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stephenkmacksd.com/

Mar 07, 2025

Europe | The old world wakes up

The dangerous tension in Europe’s response to Trump

By trying to stop the rift, Europe may hasten it

Editor: in three paragraphs ZMB presents her case for Zelensky , that loses it’s political energy as the sentences unfold.

Four days after being accused of rejecting peace with Russia and thrown out of the White House, Volodymyr Zelensky bent the knee before Donald Trump on March 4th with a mollifying letter: “Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than Ukrainians. My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.”

The Ukrainian president’s genuflection brought him no respite. Mr Trump did not restart deliveries of weapons, halted on March 3rd. Instead he intensified the punishment. American battlefield intelligence stopped reaching Ukraine around 2pm local time on March 5th. “If Mr Trump wants a thank-you, we will be writing it on the gravestones of dead Ukrainian soldiers,” seethed one Ukrainian officer.

Such brutal coercion in wartime is a warning that America may abandon Ukraine permanently and, more broadly, undo the decades-old NATO alliance. Shocked European allies are scrambling to help Ukraine on their own, strengthen their defences and present America with a peace plan that, unlike Mr Trump’s, avoids capitulation to Russia.

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Editor: Even ‘Time Magazine’ presents Zelensky is a Yousuf Karsh pose: April 28, 2022 6:00 AM EDT

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The interruption of intelligence has more immediate and serious consequences. Ukrainian sources say America has stopped an intelligence link used to communicate alerts about suspicious Russian activity as well as targeting data for HIMARS rockets and real-time information for long-range drones. Other feeds controlled by NATO remain operative, at least for now. Ukraine is presumably still able to hit large static Russian targets, such as oil refineries. But finding and destroying fleeting “dynamic” targets, such as mobile air-defence systems, may prove more difficult.

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Mike Waltz, America’s national security adviser, said America was “pausing and reviewing all aspects of this relationship”.

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There was no invitation for Mr Zelensky or anyone else to conclude a framework deal with America to extract Ukraine’s rare-earth and other minerals, which was supposed to have been signed at the ill-starred White House meeting.

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In his address to Congress on March 4th Mr Trump declared that Russia had sent “strong signals that they are ready for peace”, but offered no evidence.

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At the same time they have to hedge against the prospect that America will stop underwriting European security or, worse, become a hostile power.

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“We must recognise it: we are entering a new era,” declared Emmanuel Macron, the French president, in a televised address on March 5th.

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Sir Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, rejected accusations that America had become an unreliable ally. He has spoken with Mr Trump repeatedly, seeking to bridge the divide with Ukraine.

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Britain and France, Europe’s biggest military powers, have hosted separate European summits to draw up a coherent response, but their efforts do not always seem fully joined up.

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Britain says the “reassurance” force—a coalition of the willing expected to number 20,000-30,000 troops behind Ukrainian front-line units—would need a strong American “backstop” to deter Russia. Mr Trump has demurred.

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After his address Mr Macron hosted Viktor Orban, the Hungarian prime minister and a staunch Russian ally, to urge him not to block moves by a European summit the following day to boost European defence, not least by setting up a €150bn facility to help buy weapons.

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The expected fiscal boost pushed up the DAX index by 3.4% and the shares of Rheinmetall, a defence firm, by 7.2%. German ten-year bond yields jumped by 0.3 percentage points in expectation of higher borrowing.

Editor: here is the point at which ZMB becomes……….?

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Yet there is a dangerous tension in Europe’s response. It seeks to show it is pulling its weight by strengthening Ukraine and keeping it fighting if necessary, whereas Mr Trump wants to bend it to his will and end the war. In trying to stop the rift with America, Europe may hasten it.

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