Europe should expect more pressure from the Trump team as it seeks to settle the war in Ukraine — because military deterrence is the only language Russia understands.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a team of negotiators met Tuesday with their Russian counterparts in Riyadh, unthawing US-Russian relations in a dramatic diplomatic turnabout and kicking off talks on the war in Ukraine.
Conspicuously absent were representatives from Europe.
That meeting capped off a dizzying week of transatlantic diplomacy by the United States, punctuated by Vice President JD Vance’s remarks at the Munich Security Conference that mentioned Ukraine only twice, and only in passing.
Vance said he avoided publicly outlining a Ukraine peace strategy to “preserve the president’s negotiating leverage,” and to set no red lines ahead of the meetings in Saudi Arabia.
But Vance’s choice can also be seen as a move designed to shock Europe into action — a perspective consistent with President Trump’s own views on transatlantic relations and military burden-shifting.
To be sure, Vance’s planting of a rhetorical MAGA flag in Europe channels a belief held by many Trump supporters that European elites, especially in Germany, are allied outright with progressives in the United States.
But the VP’s speech was also a new twist on a time-tested Trump specialty: exposing US allies to the specter of a threat from a hostile power — in this case Russia — to prod them into sharing responsibility for their own security.
Vance administered this push in a way that will be remembered for years to come — not because of anything he said about NATO’s security guarantee or the future of Ukraine, but for his remarks questioning Europe’s commitment to democracy itself.
