By Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein
International events have taken an extraordinarily fast pace. I have consulted with some colleagues, and we have concluded that it is becoming difficult to follow the movement of events that are shaking, transforming and restructuring the international system at a speed never seen before in at least the last 80 years. The truth is that the post-war world seems to be falling apart. The consensus achieved in 1945 in Yalta and Potsdam has just been dealt a mortal blow in Munich.
Let us briefly review the events of the last few days to confirm this assertion that emanates from the imprint that the Trump administration is imposing on the world:
- February 12th. The US president said he had a “long and very productive” phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. He said Putin wants the war in Ukraine to end and believes there will be a ceasefire “in the not-too-distant future.” The call was the first known conversation between the two presidents since Trump took office last month.
- February 12. During his meeting in Brussels with members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stated “directly and unambiguously” that Washington will no longer prioritize the security of Europe and determined that the war between Ukraine and Russia “must end” because its priority is to secure the U.S. borders and avoid war with China.
Hegseth said current strategic realities prevent the United States from remaining the primary guarantor of security in Europe. These same realities force, according to the Pentagon chief, a reduction of US forces in the region. The priority for Washington is to confront China, which he defined as “a major competitor” because it has the capacity and the intention to threaten the national security of the United States and its main interests in the Indo-Pacific region. Hegseth stressed that deterring a conflict with China in the Pacific is the most important mission of his office. He acknowledged the scarcity of resources and the need to make difficult decisions to ensure that the process does not fail.
The Secretary of Defense urged European NATO allies to take active leadership. He told them bluntly: “The White House will no longer tolerate an unbalanced relationship that fosters dependency. Instead, the U.S.-European relationship will focus on empowering European countries to take responsibility for their own security.”
- February 14. US Vice President JD Vance delivered a speech at the 61st Munich Security Conference in Germany, surprising both the audience and Washington’s European allies. In the speech, the senior US official stated that: “The threat that worries me most with respect to Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. What worries me is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values, values shared with the United States.” Disregarding the perplexity that his words generated, he added that “When we see European courts cancelling elections, with senior officials threatening to cancel elections, we have to ask ourselves if we are holding ourselves to appropriately high standards.”
- February 14. Texas Republican Senator John Cornyn said he hoped Europeans would recognize that their privilege of taking advantage of the United States had come to an end, adding: “They’ve had it pretty good, and those days are over.”
- February 14. Keir Giles, a senior fellow at the London-based think tank Chatham House, told NBC News that Europe has ignored decades of signs that America’s patience has been “wearing thin” with Europe’s reliance on U.S. defense.
- February 14. Patrick Wintour, diplomatic editor of the British newspaper The Guardian, noted that Vance’s remarks showed that “the pre-existing dispute between Europe and the United States was no longer about the sharing of military burdens or the nature of the future security threat posed by Russia, but about something more fundamental: society.”
- February 16. In a column titled “Donald Trump’s assault on Europe,” the London-based online newspaper The Economist noted that European leaders attending the Munich conference were “stunned” to see the Trump administration “undo decades of diplomacy that have underpinned NATO as the most successful military alliance in modern history.”
- February 18. The Hungarian Prime Minister noted that: “The European Union (EU) is ‘caught in the war’ and will learn the results of the negotiations on Ukraine from the press.”
- February 18. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that the emergency EU summit in Paris failed to make any decisions on the Ukrainian conflict. Contradictions among the assembled leaders prevented a common solution from emerging. Politico reported that after the 3.5-hour meeting, their reactions were “disappointing.”
- February 19. A meeting held in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, between high-level delegations from Russia and the United States concluded successfully after a smooth and fluid dialogue, according to the official.Kremlin presidential adviser Yuri Ushakov, who took part in the meeting together with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, said that during the talks all issues were discussed seriously and in depth, and that a consensus was reached on advancing bilateral relations.
- February 19. Referring to the reaction of Ukraine and its leader Volodymyr Zelensky to the US-Russian talks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, President Trump said: “Think about it: a modestly successful comedian, Volodymyr Zelensky, convinced the United States of America to spend $350 billion to enter a war that could not be won, that never had to be started, but a war that he, without the United States and Trump, will never be able to solve. The United States has spent $200 billion more than Europe, and Europe’s money is guaranteed, while the United States will receive nothing in return. Why did sleepy Joe Biden not demand equality, since this war is much more important for Europe than for us? We have a big, beautiful ocean as a separation. On top of this, Zelensky admits that half of the money we sent him is missing. He refuses to have elections, scores very low in the polls, and the only thing he was good at was manipulating Biden “like a fiddle.” Zelensky is a dictator without elections who must act fast or he will have no country left. Meanwhile, we are successfully negotiating an end to the war with Russia, something everyone admits only Trump and the Trump administration can do. Biden never tried, Europe has failed to bring peace, and Zelensky probably wants to keep the “gravy train” running. I love Ukraine, but Zelensky has done a terrible job, his country is in tatters, and millions have died unnecessarily. And so it continues…”
To paraphrase the title of John Reed’s famous book, we could speak of “the eight days that shook the world.” Europeans are stunned and, as their Paris summit demonstrated, completely disjointed and unresponsive. They came to Munich expecting Vance to speak on matters related to the security and defense of the European bloc, but instead he “roundly attacked” Washington’s allies, denouncing “disinformation, misinformation, and freedom of expression rights.” According to RT, “a senior European official who spoke to Foreign Policy on condition of anonymity said that Vance “while in Germany did something that Germans are quite good at: lecturing others.”
Russia was neither surprised nor dismantled. Since 2014, with patience and a long-term vision, it has articulated a plan that it has been fulfilling to the letter. A few months ago, President Putin outlined his concept of peace and his idea of a new international order. During the forum “Interconnection of times and civilizations, the basis of peace and development” held in Ashgabat, capital of Turkmenistan in October 2024, he explained that: “… Global peace can only be achieved by taking into account the interests of all the peoples of the planet.” In his speech at the event, the Russian president made it known that his country was convinced that “universal peace and comprehensive development can only be guaranteed by taking into account the opinions of each people, while respecting, at the same time, the right of each State to its own sovereign course, its own worldview, its own traditions and religious ideas,” also pointing out that the majority of the world’s States advocate “a more equitable distribution of benefits.”
This was the support that allowed the leaders of Russia and the United States to speak by phone last week and agree to leave behind an “absolutely anomalous” period in relations between the two countries, when there was no mutual contact.
TO BE CONTINUED…