🇪🇺🇺🇸🇷🇺 I had hoped I was wrong with my post 4 days ago but it looks like we are indeed on the edge of Europe's most humiliating moment in history.

I went in detail through all the 28 points of Trump's proposed "peace" plan for Ukraine, as well as Europe's counterproposal, and some of the clauses proposed by the U.S. are just unbelievable.

Take points 4 and 15 of the Trump plan for instance:

• Point 4: "A dialogue will be held between Russia and NATO, mediated by the United States, to resolve all security issues and create conditions for de-escalation in order to ensure global security and increase opportunities for cooperation and future economic development."

• Point 15: "A joint American-Russian working group on security issues will be established to promote and ensure compliance with all provisions of this agreement."

Taken together what they actually say is that the U.S. won’t act as a NATO member anymore but as a “mediator” outside NATO who, as per point 15, will work with Russia - but not with Europe - within an “American-Russian working group on security issues” in charge of enforcing the agreement.

In effect what this means is that Trump is proposing that Washington and Moscow become co-managers of European security - with Europe itself excluded from the mechanism.

As such, this is an agreement that would redraw the entire European security architecture, over Europeans’ heads. This isn’t exaggeration, when asked about European involvement, the White House reportedly said: “We don’t really care about the Europeans” as I referenced in the post below. The document merely formalizes that sentiment.

The tragedy is the US plan, whatever its flaws, is a deal. It offers Russia things Russia wants (territory, sanctions relief, NATO freeze, denazification in Ukraine) in exchange for things the US wants (profit extraction, resource deals, geopolitical repositioning). It’s cynical but coherent. Both parties get something.

The European counter-proposal, however, is not a deal. It’s a list of objections that makes the arrangement worse for both parties who actually hold the cards. Russia gets less. America gets less. Their “counterproposal” - which, tellingly, nobody even asked them for (remember, they "don’t really care about the Europeans" ) - is simply them editing someone else’s document and hoping to be included.

As I told my daughters over dinner, if you have a deal with someone and someone else asks to be included in the deal, but that makes it worse for both of you, would you have them join? "No, duh!" was their answer. Yet that's essentially Europe's counterproposal...

Europe could force the US and Russia to change their deal if it has significant leverage but, that's the other tragedy here from a European standpoint: when push comes to shove there really isn't much one can do against a party that provides your security umbrella, your financial plumbing, your digital infrastructure, and even the LNG that heats your homes since you sanctioned Russian gas.

Hubert Védrine, France’s former Foreign Minister, has this expression where he accuses Europeans of thinking they inhabit a “world of Care Bears” ("bisounours" in French) whereas the world actually is closer to being “Jurassic Park.” And Europe is anything but an apex predator, it's not even one of those large herbivorous dinosaurs: in this analogy it's closer to being the goat tied to the post.

🔗 Arnaud Bertrand