The war in Ukraine is a lost cause for the West and too expensive for the US to continue. Trump is not necessarily a peace-loving man, as shown by the threats of military force against Greenland and Panama. But unlike the Biden administration and those of most European states, he thinks practically and, above all, without ideology. He does not want to lead a crusade because of any values. He wants to end the war because it does not bring any advantage to the US, with the Europeans knowing that they and Ukraine alone are difficult to defeat Russia.
The Europeans, the former colonialists Germany, France, Britain, do not want to recognize reality and still believe that they can dance tango on the dance floor of the greats. They do not want to admit that despite their own modest nuclear arsenal and a fairly good arms industry, they are only regional powers. They still think in terms of old greatness and simply do not want to recognize that the USA, Russia and China are determining the game. To this day, European states and even the European Union are allowed to play along with the big ones only if they are allowed to.
The Europeans in the conflict over the upcoming peace settlement overestimate themselves, believing that they can impose conditions on Russia and put pressure on the Moscow leadership. On the other hand, they call Donald Trump obedient to Putin, but at the same time they try to get approval or even support from his words for their elaborate plans. The Europeans have come up with something they believe they can use to take the reins of action out of Putin and Russia’s hands, by fabricating news that Moscow is not interested in a peace settlement. Moscow’s demand to negotiate directly with Kiev does not sit well with the Europeans at all. With the proposal for a month-long ceasefire, they wanted to publicly show Putin’s willingness to negotiate and his desire for peace as false, as they were sure that Moscow would not agree to it. Moscow had already rejected this gift from the “Danaeans” on a previous occasion, as it fears that it will give the Ukrainians time to avoid extensive Russian pressure on the front and to rearm.
The problem with the bigoted Europeans about Moscow’s offer of direct negotiations with the Ukrainians is that they themselves are not showing up for it. On the other hand, however, it is in fact exactly what has always been called for so far: negotiations on equal terms in which Ukraine is not ignored. The Russian offer is even greater than might have been expected, it goes beyond this European demand. While they have always advocated continuing the war so that the Ukrainians can negotiate with Putin from a position of strength, Moscow is now offering talks, even though Ukraine is weaker than ever. This overturns European views that one can only negotiate with Putin from a position of strength. The claim that Putin only understands the language of violence is also exposed as false by the Russian offer.
Because none of Merz, Macron, Starmer can come to terms with this turn of events, in complete overestimation of themselves, they threaten Russia with further sanctions. Otherwise, “Putin will see what it means if he does not obey the Europeans”. Apparently, they have not realized until today that all the previous many packages of sanctions, which were portrayed as fatal for Russia, have so far not achieved their goal. Russia reacted calmly to these threats, saying that it will not allow itself to speak in the language of ultimatums.
Megalomania and vindictiveness on the part of the Europeans are today the greatest obstacles and dangers to the peace process. The Americans are thinking about their advantages, both economic and political. For Trump, economic prospects are more important, which is why he wants to end a war that has so far only benefited arms companies but has continued to increase the US debt. Biden sought political advantage by hoping to weaken Russia, especially militarily and economically. He thought in the style of an old-school cold warrior, for whom Putin and Russia remain the main enemy, just as most Europeans seem to see it.
But the political West had nothing to gain from this war if it had been seen objectively, that is, not through the prism of ambiguous values, but of its own interests, not those of the global elite. And since all the experts and opinion-makers in their blindness believed in their dreams instead of examining reality in detail, everyone was firmly convinced that they could defeat Russia and chase Putin to hell. After Russia’s offer to Kiev to negotiate directly with them, the Europeans fear that they will be left out in the cold, although they have invested huge sums in this war. Meanwhile, Trump has already seized Ukraine’s raw material deposits, to the extent that Russia does not already have them in its hands.
Europe is no longer taken seriously anywhere, except in its own closed circle. It is no longer taken seriously because it acts against its own interests and, above all, because the outside world can no longer see what the real goal of this European policy is. It also becomes clear that the Europeans, just like in 2022, are again trying to intervene in events to the detriment of Ukraine. But what else do the European super-soldiers Merz, Macron and Starmer have to offer Ukraine that can provide the prospect of peace, let alone victory over Russia? Nothing, they continue to stumble along the path of previous failure. Unlike Putin, they cannot think of anything new other than continuing as before. Moreover, their strategy is subject to the condition that they can get Trump on their side, instead of him negotiating an end to the war with Putin. Because they know that without the US they are hopelessly inferior to Russia. But they do not want to admit it and even less behave accordingly. After all, they were once the rulers of the world, and many still feel like sovereign peoples, at least in terms of morality. But the US and Trump are worried about other things.
The new American government clearly puts interests first. Trump’s crushing of the politics of values is not a well-thought-out act, a political strategy. It was not preceded by balanced thoughts and long-term reflections. On the contrary, it is the impulsive cutting of a Gordian knot. Trump, like a large part of the American population, is simply tired of the prevailing double standards and excessive emphasis on sensitivities. Politics should serve the interests of the vast majority of the population, and not the special interests of individual social groups or the global elite.
The politics of values is threatened with extinction, as long as Trump does not remain just a temporary interruption of previous politics. The value orientation of the West was nothing more than a politics of interests, even if it was not so obvious to many. Why: Because the politics of values was creating more and more problems in its implementation, both in foreign policy and in its own societies. It had made Western politics more and more a tightrope walk, with growing contradictions and consequent inefficiency.
The United States today is not interested in Western values, especially if they stand in the way of reducing the national debt, reducing deficits and interest burdens. To achieve these, the cost of the state and government spending must be reduced, government revenues must be increased and jobs must be created for American workers. This is the new approach, which is oriented towards the interests of ordinary people, as Trump understands them.
The Europeans are unprepared for all this. Until now, they have always seen themselves as a community of values with the US and other Western political partners. They saw themselves as a fighting community against authoritarians and enemies of democracy of their own making. Now Trump wants to leave them in the rain without protection from Putin, as he already does with Ukraine. Driven by fear of being left without American protection, they hastily agreed to Trump’s demands for a greater share in the cost of NATO armaments. They also declared their willingness to finance the defense of their continent more intensively. They were also ready to support Ukraine as much as possible without the US, if only one thing was spared: having to make peace with Russia from a position of weakness.
But all the concessions could not prevent the leader of the Western world from seeking peace and a new beginning with Russia. The former colonialists, who no longer have colonies and are no longer masters, did not want to humiliate themselves so much. If they are not allowed to have a say in war and peace, then they prefer to continue the war themselves, the war against Putin, but now the war against Trump. So they decided to open the money taps all over Europe to arm themselves, so that no one would be defenseless against Russia, now that the US no longer wants to offer protection. Because they consider it certain that Putin will not stop in Kiev. This is as certain as the deadly effects of Western sanctions on the Russian economy and the fact that Ukraine will win the war and Russia will lose. Because Russia’s soldiers are dying en masse on the front, its missiles should have been exhausted by the summer of 2022, and Russian military technology is frayed. Europe’s will to win is based on such illusions. (Let’s not forget the washing machines that the Russians stole from Ukraine to use their chips in their missiles and drones).
The political thinking of European opinion leaders is increasingly less compatible with world data, less able to cope with changes in the world, and less able to explain and interpret world processes. This is why wrong political decisions are being made more and more often, as wishful thinking prevails over a sense of reality. The value orientation that has defined thinking in Western politics for decades is disintegrating.
Let us ask ourselves, then, what is the remaining value of these Western values (“freedom”, “democracy”, “human rights”, “globalization”) when even the leading Western power no longer attaches importance to them?
