Ten hands rose, a sterile affirmation. The US resolution, a phantom limb of condemnation, passed, cradled by Russian assent. No voice dared rise against it. Five shadows, France and Britain amongst them, abstained – a silent surrender of the veto, a capitulation disguised as neutrality. A resolution passed, thin as breath, “imploring” an end to war without daring to name its architect. Five shadows – France, Britain, and their abstaining kin – stood frozen, their silence a quiet surrender masquerading as neutrality. And in this chamber of whispers and omissions, a shift unfolded—not just in policy, but in the very architecture of allegiance.
What was once an unwavering Western front against Moscow’s aggression now flickered, uncertain. Two votes aligned with the Kremlin – a stark display of realignments in the making. The Ugly American, reborn in the digital age, cast its shadow over Ukraine, its promises dissolving in the acid of political expediency. Insensitivity reigned; the war, the suffering, the history – mere footnotes in a domestic power play. In this moment, the chasm between American rhetoric and reality yawned wide, exposing a betrayal not just of Ukraine, but of the very ideals the West claimed to uphold.
This all happens as Emmanuel Macron arrived at the White House, the UN resolutions lay dormant, a quiet casualty of transatlantic discord. Across the Atlantic, Britain’s Sir Keir Starmer prepared for his own audience with the new American leader, who is navigating shifting tides. In Trump’s Washington, old alliances frayed – favour courted in Moscow, Europe left to question the permanence of American resolve.
Insidious buildup
Earlier, in Riyadh, a stark episode unfolded: US and Russian officials convened, sans Ukraine, to chart a course for peace, a move that sparked immediate outrage from Kyiv and deep unease across Europe. The Trump-initiated talks, a stark departure from previous policy, signalled a potential shift in the transatlantic alliance, raising fears of a US-brokered deal that would favour Moscow and sideline European interests. This bilateral approach, excluding both Ukraine and European allies, reinforced Russia’s narrative of Kyiv as a mere proxy, while simultaneously driving a wedge between the US and its European partners.
US Secretary of state Marco Rubio at the meeting hosted by Saudi Arabia crown prince Mohammed bin Salman on Ukraine and Russia. Photo: X/@SecRubio
The exclusion of European leaders from the Riyadh talks laid bare the continent’s atrophied defence capabilities, a consequence of decades relying on US security guarantees. With the Trump administration signalling a strategic pivot towards East Asia and a willingness to force Ukraine into an unfavourable peace, Europe faces an urgent need to bolster its own defence infrastructure. The stark pronouncements from US officials in Munich, coupled with the renewed engagement with Moscow, served as a wake-up call, highlighting the growing divergence between the US and Europe and the necessity for the continent to assume greater responsibility for its own security.
As if heeding to a Brzezinski’s Blueprint for American Power, US president Donald Trump has significantly altered US foreign policy regarding Ukraine. On February 12, 2025, he announced a collaborative effort with Russian president Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. This move represents a departure from the previous administration’s approach, which emphasised Ukrainian sovereignty and close coordination with NATO allies.
In alignment with this new direction, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth stated that returning to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is “unrealistic” and that pursuing such an objective would only prolong the war. He also expressed scepticism about the feasibility of Ukraine attaining NATO membership as part of a negotiated settlement.
These policy changes have elicited varied reactions from international stakeholders. European leaders have expressed concern over being sidelined in negotiations that directly impact regional security. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has firmly rejected any peace talks conducted without Ukraine’s involvement, emphasising the necessity of direct participation in decisions affecting the nation’s sovereignty.
Trump’s pivot away from Ukraine is not simply an idiosyncratic manoeuvre rooted in his admiration for strongmen like Putin. It is, instead, an act of strategic realignment with historical precedent – a recalibration of imperial focus in which the US, confronted with a genuine global rival in China, sees diminishing returns in sustaining a long-term military engagement in Eastern Europe. The transactional logic of Trumpism – often dismissed as erratic, solipsistic, or merely a byproduct of his authoritarian sympathies –conceals a more enduring current in American grand strategy, one that finds echoes in the realpolitik calculations of Henry Kissinger.
This strategic shift echoes previously expressed by former secretary of state Henry Kissinger. In May 2022, during the World Economic Forum, Kissinger suggested that Ukraine consider ceding some territory to Russia to facilitate peace negotiations. He warned that pushing the war beyond specific points could transform it from a fight for Ukrainian freedom into a broader conflict against Russia itself.
Kissinger’s shadow: The realignment of American power
Kissinger’s advocacy for Ukraine to relinquish territory to Russia was not a simple call for peace but an attempt to place Russia within an acceptable imperial hierarchy – a subordinate power whose revisionist tendencies could be managed rather than an existential enemy that required containment. Here, ‘imperial hierarchy’ refers to a power structure where Russia is not a direct threat to US interests, but rather a power that can be influenced and managed. His assessment was clear: prolonging the war in Ukraine served no substantive US interest, while an over-commitment to European security was increasingly a strategic liability. This view was not anomalous within US foreign policy circles. Even as Washington continued to push for NATO expansion in the post-Cold War period, certain factions – particularly those who saw military confrontation with China as inevitable – began questioning the wisdom of treating Russia as a primary antagonist.
