NB: This blog post is the second in a series by DPC reflecting on the impact of the tectonic shift wrought by Trump’s dramatic breach of hitherto fundamental tenets of American foreign policy, such as what has often been termed “the rules-based international order,” the transatlantic alliance, democracy support, and humanitarian and development assistance. This radical change of direction correlates with Trump’s personalization and concentration of power, allied with “tech bros” and the reactionary religious right.
From Munich to Yalta
The annual Munich Security Conference (MSC) was even more eventful this year than it has been in the past, due mainly to the disposition of the administration of US President Trump, who in less than a full month in office has demonstrated a willingness to “run fast and break things.” The messaging from the Riyadh summit between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russia’s veteran Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov amplified fears of a carve up – and not only of Ukraine. Trump’s subsequent verbal assault on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, calling him a “dictator” and saying that he needed to “act fast” (e.g., accede to Russian demands) or “you won’t have a country” (a line he used on the campaign trail) amplified the cognitive dissonance and panic in Europe.
The implications are existential – and not just for Ukraine, the EU, and its democratic neighbors and allies. The EU’s foundational values and security are being directly and actively threatened. They can only be defended together.
Et tu, America?
American democracy is in peril. The systematic attack on the US Government bureaucracy by Elon Musk’s DOGE, beginning with the attack on USAID and domestic good governance guardrails, its aggressive posture towards friendly neighbors Canada and Mexico, and Trump’s real estate fantasy for Gaza by means of US-sanctioned ethnic cleansing, were unthinkable enough.
But Trump’s call with Russian President Putin and their plan to meet for negotiations to bring Moscow’s imperial war to an end (perhaps by the end of February) – without consulting Ukrainian President Zelensky or planning to include him (or European allies) – ominously tops off a mere month of the Trump regime. The aggressive speeches by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance in Brussels and Paris earlier in the week further shocked Europe in both tone and message, and in the clear disdain they reflected. Hegseth effectively demanded European commitment to enforce a peace deal which remains ethereal, but would involve Ukrainian territorial concessions.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas correctly framed the American push for a “negotiated settlement,” together with ruling out Ukraine’s membership in NATO, as “appeasement.” European leaders asserted that no peace could be agreed without Ukraine – and Europe.
In his speech to the MSC, Vance sidestepped the central issue of Ukraine and European security to assert in a show of Orwellian doublespeak that the main security challenge to Europe was internal, claiming it was Europe’s democracy that was at risk.
His language was specifically aimed at support for the far right in Germany and beyond, whilst claiming “shared values” – leaving one to wonder what might be the values he claims to want to share. Expressing such hubris in Germany, which is facing elections in a week, was particularly pointed. As if to add emphasis and clarify the values he is espousing, he met with far-right Alternative for Germany leader Alice Weidel – directly engaging in the final stages of an election on the side of the AfD. What he claimed are “shared values” are in fact a new manifestation of the nationalism, imperialism, exclusion and hate that underpinned two world wars in the 20th century.
Curiously, Secretary of State Marco Rubio – the cabinet member most known to MSC denizens over the past decade, and among Trump’s cabinet and advisors the most “normal” – was the least visible and audible member on the administration’s European tour.
European Cognitive Dissonance
The European reaction was properly swift, demonstrating a broad sense of betrayal and anger. French President Macron called a meeting with a select group of European leaders, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, on Monday, Feb. 17 to discuss European defense. Ukraine’s President Zelensky in a speech and interview advocated an “armed forces of Europe,” along with common defense production and foreign policy, to ensure that Europe could defend itself.
The need for Europe to prepare to go it alone (with as much support as it can muster from democracies further afield – Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand) seems vital, wrenching though this may be. If Europe manages to rise to the occasion – far from a given – its greatest vulnerability will in the buildup period. To begin to get there, it must successfully confront and prevail over its real “enemy from within:” its illiberal, Russia-friendly member governments, led by Viktor Orbán in Hungary, who was pointedly excluded from the February 17 meeting, and is a darling among many in Trump’s orbit.
