Taking The Alas From Alaska: America’s Strategic Pivot From Europe to Asia
Trump’s “Failure” Signals Europe’s Abandonment
Grüezi!
When European leaders rushed to Washington Monday the image was intended to be one of solidarity and support for Ukraine.
The pool photo from the Oval Office looked more like weary tenants confronting a dismissive slum landlord.
The Trump-Putin summit in Alaska wasn’t a failure – it was strategic realignment. Awkward perhaps; humiliating certainly; amoral, without a doubt.
Trump himself may have his own acquisitive rationale for re-opening business with Russia (see here) but he is hardly alone in the US establishment in wanting to move on from Ukraine.
America is executing a calculated withdrawal from European security commitments to pursue a neo-isolationist grand strategy focused on China containment, and Friday’s “unsuccessful” summit was actually the opening move.
Trump’s hot-mic whisper to Macron – “I think he wants to make a deal for me” – wasn’t a gaffe but a grim signal.
The deal is not about Ukraine; it’s about dividing spheres of influence. Russia gets Eastern Europe, America gets freedom to confront China, and Europe gets the bill.
1. The US summit “surrender” as strategic success
Trump flew to Alaska threatening “severe consequences” if Putin didn’t agree to a ceasefire. Three hours later, he had abandoned this demand entirely, adopting Putin’s framework for comprehensive negotiations without stopping military operations.
Trump declared the Putin meeting a “10 out of 10” despite achieving none of his stated goals. Why? Because his stated goals were window-dressing. The real achievement was what didn’t happen: no new sanctions, no US escalation, no American commitments to Ukraine’s defence.
Putin received the diplomatic ceremonial of a red-carpet welcome from the US president on US soil without making a single concession – precisely the rehabilitation needed for normalisation.
Putin made every effort to move past Ukraine. His key point from the summit?
“US and Russian investment and business cooperation has tremendous potential. Russia and the US can offer each other so much in trade, digital, high tech and in space exploration. We see that arctic cooperation is also very possible…”
These are hardly the words of a strategic adversary, more of a power negotiating parallel interests.
2. The China imperative drives everything
American realignment makes sense if you view the world through the Manichaean lens of paranoia over China. Beijing possesses 230 times America’s shipbuilding capacity, with its naval forces projected to reach 435 vessels by 2030 versus America’s 296.
China’s nuclear arsenal will exceed 1,000 warheads by 2030. Despite export controls, China has achieved 25% semiconductor self-sufficiency whilst controlling 98% of gallium and 68% of germanium – the minerals essential for military electronics.
Every dollar spent defending Europe is unavailable for Indo-Pacific competition. Every military asset in Poland can’t be in the South China Sea. The 2025 defence budget already reflects this: $246 billion for “integrated deterrence” primarily targeting China, whilst Ukraine aid is capped at $48.4 billion.
Normalising relations with Russia ticks a lot of US strategic boxes:
Prevents full Russia-China alignment, preserving American leverage
Maintains Eurasian balance with strong Russia constraining both Europe and China
Enables Arctic cooperation as ice melts reveal resources
Stabilises nuclear architecture to focus on China’s buildup
This is why there’s voiceless horror in European capitals and stony silence from Atlanticists in Washington.
3. Europe’s desperate intervention reveals the game
Monday’s delegation – described as a “protection squad” for Zelensky – included leaders from Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Finland, NATO and the EU dropping everything to rush to Washington.
Of course, it wasn’t Zelensky they were protecting, it was themselves.
They understand what’s happening: America is abandoning them.
European leaders were reduced to publicly pressuring Trump for security guarantees, suggesting their private entreaties had failed.
Even more awkwardly, Trump paused the meeting to phone Putin and arrange direct Russian-Ukrainian talks, cutting Europe out entirely. The message was clear: this is between Washington and Moscow.
French President Macron had already nailed the situation back in April 2024:
“The United States has two priorities. The USA first, and the China issue, second. The European issue is not a geopolitical priority.”
Germany’s Friedrich Merz gets it. He now discusses “nuclear sharing” whilst warning that Trump “will no longer unconditionally honour NATO’s mutual defence commitment.”
Poland has increased defence spending to 4.7% of GDP – NATO’s highest – whilst 52.9% of Poles support an independent nuclear deterrent.
July’s Franco-British Northwood Declaration established coordinated nuclear deterrence mechanisms – the first step towards a European nuclear architecture that might be independent of America’s.
4. Keeping Europe down: the controlled chaos strategy
A perpetually unstable – but not explosive – Europe serves American interests perfectly:
Economic advantages: European capital heads to American markets. The dollar strengthens as a safe haven. European industry struggles with high energy costs whilst American LNG exports boom. Brain drain keeps moving from Europe to America.
Military benefits: NATO remains nominally alive but Europe pays. American defence contractors profit from European rearmament. Nuclear umbrella leverage is maintained without deployment costs.
Diplomatic flexibility: America can selectively engage based on interests, maintaining leverage over both Russia and Europe through strategic ambiguity. Freedom to pursue separate deals with individual states whilst avoiding entanglement in regional disputes.
