Trump's recent statements regarding Ukraine confirm some realities that we have often stubbornly refused to accept.
► Whatever Ukrainians and Europeans may think, the US and Russia consider the war in Ukraine to be between them, where the US is fighting using the Ukrainian Armed Forces (supported by them at least since 1994). This is not only the Trump administration's vision, it was also the Biden administration's, but it did not say it so clearly. After all, even with the Biden administration, the strategic indications regarding the conflict came from Washington and Ukraine and the Allies they were adapting.
► The US considers itself a superpower that does not need to agree on its decisions with those it considers "Allies-subjects". Subjects who however have the obligation to contribute financially and, when requested, militarily to their military operations (see Afghanistan). Moreover, after 18 years of NATO intervention in Afghanistan (20031-2021) neither the NATO Allies nor the Kabul Government had any say in the withdrawal from the theater, agreed in Doha by the USA alone with the Taliban. Despite the different behavioral methods of the US presidents, some more attentive to the form than others, in substance it has always happened this way at least since the presidency of GW Bush (Bush son to be clear) onwards.
► The US's loyalty to the obligations undertaken with the peoples "to whose aid" they intervene militarily is strictly dependent on the trend of internal electoral polls (let us remember that between presidential and state elections mid-term (The US voter is called to vote every two years.) South Vietnamese, Iraqis, Kurds, Afghans experienced it before the Ukrainians.
► For European states, "wagging" every time Washington calls may not always yield the desired results. Also because the commitment to an objective considered a priority by a US administration could be considered useless if not harmful by the following administration. For example, if our support for Ukraine could have had great value in our relations with Washington in the Biden era, I do not believe that the current POTUS can recognize any merit in us for such support.
As was unfortunately predictable, the USA wants to disengage from a military conflict that its public opinion no longer supports. This is in order to focus on the confrontation with what they believe represents the real danger for their hegemony: the China.
By the way, the US has already achieved the great result of cutting off relations between Russia (an energy exporter) and an energy-hungry EU that could have represented a commercial competitor. This, as we know, has dealt a very hard blow to the economy of various European countries and the EU in general. A result that we cannot say whether it was planned or not, but as Giulio Andreotti said "to think badly ...".
At this point, the leaders of the EU and of the European countries who for three years (out of inner conviction or in the hope of gaining merit with the Biden administration) have been shuttling between their capitals and Kiev, instead of complaining about not being taken into consideration by Trump and Putin, should decide whether to take on the responsibility and the human and economic costs of keeping their promises towards Ukraine.2 or turn away, as the West has already done many times.
It was however predictable that this US position would be reached, because for years Trump had been indicating what his position would be if he returned to the White House and it is surprising that the European Allies were found Also this time so unprepared.
1 NATO's intervention as an Alliance in Afghanistan, where it took over from Turkey in the direction of ISAF, began only in 2003, although the US and some allies (including Italy) had been engaged in the country since December 2021, but this occurred within the framework of the US-led coalition of the willing Operation Enduring Freedom.
2 For example, with regard to Italy, the bilateral assistance agreement between our country and Ukraine signed on February 24, 2024, Article 1, paragraph 3, provides that “The Participants (i.e. Italy and Ukraine) will work together, and with other partners of Ukraine, to ensure that the security and defense forces of Ukraine are able to fully restore the territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders, as well as to increase the resistance capacity of Ukraine so that it is sufficient to deter and defend itself from future attacks and coercion”.
Photo: Bundesarchiv