A broader concern is that Trump and much of his team see not Europe, but Russia’s Putin and company as values allies; their talking points share numerous similarities. Both prefer to act unilaterally, with contempt for weaker neighbors – and a preference for short-term transactionalism that enables the enrichment of cronies without regard to the broader social and economic stability that has enabled growth for decades. In addition, there is a school of thought which seeks to separate Russia from China – a relationship which tightened immediately before the full-scale invasion was launched three years ago. Yet the effect of the new US policy seems to place the world, including an alliance spanning four generations, on the drafting table of a new three-way Yalta – or 2.5, given Russia’s increased dependence on China.
The emergence of the US as a malign actor and aggressive disruptor already has had global consequences (potentially condemning millions to starvation and death from disease); these will metastasize. In addition to these unconscionable foreseeable impacts – which Europe and other democracies will need to address – there are more immediate security and defense implications for the EU’s neighborhood, particularly its enlargement area. These countries, in terms of their reliability as allies, risks they pose (and harbor), and assets for collective defense, need to be taken into account as Europe scrambles to recalibrate its common defense.
Europe’s Soft Underbelly
When it comes to the Western Balkans – the region in which the EU and the collective West has the greatest leverage – the EU’s policies remain locked on an autopilot. The events of the past week demonstrate that the EU must shift into fifth gear, for its own survival as a community of independent democracies. This requires a fundamental recalibration of its posture in the region.
In no country is this self-defeating dynamic clearer than in Serbia. Aleksandar Vučić faces the most persistent and determined challenge to his nearly 13-year rule from a statewide student-led protest movement demanding accountability and rule of law after the Novi Sad railway station roof collapse in November 2024.
In a February 6 open letter, Enlargement Minister Marta Kos encouraged Serbians to have faith in the accession process to resolve institutional deficits, ignoring the role of the Serbian regime in creating the conditions for the kleptocracy and kakistocracy (governance by society’s worst – see also pathocracy) that enabled the Novi Sad collapse.
It was received – correctly – as tone-deaf and out of touch. Informed observers have shared that the letter’s text was toned down by Commission President von der Leyen, who feared endangering equities with Vučić – an assertion we cannot confirm, but which would be far from surprising given her engagement to date.
In addition to being offensive to the young people who are showing their commitment to the EU’s professed values and simply seek dignity after decades of dysfunction and rising autocracy, this approach shows the willful ignorance of some in the EU; the accession process will not solve the demands of the protesters; the protesters’ demands need to be met so that the accession process may credibly begin.
Instead, the demonstrations continue undeterred by attempts by the Vučić regime to paint them as a foreign plot. The relative sizes of a substantial protest gathering in the central city of Kragujevac (to which thousands marched from across the country), and a spare and minimally energetic regime-organized Serbian unity rally in Sremska Mitrovica supported by Bosnian Serb separatist leader Milorad Dodik and busloads of people from Republika Srpska, was illustrative. The leaders’ tightening relationship seems compelled by their domestic circumstances. Vučić’s efforts to paint the student-led popular movement as financed by USAID and use of the term “color revolution” sounded increasingly desperate and ridiculous. Both hope that Trump & Co’s moves will buoy their sinking fortunes.
Actors from across the region seek to profit from the transatlantic turmoil for their standing agendas. On the final day of the MSC, a panel provided a chance for Prime Ministers Rama of Albania and Mickoski of North Macedonia, as well as EU Enlargement Commissioner Kos, to look forward for the region from what was felt by attendees as a tectonic shift in the global order.
Rama demonstrated that he is the premier transactional opportunist in the Western Balkans. He attempted to instrumentalize US officials’ statements, calling them “a gift from God” for the EU, advocating that the Union launch a phased accession process and that the “merit-based approach” should only apply to voting in the Union, not membership.
Mickoski made valid points about North Macedonia’s accession having been stunted repeatedly by bilateral disputes led by EU member state pursuing their own narrow agendas. Both leaders engaged in long, self-serving explanatory answers, Rama being far more aggressive, going so far as to chide the moderator for “inviting Balkan men” if she didn’t want long replies.
Kos’ explanation that the enlargement process is confined by the technical structures of the acquis and member state prerogatives was tone-deaf and seemingly untouched by the past decade of lived experience.
