Following Donald Trump’s victory in November, European leaders went into a collective panic about the prospect of peace in Ukraine. But this reaction, irrational and extreme as it was, paled in comparison to the sheer meltdown that has unfolded across the continent in response to remarks by top Trump administration officials at the Munich Security Conference.
“European leaders have largely brought this situation upon themselves.”
First came Vice President JD Vance’s unusually blunt critique of Europe’s authoritarian drift. Vance called out continental leaders for their embrace of censorship and election cancellations, which he presented as an abandonment of the “shared values” that once united them with the United States. Then came the bombshell confirmation from Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, that Europe would have no seat at the negotiating table to end the war. This was swiftly followed by reports that senior American and Russian officials, including top diplomats, would meet in Saudi Arabia this week for the first round of peace talks—which will inevitably entail heavy territorial concessions from Ukraine—with neither European nor Ukrainian representatives in attendance.
The response from European politicians and pundits has been a textbook case of what I have termed Peace Derangement Syndrome. In rapid succession, nearly every European leader has rushed to denounce any deal involving territorial concessions—despite this being a prerequisite for any conceivable peace agreement—while pledging continued financial and military support for Ukraine “for as long as it is needed,” as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer put it. “Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity are unconditional,” declared EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.