Op-ed: After Eighty Years, the United Sates Surrenders Its Leadership Role in Europe

This is an opinion piece written by an external contributor. The views expressed are the author's own.

The annual Munich Security Conference is a time for NATO leaders to come together, to discuss defense strategy, and to recommit their plans for a free and united Europe. It is also a time to reassess the state of the Transatlantic partnership. 

Article Five, the crux of NATO membership, states that an attack on one is an attack on all. NATO was founded in 1949 to defend against Soviet aggression post-World War II. Until now, the concept of collective security has worked well.

American leadership and the collective defense of Europe have been the hallmark of American and European strategy for the past eighty years. The policy of containment resulted in the fall of the Soviet Union and has helped maintain one of the longest periods of peace for modern Europe.

It was in Munich in 1938 that politicians desperately needed to declare “peace in our time.” Hitler only wanted Sudetenland, and then he would stop his aggression—just one more conquest, and then peace. He promised, and he put it in writing. 

History always seems to repeat itself; the current appeasement of Vladimir Putin will not end well for Europe.

The “New Cold War” began at the 43rd Munich Security Conference in February 2007. Putin was incensed that the U.S. had declared that it was a unipolar world in 1991 without including Russia. 

Marginalized Putin

In his mind, he had been marginalized, and he was signaling a rebirth of his intent to control the “near abroad”, those new nations close to Russia. Vladimir Putin’s worst nightmare? A free and independent Ukraine able to display a vibrant economy, trading with Europe and right next door.

Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) Pete Hegseth announced in Brussels that Ukraine should not expect to return to its pre-2014 borders and that NATO membership will be withheld from it. 

He went on to say, “Any peacekeeping troops would have to come from Europe, as the U.S. will not provide them.” If European troops are killed guaranteeing a cease-fire, this will not result in the U.S. honoring Article Five of the NATO agreement. 

The secretary was signaling to our long-time allies that America makes the decisions, and here are some new rules.

The previous iron-clad, solemn commitment to mutual defense that has served NATO under Article Five is no longer available without the U.S.
preconditions. Will each of the 32 members be allowed to decide when and if they will fight future aggression? 

If the answer is yes, we no longer have an alliance. For a defense alliance to work, there must be an agreement to defend each other without political last-minute, hereto unknown stipulations.

Vice President Vance gave a monumental speech at the 61st Munich Security Conference on Feb. 14, 2025, highlighting a new American doctrine. We might call it the art of the deal, the new sheriff-in-town doctrine.

Vance delivered the American keynote address at the Security Conference. Guess what he never mentioned? That’s right, security! His speech was a critique of the things that our allies have been doing wrong. 

Europe has allowed illegal immigration; Romania just declared an election invalid because of Russian interference. Wait! Illegal immigration and Russian interference in elections? Well, this sounds familiar.

The VP said that if they had a strong democracy, a few hundred thousand dollars would not have interfered with the election. I watched his address several times and just could not believe my ears. It was insulting and demeaning; it was American arrogance on display. Then he announced, “With Donald Trump as our President, there is a new sheriff in town.”

President Trump said, we are going to meet with Putin in Saudia Arabia to end the war. There was a meeting, but no Putin. The Munich Peace Conference of 1938 decided the fate of Czechoslovakia, but Hitler would not allow the Czechs to attend. 

The Tehran conference of 1943 decided the fate of Poland after World War II, but Stalin would not allow the Poles to attend. Unilateral negotiations have begun with Putin’s Russia by the U.S., but Ukrainians are not allowed to attend. 

We have a lot of history books, does anyone read them?

Hybrid warfare

Incredibly, two of our strongest and newest partners, Finland and Sweden, just joined NATO because they assume that Putin’s aggression is unlimited, and they want to stay ready. History teaches us that Russia invades a neighbor, or maybe Syria, about every five years. 

Putin’s aggression is well documented, along with his intentions to reduce American influence in the world. Even though Crimea had been a part of Ukraine since 1954, Putin seized it in 2014, ordering an incursion into the Ukrainian Donbas region. 

Both operations became the prototypical example of hybrid warfare. Many historians argue that the war in Ukraine has been going on since this 2014 assault. President Trump’s first term in Office was 2017 to 2021, why didn’t he “make a deal” to end the killing then?

February 2022 saw Russia continue its invasion of Ukraine, starting with a collum of tanks headed for the capital, Kyiv. They never made it. It was in Bucha that the worst Russian atrocities were discovered. 

Ukrainians fought hard from the beginning, but after the Bucha massacre, they understood that losing ground to Russian troops meant rape, death, and torture of their countrymen.