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Putin with U.S. president Donald Trump at the summit meeting in Helsinki, Finland, 16 July 2018. Photo: Wikimedia commons
Trump’s willingness to abandon Ukraine in favour of negotiating with Putin is, in essence, a return to this logic. If China is the preeminent challenge to US hegemony, then isolating it – rather than engaging in protracted secondary conflicts – becomes the highest priority. And if rapprochement with Russia serves that goal, then Ukraine becomes expendable. However, this strategic shift could have significant consequences for Ukraine, potentially leading to a loss of sovereignty and territorial integrity. The question is not whether Trump harbours an affinity for autocrats but whether he sees the war in Ukraine as a distraction from the greater task of containing China’s geopolitical ascent.
The decline of European centrality
At the heart of this recalibration is the waning significance of Europe as the fulcrum of imperial rivalry. For much of the 20th century, European stability – or instability – defined the primary locus of US strategic engagement. The Cold War was fundamentally a European contest, and NATO’s expansion was an outgrowth of that framework. However, the 21st century presents a different set of strategic imperatives. The unipolar moment of American hegemony has passed, and while Russia may remain an irritant, it is no longer a serious contender for global primacy. China, by contrast, represents a systemic challenge to U.S. economic and military supremacy, which demands a pivot away from old battlefields toward the Indo-Pacific.
This shift is not purely military. The emerging trade wars, technological decoupling, and intensified economic warfare between the US and China signal a broader transition in the architecture of global power. Trump’s past and potentially future presidency foregrounds this shift in ways that traditional bipartisan US foreign policy elites have been hesitant to embrace fully. His withdrawal from Ukraine aid, while framed as an isolationist impulse, is better understood as an acknowledgement that Washington’s principal geopolitical contest lies elsewhere. This shift could significantly reshape the future of US foreign relations, a prospect that should concern and engage all those interested in international affairs.
The imperial calculation behind’ America first’
What Trump grasps – perhaps instinctively rather than theoretically – is that the American empire operates on a principle of selective engagement, not universal commitment. While the liberal internationalist wing of the US security establishment continues to advocate for a rules-based order in which America polices global stability, Trump’s approach is cruder but arguably more aligned with historical precedent. The US has always been willing to abandon allies when the imperial calculus demands it. Whether in Vietnam, Afghanistan, or the Middle East, US commitments have been subject to cost-benefit analysis rather than enduring principles. Ukraine, despite the moralistic rhetoric of liberal interventionists, is no exception.
What does this mean for the future? A Trump presidency would likely accelerate a policy of negotiated settlement in Ukraine that formalises Russian territorial gains in exchange for a broader diplomatic realignment. The model, ironically, is not unlike Nixon’s opening to China – a strategic play that restructured Cold War alliances by exploiting divisions among America’s rivals. In the emerging contest between Washington and Beijing, Moscow’s role is secondary; if Russia can be neutralised – or at least disincentivised from deepening its ties with China – then the primary objective is served. However, it’s important to consider the potential reactions of China and Russia to this strategy, as they may not be willing to be neutralised or disincentivised.
Beyond military realignment, the coming years will intensify economic warfare between the US and China. In this arena, Trump’s policies have already demonstrated significant continuity with the broader bipartisan consensus. The focus will be on re-shoring supply chains, restricting Chinese access to advanced technologies, and leveraging alliances in the Indo-Pacific to contain Beijing’s economic reach. While Biden’s administration has taken steps in this direction, Trump’s approach would likely be more aggressive, aligning economic coercion with military deterrence in ways that explicitly subordinate European concerns.
The illusion of morality in US foreign policy
The most striking aspect of this strategic pivot is how it exposes the fundamental hollowness of moral narratives in US foreign policy. Ukraine’s war has often been framed as a struggle for democracy against autocracy, but its fate is ultimately a question of utility rather than principle. The same political actors who once championed Afghan women’s rights abandoned them when the costs became too high; the same logic applies here. If sustaining Ukraine’s resistance no longer aligns with the broader goal of countering China, then its sacrifice is merely another transactional move in the imperial playbook.
Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine, then, is neither a betrayal nor an anomaly – it is a calculated decision rooted in the shifting priorities of American hegemony. And while his rhetoric may be uniquely brash, the underlying strategic logic is neither new nor confined to his presidency. In this, Trump follows the Kissingerian tradition: a brutal but pragmatic acknowledgement that in the grand chessboard of power, some pieces must be sacrificed to secure the larger game. The only question left is whether the rest of the US establishment will follow suit.
Narendra Pachkhédé is a critic and writer who splits his time between Toronto, London and Geneva.