Moderator Majda Ruge’s question on security threats in the region given the shifting American position, for example against secession efforts by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, received no direct answer. And this highlights the failure to date of the EU, as well as its potential to redefine its European security posture. If a geopolitical actor, as it must become to defend itself, it must be capable of implementing area denial – the capability to deny access in a given territory to malign actors. It already has this legal responsibility in Bosnia.
The EU’s failure to date to convince Bosnian political actors of its commitment was highlighted days after the MSC closed. Following closing arguments in his case before the Court of BiH on February 19 for noncompliance with international High Representative orders, as per the Dayton Accords, Dodik stated that “I’m not threatening anyone, but I’m ready to go all the way” – a clear implication of his long-mooted secession threat. Vučić chimed-in as well, framing Dodik’s violations of the Dayton Accords as a free speech issue, as well as implying that “uncertainty” would follow a guilty verdict. Vučić’s own campaign slogan – “peace and stability” – implied the threat that failure to maintain him in power would precipitate conflict and instability, in true mafia style.
Regional Security – and Democratic Progress – Demands European Leadership
DPC has long advocated closing the deterrence gap in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where 20 years ago the EU took on the peace enforcement mandate articulated in the Dayton peace accords.
No other single act would have greater impact on the political and social dynamic of Bosnia and the region, robbing Dodik of his sole and central prop of his 19-year role – the threat of secession – than if the EU finally took its peace enforcement mandate seriously and engaged in area denial.
It would also put paid to Serbia’s irredentist regional ambitions, manifest in the Srpski Svet (Serbian World) concept. These ambitions are useful to and aided by Moscow. As Vučić and his centralized rule face a citizens’ movement growing in popularity in Serbia and the region, he relies increasingly on the link with Dodik, his regional agenda, and hostility toward a host of neighbors, especially Kosovo. He has nothing to offer; which is why Serbia’s young people are on the streets.
Given that threats of US withdrawal from NATO’s KFOR were made by envoy for special missions Richard Grenell both in the first Trump term and during the Biden administration, the EU needs to prepare to fill that gap at short notice. Disinformation that the US had activated plans to withdraw its contingent from KFOR circulated widely on February 20, mainly propagated by media connected to Russian, Chinese, or Serbian governments. The possibility of such a withdrawal has indeed been made in the past by Richard Grenell, former US Ambassador to Germany then Balkan envoy in the first Trump administration, now Trump’s envoy for special missions, as well as Donald Trump Jr. But they have not been made since he undertook his new role.
The EU faces at present Western Balkan leaders who are either committed illiberals or transactionalists. None currently holding the reins of power are genuine exponents of EU foundational values.
It is untenable to rely on such leaders when Europe is simultaneously under existential threat from both East and now West, but also from among illiberally led member states and growing reactionary threats in established democracies. Far from ensuring stability, they profiteer from curated instability as a reliable extractive tool. Europe must disable their capacity to do so.
Popular Democratic Impulses on the EU Frontiers
The potential for a different Western Balkans has been underscored by Serbia’s student-led nonviolent mobilization – and the broad and heartfelt moral and material solidarity being provided by the broader Serbian and regional populations. This represents a reassertion of collective self-respect after two generations of misrule, with all its aspects of societal degradation.
When Croatians demonstrated in numerous cities – including Vukovar(!) – in support, taxi drivers from Sarajevo, Podgorica, Skopje and elsewhere offered to travel to Kragujevac to transport Serbian students should their Serbian counterparts be overwhelmed by demand, a phenomenon worthy of support. The EU should show similar resolve.
The EU, institutionally established to deal with institutional interlocutors (and whose enlargement process is predicated on the sincerity of their professions of shared values), has been caught flat-footed by this growing civic self-confidence. But they should not squander this opportunity to support a mass movement in support of its own declared and besieged values.
The performance of US officials in Munich could one day be viewed as the second bookend of the demise of liberal democracy and the trans-Atlantic relationship – with the first being Putin’s performance there in 2007.
However, it does not have to be this way. The sole good outcome of Munich is that Europe’s leaders see that they cannot count on the US as they have for so long. A geopolitically enabled EU can no longer afford to stray from its values. It must defend them materially, both at home and in the enlargement area, while supporting those beyond who share them.