Negotiating with Vladimir Putin is a fool’s errand, as he starts like this: What’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is negotiable. He will demand elections in Ukraine, hoping you forget he is a dictator and has ruled with an iron fist for 25 years. 

He wants the Russian territory seized by Ukraine in the Kursk region to be returned to Russia. He demands to keep the Ukrainian territory he has occupied along with Crimea.

You get the idea, enough is never enough. The discussion of how the Russians negotiate is somewhat academic, as no one from the U.S. has asked Putin to give up anything yet. 

The SECDEF has already conceded many of Russia’s demands in Brussels. Keep in mind, negotiations with Russia happen on secure private video, while those with President Zelensky are live on TV and designed to create emotion. They must still be smiling in Moscow.

Remaining in power since 2000, Putin has changed the constitution to allow himself to serve until 2036. Does this sound like someone the U.S. should support? Putin and Trump both demanded elections in Ukraine. Agreed, after free and fair elections in Russia, we should hold elections in Ukraine. Remember who designed the Russian elections? Yes, Joseph Stalin. 

One name on the ballot, and everyone gets one vote. Stalin explained, “It doesn’t matter who runs in an election, it only matters who counts the votes.”

European Ukraine

After Russian troops raped and murdered Ukrainians, which has happened many times, Putin made sure to hand out medals to the soldiers who committed the most rapes and torture of civilians. The international criminal court has issued warrants for Putin’s arrest for war crimes. Few Western leaders profess to have a great relationship with this war criminal, but some emphatically do.

Russia has kidnapped thousands of Ukrainian children and refused to account for them. Were they murdered and thrown in a ditch? Parents pray that they are being raised by a “nice” Russian family with only the intent to brainwash them, the best-case scenario.

The model for former Soviet states wishing to join the European Union (EU) is spelled out in the Copenhagen agreement. After 1991, Ukraine began to think of itself as European and developed a government to comply with the EU standards. 

The Eurasian landmass has no sign that says, “Europe ends here.” Culturally, even the people of Ukraine who speak Russian (mostly in the Eastern area) do not consider themselves Russian; they are Ukrainians.

A poor peace deal for the sake of politics is a death warrant for Ukraine. It will allow Putin to reorganize and reattack. Peace deals happened with the Minsk I and Minsk II agreements, and they were a disaster. 

The sovereignty of Ukraine, along with her right to join the EU or NATO, is key to her survival and should be the right of any free nation. America is turning its back on a nation whose only crime is wanting to be a part of Europe and is exercising the right to self-defense.

Multiple European nations have promised Ukraine membership in both organizations several times in the past, including at the April 2008 Bucharest summit. Imagine the Ukrainians' shock when Secretary Hegseth said that would not happen. Perhaps he will let Ukraine join the European Union in 2030, but not now.

After eleven years of war, Ukraine is holding its own remarkedly well. Why? Free men and women fighting to keep their country secure and their people safe from Russian terror squads provides its own motivation. 

Russia, however, is hurting, having lost over 8,800 tanks along with nearly one million causalities. Keep in mind that Russia is not a great military or economic power. The economy is in shambles with 25% inflation and limited means of production to support the war. They are importing artillery shells from North Korea, with only about 20 % of them exploding on impact.

Putin has recruited North Korean soldiers, Houthi terrorists, and even emptied prisons to scrouge up cannon fodder to fight his war. If anything, Putin needs a cease-fire to regroup and rearm. We should never allow that to happen unless real peace can be guaranteed.

After providing military assistance since 2014, the U.S. now asked President Zelenskyy, live on TV, and staged for drama, to sign over his rare earth minerals valued at $500 Billion. 

Profit off the victim

The U.S. is not asking to be repaid for help in stopping aggression. They want to make a profit off the victim! Remember, the SECDEF decreed in Brussels, no American troops with any peace deal. We could have shown the world that the U.S. supports sovereign, legitimate, and democratic governments, but we didn’t. 

It is now clear to the world that the U.S. is abandoning Ukraine and our role as the leader of the free world.

British Prime Minister Chamberland declared, “Peace in our time!” After attempting to appease Hitler, also in Munich in 1938. Winston Churchill said, “You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor, and you will have war.”

We have made an amateurish mess of our national defense strategy and our collective security. We have insulted and quarreled with our greatest allies. I believe we should have made a choice to support the freedom fighters of Ukraine, not the totalitarian and oppressive regime of a war criminal. We are better than this.

To fill the leadership vacuum left, the leaders of the Nordic countries and some Europeans are standing tall. All the Nordic militaries are training like there will be no tomorrow in Europe without them. They might be right. American Leadership in Europe has come to an end. Once you have lost the trust of those you lead, it is gone forever.