Trump, of course, has no interest in geopolitics and consequences, but both he and his party rely on supporters who see some benefit in these policies.
5. Ukraine as acceptable casualty
Under this framework, Ukraine becomes just so much collateral damage in great power competition. Trump’s pressure to cede Crimea and abandon NATO aspirations isn’t diplomatic incompetence – it’s clearing the decks for disengagement.
Russia now controls 20% of Ukrainian territory yet still demands additional land it doesn’t occupy. Trump briefed Europeans that Putin wants Ukraine to yield unoccupied Donbas territory for freezing lines elsewhere – effectively rewarding aggression whilst positioning Russian forces for future attacks.
But from Washington’s perspective, a territorially diminished but nominally independent Ukraine serves as a buffer state, absorbing tensions whilst preventing direct NATO-Russia confrontation.
The moral calculus is dismal but the strategic logic is clear: Ukraine was never joining NATO anyway. Prolonged conflict weakens both Russia and Europe. Settlement without US guarantees would force Europe to own a conflict it cannot manage alone. Ukrainian resources eventually flow to the highest bidder.
Zelensky acknowledges that Ukraine lacks “the strength to bring back” Donbas and Crimea militarily, suggesting an openness to NATO protection for unoccupied territories whilst leaving open diplomatic efforts to recover occupied regions.
But even this limited ambition faces American indifference.
6. The implementation indicators already visible
You can confirm the withdrawal hypothesis by looking at the evidence:
Continued performative pressure on Russia without any meaningful escalation – “Severe consequences” repeatedly threatened but never acted on
Bilateral US-Russia discussions on “business cooperation” despite an ongoing war
Trump blaming Ukraine for “taking on a nation that’s 10 times your size”
European panic manifesting as emergency Washington “summits”
US military pivot to the Indo-Pacific accelerating despite European crisis
Russia-China trade reached $240 billion in 2023, with China providing 89% of Russia’s microchip imports. This lifeline enabled Russia to increase military spending to $149 billion – 7.1% of GDP – whilst maintaining offensive operations.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 there have been 11 Xi-Putin meetings, an intense great power engagement during an active conflict.
Yet America seems unconcerned about this Russia-China convergence, confident that through normalisation it can offer Moscow “better” alternatives.
7. Strategic acronyms vs strategic autonomy
The dollar’s share of global reserves has declined from 65.4% in 2016 to 57.8% in 2024. An expanded BRICS now takes in 37.3% of global GDP versus the EU’s 14.5% – although one is an acronym in search of a strategy, and the other a strategy in search of autonomy.
Like tiny mammals in the age of dinosaurs, small digital payments projects like China’s mBridge, connecting Beijing with the UAE, Thailand, and Saudi Arabia, are waiting for the geopolitical asteroid strike that will allow them to take over the world.
Rather than fighting this trend, American strategy seems to be to accelerate European economic weakness, ensuring the dollar remains dominant even with a reduced global share.
A Europe spending massively on defence whilst struggling with energy costs can hardly challenge dollar hegemony.
The most dangerous consequence – resurging nuclear debates among abandoned allies – may even serve American interests. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte acknowledged “Allies worried about the long-term commitment of the US to NATO.”
Poland’s $20 billion civilian nuclear programme provides a potential weapons infrastructure. South Korean polls show majority support for independent deterrents.
But nuclear proliferation among allies creates permanent dependence on American technology and materials whilst ensuring regional tensions that prevent unified opposition to American interests. A nuclear-armed Poland focused on Russia cannot challenge American economic dominance.
The Kicker? The Pax Americana Goes Lax
This strategy echoes America’s interwar stance: engaged enough to profit, detached enough to avoid entanglement. Nuclear weapons now prevent total European war whilst ensuring perpetual conventional tension.
America can have its cake (European dependency) and eat it too (resource reallocation to China).
The risks are substantial: Russia might overreach into NATO territory, Europe might successfully develop strategic autonomy, China might exploit American absence to flip Europe, proliferation cascades might destabilise deterrence, or domestic politics might reverse course.
But from a pure power politics perspective, it’s ruthlessly logical: why defend rich Europeans who won’t defend themselves when China poses the real challenge to American hegemony?
Every “failure” on Ukraine advances the disengagement agenda. Every deferred threat signals accommodation possibility. Every pressure on Ukraine accelerates settlement without American commitment.
Europe faces an existential moment of recognition: American security guarantees were always transactional, not existential. The tragedy for Ukraine is learning that geography remains destiny in great power politics.
The question isn’t whether this strategy is moral – it clearly isn’t – but whether it’s sustainable given nuclear weapons, economic interdependence, and the precedents it sets for American reliability globally.
We are witnessing the Pax Americana’s redefinition: from hegemonic stability to selective engagement, from principled leadership to transactional realism, from Atlantic partnership to Pacific primacy.
The Alaska summit’s real achievement was initiating this transition whilst maintaining plausible deniability about abandoning allies.
Machiavelli would approve, even if history may not. The Alaska gambit isn’t about ending Ukraine’s war – it’s about ending America’s European commitment whilst obscuring the abandonment.
In that mission, it’s succeeding brilliantly.
Thanks for reading
Best,
Adrian
