“The lamps are going out all over Europe,” remarked British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey on the eve of the First World War. Judging by the commentary of the British press recently, one would think this was about to happen again. We are told that Donald Trump’s negotiations to end the war in Ukraine are tantamount to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler at Munich, and that the transatlantic relationship is dead. The Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf went so far as to write: “The US is now the enemy of the West.” But none of this is true. The analogy is flawed, the analysis is ill-informed, and above all the prediction is dangerous hyperbole.
How often have the Fleet Street sophists cried out that every adversary is the new Hitler and every compromise another Munich? Yet do they really understand what happened there? Chamberlain went to Munich with two objectives, the first necessary and the second noble. He sought to buy time for Britain to rearm and in this he was highly successful: the acceleration of aircraft production in 1938 and 1939 proved crucial to winning the Battle of Britain. At the same time, he gambled to give peace a chance and avoid repeating the carnage of the First World War. He lost that bet, but at the time no one could have been completely certain of Germany’s intentions. Had Hitler proven trustworthy, we would perhaps never have heard of Winston Churchill.
Unlike Chamberlain at Munich, Donald Trump is not trying to rearm for a looming conflict with Russia. He is trying to normalise relations with a nuclear-armed power. While Ukraine is important, so is Russia’s cooperation on many other issues, such as containing Iran’s nuclear programme, stabilising Syria, and shaping global energy markets. Above all, Trump is seeking to reverse the strategic own goal of driving Russia into the arms of China with ceaseless Nato expansion.
Nor is Trump trying to avoid a new war. He is trying to end one by stating obvious facts: Ukraine cannot win back lost territory without massive American assistance; the US is not going to go to war with Russia so that Ukraine can join Nato; and the longer the war goes on, the more territory Ukraine will lose. The terms of a negotiated settlement have been equally obvious for years. These are: a neutral Ukraine, a plebiscite to determine if Russian-speaking regions wish to remain part of Ukraine, and international assistance to rebuild the country. These terms will be easier to accept once Europe recognises that while Russia started the war, it was provoked by Nato expansion. Just as the US could not tolerate Russian missiles in Cuba or Chinese control of the Panama Canal, Russia could not accept its only warm water naval base at Sevastopol being handed over to Nato and the US navy.
“The analogy is flawed, the analysis is ill-informed, and above all the prediction is dangerous hyperbole.”
The “stench of appeasement” has not returned to Munich, as former defence minister Ben Wallace claimed in The Telegraph. The situation is better understood as a replay of the 1945 Yalta Conference, where Churchill, Joseph Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt determined the political future of Europe and Ukraine’s current borders. In 1919, the victorious allies had transferred the Austrian city of Lemberg to Poland; at Yalta, Churchill and Roosevelt agreed to transfer the renamed Polish city of Lvov to the Soviet Union, where it became the Ukrainian city of Lviv. On neither occasion were protests from the Austrians or Poles heeded, because in the real world, one can seldom win back at the conference table what has already been lost on the battlefield. If you wish to draw analogies, at least get them right: the war in Ukraine is probably going to end with Ukrainian borders being redrawn, just as they were at Yalta.
Nor are we watching the death of the transatlantic alliance. Europe is unlikely to choose a world order led by China. And the US is unlikely to abandon the most successful alliance in history. That is why Prime Minister Keir Starmer has called American security cooperation indispensable. And it’s why President Trump wants to quickly reach an Anglo-American trade deal. That does not sound like a dying relationship.
The transatlantic relationship does, however, need to change. The unipolar moment upon which the rules-based order rested is over. The US now faces serious rivals and can no longer play the benevolent global hegemon. In 1945, the US produced 28% of the world’s GDP. Today, it is still the single most powerful nation on earth, but its share of global GDP has fallen to 13%. The world has returned to a situation where several great powers have spheres of influence and compete with each other. Any student of history will acknowledge that this is simply a return to normalcy.
In this changing world, the most significant threat to the US comes from China, not Russia. This requires America to pivot towards Asia. It means reducing America’s presence in Europe in order to increase deterrence in Asia, and it means building naval rather than land-based forces. America’s Asian allies, including Australia, Japan, and South Korea, understand this and have increased defence cooperation considerably. They appreciate that, far from encouraging China to attack Taiwan, America’s pivot towards Asia makes defending Taiwan more credible.
This shift in relative power will require changes in Europe. For too long the American horse has pulled the European security cart while smiling politicians rode along tossing coins to their voters. Now, they need to get down and start pushing. Russia is essentially a European problem. And given the EU has 10 times Russia’s GDP, there is no reason Europe cannot defend itself in any but a nuclear confrontation.
In this evolving landscape, Britain must choose whether to be a spectator or a participant. Americans recognise that Britain has contributed far more to collective security than other European nations. Vice President JD Vance’s comment about “random” countries that have not fought a war in 30 years was directed very accurately at other nations of the so-called “coalition of the willing”, not at Britain. Nevertheless, the entire British Army could not fill Wembley stadium. The Royal Navy, once the most formidable in the world, now has more admirals than war ships. While recent efforts to increase Britain’s defence budget are a good start, there is a long way to go. A flag and a national anthem will no longer guarantee any nation a place at the negotiating table.
In 1914, the lights went out in Britain in part due to a jingoistic press, which stoked widespread anti-German sentiment and demonised Kaiser William II. It would be a shame to repeat that mistake today, and Keir Starmer is trying not to. While many European leaders are acting like jilted lovers, Starmer grasps that America remains indispensable to European security. He is preparing his nation for greater effort — and in that sense he does resemble Churchill.
