Giselle Donnelly
FOR MORE THAN FOUR CENTURIES, the principal geopolitical concern of Americans has been the European great-power balance. The Jamestown colony was sited to defend against the threat of Spanish raiders. Throughout the eighteenth century, settlers on the frontier demanded the conquest of Canada—or “New France,” as it was known in Paris. In many ways, America’s formative military experience was not the revolution of 1775–1783 but the French and Indian War of 1754–1763, part of the worldwide Seven Years’ War between the United Kingdom and France over colonial dominance. Twice in the twentieth century, American soldiers crossed the Atlantic to beat back German bids for European hegemony. From 1945 to 1991, the United States led a coalition of freedom-loving allies to contain and then to liberate the Soviet Empire. The result has been an unprecedented era of peace, prosperity, and liberty.
The long peace is on the verge of ending. Speaking at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group—the American-led consortium of 57 countries and the European Union cooperating to provide the Ukrainian military with weaponry and logistics support—new Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth basically told the Europeans, We’re outta here!
The headlines focused on what Hegseth described as his “realistic assessment of the battlefield” in Ukraine. In practice that meant throwing Kyiv’s principal war aims—restoration of its 2014 borders and a quick path to NATO membership—in the trash. “Chasing this illusory goal,” declared Hegseth, “will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.” So much for the secretary’s vaunted “warrior ethos” or for striking a hard bargain in any negotiations with Russia; the Trump administration is Vladimir Putin’s most valuable asset.
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