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A World Without a Leader

Last week, we marked the three-year anniversary of Russia’s ongoing and brutal war against Ukraine. While Ukraine, and its brave men and women, and its one-of-a-kind president have already won their place in history, the West (as we know it) is crumbling. What was supposed to be a milestone that spurs a show of solidarity of the Western World toward the victim, unearthed and exposed in broad day light a disturbing new reality: America, the chief-architect of the Western security, the leader of the free world, the beacon of democracy is stepping down. The United States is turning away from its own creation. The system of alliances that America herself created after World War II to magnify its power, the system that won the Cold War, is losing its leader.

After three years of full-out war in Ukraine, we can state that which is obvious: America has no vision and no plan for how to end the war in Ukraine. Feeding false hopes of NATO membership and keeping Ukraine on life support is not it. Sacrificing Ukraine to its aggressor (seemingly what the current US administration is working towards) – is not it. President Biden slow-dripped the much-needed military support that could have put a definitive stop to Russia’s advancement. President Trump is improvising each day. And, while there’s nothing wrong with out-of-the box thinking, that’s not what is happening here. There is no strategy. There is no strategic vision. Nobody knows how “peace” in Ukraine looks like for the Americans who seem to be just winging it. Playing by the ear. Russia, on the other hand, knows exactly what it wants. Trump says that Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky played Biden like a fiddle, but it is obvious Putin is the one playing Trump like a fiddle right now. Hell of Christmas gift the American voters made to the dictator in Kremlin, something he couldn’t imagine in his wildest dreams!

Instead of defending values, the US wants to pick off whatever is left from the bones of Ukraine. We see the American president bargaining like a shop keeper at Sunday market over Ukraine’s rare earth minerals in exchange for support…. already given. President Trump has yet to learn that international politics is not real estate. And ending the war in Ukraine is not like opening another Trump Tower.

This is a very dangerous moment for Europe. Because, if Ukraine is not about values, if Ukraine is up for grabs and the Americans want a piece of the action (to quote Trump: we want “anything we can get”), what makes the US any different than China or Russia? So much for moral superiority.

With a pathological liar in the Oval Office and an explosive combination of personality traits, this bouquet of toxicity can end the liberal world order. Exactly 80 years after the United States has assumed the leadership role of the free world, the hitherto indispensable country is the very one attacking it from within. This moment will be remembered as the moment when the leader stopped providing leadership and became one of the problems. In comparison with Trump’s first term (2016-2020), there’s no one to keep the barrage of stupidity in check. With very few exceptions, there are no adults in the room this time. There’s no Michael Bolton, no Rex Tillerson, no Anthony Faucci, no Nicky Haley. With little understanding of foreign policy, the current US administration is already inflicting significant damage, every day. On itself, on its neighbors, on its allies, on embattled Ukraine. The first Trump presidency shook the tree of American democracy pretty hard, but the institutions held. The same result is not guaranteed the second time around, especially since the approach is much more aggressive this time.

The Munich Security Conference and the February 28 episode in Washington have clearly shown that, currently, Europe and America no longer share the same values. From Elon Musk’s nazi salute to Trump calling Zelensky (the leader of a country that is attacked every single day) a “dictator” to VP Vance’s off the rail remarks about Romanian elections, to the public dressing down of Ukraine’s president in the Oval Office in front of the whole world, it is clear that we no longer speak the same language. If Europe has to watch its back from the US, if we have to watch out that the Americans are out to get us, we are not on the same side.

The spectacle we are witnessing is grotesque in every way. The American president behaves like a mad dog: biting his allies in Europe, saying the EU was created to “screw over the US”, accusing Taiwan of “stealing America’s chip industry”, imposing tariffs on Canada – the most peaceful neighbor you can have, kicking Ukraine when it’s down and needs Western support more than ever. Voting alongside Russia and North Korea on a resolution on Ukraine. All while giving in to all Russian demands while not being able to secure one single concession from them in return.

But, no matter how you try to frame it in a positive light, caving in to Russian pressure is not strength. Throwing Ukraine to the wolf is not strength. Treating your allies in Europe worse than your enemies is not strength. Humiliating Ukraine’s president while not daring to say one bad word about Putin (who is single handedly responsible for the death of thousands of people) is definitely not strength.

There was a time when America stood on the side of the victim. There was a time America sympathized with the strive for freedom of smaller nations. Countries in Eastern Europe (including my own) owe a lot to the United States for giving us a chance at prosperity and freedom in the 1990s. We, in Eastern Europe, still love that America, yesterday’s America. But, that time is gone. America has changed.

For my generation, who has come of age during the unipolar moment (1989-2022) this is difficult to accept and painful to watch. However, we must face reality as it is. We must acknowledge that there is a deep and fundamental change taking place in American society and it has to do with putting down the weight of the world that this leading nation has been carrying on its shoulders. And, while that can be understood, what is not is: why the US insists on breaking everything that still works in the process? Throwing the baby out with the bath water…

It is ironic that while the US spent trillions on pie-in-the-sky overseas wars, in lands, where democracy had no chance of taking root (places such as the Middle East and Afghanistan), the straw that broke the camel’s back was the war in Ukraine – a country where American values not only found fertile ground, but have developed strong roots, where people showed they are actually willing to fight for their country and our Western believes.  

A bitter and sad conclusion to an 80-year old reign (30 of which undisputed). American leadership, as we know it, is gone. Kaja Kallas summed it best: “The free world needs a new leader”.