London Summit on Ukraine - Trump behaviour, an opportunity for European Defence
The only positive outcome of Trump's and Vance's behavior toward Zelensky at the White House is the swift and urgent need for Europe to act. This incident should serve as a wake-up call, pushing European leaders to come up with faster, more decisive solutions.
After being too long in the backseat, Europeans finally took the right step: showing unwavering solidarity with Zelensky and placing themselves at the heart of negotiations—where they were sidelined just a week earlier. Now, Europe must seize this moment to establish itself as the indispensable force, without which neither Trump nor Putin can strike a deal.
This is another setback for Putin which aimed taking over Ukraine and putting down Europeans on the sideline. On the contrary, Ukraine has been resisting and has been developing resilient firepower with new warfare tactics building the most experienced army in Europe. Europeans now realized that they have to accelerate their defence autonomy. Now still fairly weak, but over long term should benefit strong sustainable financial backing and developing technologies, and capacities thanks to a better coordination of existing national forces. The backbones and traditions already pre-exist. Sweden and Finland shifted from neutral to NATO members, turning the Baltic sea into a NATO lake. These are all Pyrrhus victories for Putin.
Trump is building a Western coalition against himself. Last Friday demonstration resonated beyond Europe, as Canada PM fled across the Atlantic to attend the London summit... Perhaps Australia, Japan and India could be tempted to get closer to Europeans to lower US dependency.
Interesting to see the presence of Turkey, while the Three Baltic States where not invited again.
Turkey aims to counter Russian influence in the Black Sea, push forward its interest with Europe (potentially providing troops and military support? (in exchange of ?). Erdoghan can open talks with Putin. By the way, depite shooting a Mig which entered Turkish space for a few seconds. Perhaps European should be more assertive.
Before this, European capitals need to confirm resolute action and plan. They have be on the offensive in the coming weeks to establish a predominant role. Europeans have a great potential in defence and on the diplomatic scene, they have to change their mindset to get their resources into action and impose themselves.
