Europe uneasy as questions grow over Washington’s Ukraine strategy

AWANI

As uncertainty grows over Washington’s next moves in the Ukraine war, European allies fear a U.S. pullback, or a peace deal struck without them. Gregory B. Poling of Center for Strategic and International Studies, explains why Europe is pushing to stay involved, and why a ceasefire remains distant.

Transcript

00:00As questions mount over Washington's approach to the war in Ukraine,

00:04European allies are growing increasingly uneasy.

00:08Many worry the U.S. could either pull back support for Kiev

00:11or try to negotiate a deal without them.

00:15Gregory B. Pauling from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington

00:19breaks down why Europe is pushing to stay at a table

00:23and why a ceasefire is still a long way off.

00:25I think the big European fear, there were two.

00:30One, that the U.S. would simply abandon Ukraine,

00:33and that looked like a very real threat early in the administration,

00:36particularly after the very nasty Oval Office blow up with Zelensky.

00:40And then two, that the U.S. would strike some kind of deal without Europe,

00:44but Europe would have to be part of the implementation.

00:47And that's what this 28-point agreement said, right?

00:49It basically put a whole bunch of demands on the Europeans,

00:52and the Europeans weren't even at the table negotiating them,

00:55which is one of the reasons it fell apart.

00:57So what the Europeans want is the U.S. to continue to provide

01:01some degree of support to Ukraine while Europe ramps up its own industrial base

01:06in order to step in and fill in more.

01:09And I want to be fair to the Europeans.

01:10They are still providing much more support to Ukraine per capita than the Americans are,

01:16and more with every passing year.

01:18So they want to be the ultimate guarantor, I think, by necessity,

01:23because they don't think that Trump will do it permanently.

01:26And then they want to be at the table.

01:29I mean, they think that it has to be, of course, Ukraine and Russia that lead the negotiations

01:32backed up by both Europe and the U.S.

01:35They will not accept being cut out of those negotiations,

01:39because they know that they're the ones who are going to have to ultimately

01:42provide the security guarantee for Ukraine.

01:44With Trump's unpredictable diplomacy, Gregory also warns that a ceasefire in Ukraine

01:50is looking increasingly unlikely anytime soon.

01:54You know, one minute he's mad at Zelensky, then he's Zelensky's best friend.

01:58He's mad at Putin, then he's Putin's best friend.

02:00I think what is maybe the likeliest course, but this is all, you know, again, very unpredictable,

02:05is that he keeps kind of coming at this.

02:08And then when it's too hard, he goes and does something else.

02:10You know, he comes at it with a 28-point peace plan that falls apart almost immediately,

02:15and then he goes and oversees some easier deal between the DRC and Rwanda.

02:20And maybe a month from now, he'll be back to focusing on Russia-Ukraine,

02:23but it'll still be too hard.

02:26In the meantime, you know, the Ukrainians are going to continue pounding Russian oil refineries,

02:33and the Europeans are going to continue to ramp up their military support to Ukraine.

02:38And while the U.S. will continue to provide what support it can,

02:42I think anybody who thinks that a ceasefire is likely, say, in the next six months,

02:47is probably fooling themselves.

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