attack on European democracy for restricting the power of the far right. Mr. Vance then met with the leader of the far-right German political party that Elon Musk has backed and which is running second in the opinion polls.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThe spirit of the Vance speech was hostility,\u201d Mr. R\u00f6ttgen said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The speed of the embrace of Mr. Putin also shocked those in Munich. In the Biden years, the strategy was to isolate the Russian leader. Mr. Trump broke with that approach when he engaged in a 90-minute phone call with Mr. Putin, without prior consultation with his allies. <\/p>\n
Mr. Vance added to the suspicions. The parties he embraced during his visit here are the same far-right parties that Mr. Putin embraces, and that buy into his narrative of an aggressive NATO infringing on a broader Russian sphere of influence. Among those who embraced that view was Tulsi Gabbard, the new director of national intelligence.<\/p>\n
Europeans are now afraid that they may find themselves as pawns in a negotiation conducted without their active participation, even if their own borders are in question and they are expected to take up the largest burden of defending them. That is reminiscent of a Europe and a world of a previous age, of regional empires and the rule of the strong with little concern for the rest.<\/p>\n
Kaja Kallas, the E.U. foreign policy chief and former prime minister of Estonia, said in an interview that she remained worried about \u201cappeasement\u201d of Mr. Putin by Mr. Trump over Ukraine, which she defined as \u201cgiving the aggressor what he wants\u201d even before negotiations begin. \u201cThat\u2019s why we shouldn\u2019t give Putin what he wants because that will only invite more aggression,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Trump officials had sent mixed signals, she said. \u201cWhen we meet these people inside the rooms, we are discussing that we are great allies,\u201d Ms. Kallas said. But then, \u201cwe see also the public statements, which are a bit confusing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Given the war in Europe, she said, the stakes are high. <\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s not only the question of the sovereignty of Ukraine, or the freedom of Europe,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s actually a question of trans-Atlantic but also global security.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As for American troops, which were increased in Europe after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she said that there were no detailed discussions about removing them, but that there was a clear trend that worried her. The United States is \u201cturning inward,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Boris Pistorius, the defense minister of Germany, said troop withdrawals were discussed with Mr. Hegseth in Brussels. \u201cWe would have to compensate for what the Americans are doing less of in Europe,\u201d Mr. Pistorius said. \u201cBut that can\u2019t happen overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Pistorius said he had proposed a \u201croad map\u201d to Mr. Hegseth that included \u201ca change in burden sharing, in such a way that it is orchestrated\u201d and \u201cno dangerous capability gaps arise over time.\u201d <\/p>\n Other NATO defense and foreign ministers have said that personnel was less of a problem than the kind of arms and equipment only the United States has in Europe in large numbers, from attack helicopters to satellite intelligence. To replace all of that, even if ordered tomorrow, would take close to a decade, one minister said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As for Ukraine, Ms. Kallas said, there was not yet a real plan from Washington, <\/span>and no plan could be imposed by Washington because for any plan to function, \u201cyou need the Europeans and you need the Ukrainians.\u201d <\/p>\n And if the Ukrainians do not accept a deal and decide to continue to resist, \u201cthen Europe will support them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Ant\u00f3nio Costa, the president of the European Council, said in an interview that it was important \u201cto keep calm\u201d and \u201cprepare for all scenarios, but not to react to each declaration, each tweet, each speech.\u201d<\/p>\n More important, Mr. Costa said, was Europe\u2019s lasting support for Ukraine. \u201cThere can be no lasting peace without Ukraine and without the European Union,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/p>\n Europe must pay attention to the realities, not the rhetoric, he said. \u201cWe are prepared on tariffs, on security, on defense, on Ukraine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Catherine Porter and Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting from Paris.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n