“The problem for Europe is that the White House is occupied at the moment by a Russian asset.”
asserted
House → occupy → asset
This statement was made not by an excitable politician looking for a headline but by the ambassador of a major European nation at a private lunch among diplomatic representatives to NATO in Brussels this year.
asserted
statement → make → Brussels
Tellingly, nobody around the table (which did not include the US ambassador) disagreed.
asserted
which → include → ambassador
I was told this anecdote by a guest at that lunch, with whom I caught up in the Estonian capital Tallinn this month.
asserted
I → tell → capital
Marko Mihkelson is the long-serving chair of his parliament’s foreign affairs committee.
asserted
Mihkelson → serve → committee
A Russia scholar and journalist who once served as a foreign correspondent in Moscow, he is one of his country’s leading strategic thinkers.
asserted
he → serve → thinkers
I met Mihkelson as part of a visit to the Baltic nations, following the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kiev.
asserted
I → meet → Kiev
The program – a week of discussions with politicians, senior officials, military leaders, journalists and think tanks – had been arranged by the Latvian embassy under the auspices of the foreign minister Baiba Braze, whom I got to know when we were diplomatic representatives in London.
asserted
we → arrange → London
The NATO ambassador’s remark captures in blunt language the exasperation which so many European leaders and diplomats feel about Donald Trump.
asserted
leaders → capture → Trump
It was not intended to advance a conspiracy theory, but to dramatise an observable truth: that Trump’s foreign policy – more likely through foolishness and ignorance than deliberate intent – could hardly be more serviceable to the interests of Vladimir Putin.
uncertain
policy → intend → Putin
We have grown used to cringing at Trump’s urge to seek the approval of the world’s apex political predator.
asserted
We → grow → predator
But this is much more serious than the neediness of a man manifestly unfit for the office he holds.
asserted
he → hold → office
In abandoning any pretence that, on his watch, America sees its role as a champion of liberal democracy and a defender of the global rule of law, Trump has comprehensively played into the hands of Putin and the other dictators with whom Russia is in concert.
asserted
Russia → abandon → concert
A fortnight after my conversation with Mihkelson came Trump’s decision to buy diesel from Russia – thereby helping to fund the Russian war machine – and suspend sanctions against it.
asserted
decision → come → it
In doing so, he undermined the strategic posture of America’s NATO allies, united in their appreciation of how vital it is to European security that Russia’s war against Ukraine not succeed.
asserted
war → do → Ukraine
Among the Europeans, none feel this more acutely than the Baltic countries – those nations bordering Russia and its client state Belarus, for whom the issue is literally existential.
asserted
for → feel → whom
In their eyes, America’s attitude to Ukraine is the best predictor of how the US would respond to any future Russian attack on them.
asserted
US → respond → them
“Ukraine for us is a litmus test of America’s attitude to us in the Baltics,” Artis Pabriks, a former defence minister, told me.
asserted
Pabriks → tell → me
There is an important difference: the Baltic nations, as NATO members, enjoy the mutual security guarantee in Article 5.
asserted
nations → be → Article
Ilze Milta, the current Latvian national security adviser, resists speaking of the Baltic nations as a bloc, as if they stand in a different relation to Russia than other NATO countries.
asserted
they → resist → countries
“It’s not about the Baltic states being next.
asserted
states → ’ → ?
It’s NATO that is next.
asserted
that → ’ → ?
The Baltic states do not stand alone,” she told me.
asserted
she → stand → me
She did not predict imminent Russian aggression.
asserted
She → predict → aggression
But, like all the officials I met, she expressed uncertainty and concern over Putin’s intentions beyond Russia’s engagement in Ukraine – whenever, and on whatever terms, it ends.
asserted
it → meet → terms
Baltic leaders understand, much better than some of their counterparts in southern and Western Europe – who do not feel the Russian threat with the same immediacy – that its war against Ukraine is not a limited territorial claim based on Putin’s idiosyncratic reading of Russian history.
uncertain
war → understand → history
Nor is it merely a step towards reconstituting the old Soviet empire, the dissolution of which Putin famously described in 2005 as “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the century”.
asserted
Putin → reconstitute → century
It is the major opening gambit of a grand strategy to fragment and weaken the West.
asserted
It → fragment → West
As the NATO analyst Carlo Masala wrote in If Russia Wins – an essay published last year which became a bestseller in Europe: “[T]here has long been a refusal to acknowledge that Russia’s war of aggression is much more than just a war to destroy Ukraine.
asserted
war → write → Ukraine
The states that want to maintain the liberal world order are going head to head against those that want a radical overhaul of the system.
asserted
that → want → system
Political leaders [in Western Europe] have been far too slow to grasp this.”
The Baltics understand this.
asserted
Baltics → grasp → this
So does Mark Rutte, NATO’s secretary-general.
asserted
Rutte → do → ?
Too many Western leaders do not.
asserted
leaders → do → ?
I spent an intense hour with Krisjanis Karins, Latvia’s prime minister at the time of the Russian invasion.
asserted
I → spend → invasion
(It was Karins who gave the order to send Ukraine most of Latvia’s arsenal of Stinger missiles, which enabled the Ukrainians to deny Russian paratroopers a decisive foothold at Hostomel Airport, near Kyiv, in the early days of the invasion.
asserted
which → give → invasion
Had they not been thwarted, Kyiv would probably have been undefendable.)
asserted
Kyiv → thwart → ?
Karins, American-born and superbly educated – summa cum laude and PhD from an Ivy League university – despairs at the failure of so many Western politicians to appreciate the scale of Putin’s ambition and the magnitude of the threat his geopolitical strategy poses to their free societies.
asserted
strategy → bear → societies
People in his country do not lack that appreciation.
asserted
People → lack → appreciation
He quoted Janis Joplin: “‘Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose’.
asserted
Freedom → quote → nothing
We have everything to lose.”
asserted
We → have → everything
…and 1 more, not listed.
The Aporia
