For months, observers have searched for a grand strategy behind Donald Trump’s Russia policy. His concessions to Vladimir Putin, shifting demands and contradictory statements have often been explained as part of a wider plan to end the war in Ukraine.
But recent events suggest a less reassuring explanation. Trump appears more interested in securing agreements he can present as political victories than in the long-term consequences of those agreements. For Europe, this is becoming a serious security problem.
The past few days have been particularly revealing. Having entered a costly war with Iran that has driven up energy prices, Trump is now looking to Russia for relief. Washington has eased restrictions on Russian diesel while pressing Ukraine to stop attacking Russian oil refineries, one of Kyiv’s most effective ways of damaging Moscow’s war economy.
Reports suggest that American officials have also threatened to restrict military assistance and intelligence sharing if Ukraine continues these strikes. Russia, meanwhile, has continued attacking Ukrainian energy infrastructure, including facilities supplying electricity to civilian populations.
The contradiction is hard to miss. Western governments have spent years trying to reduce the revenues financing Russia’s invasion. Ukraine has added to that pressure by striking the infrastructure supporting Russia’s energy sector.
Now the White House is offering Moscow an economic opening while asking Kyiv to surrender an advantage on the battlefield. Trump may hope to lower fuel prices ahead of November’s midterm elections, but the wider effect could be to ease the pressure on Putin at a time when Russia has shown little willingness to compromise.
Trump’s announcement of an energy ceasefire has added to the confusion. He declared that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to halt attacks on energy infrastructure, although Volodymyr Zelensky said he had not been informed of such an agreement. Russian attacks continued.
Zelensky was left in the familiar position of having to welcome the prospect of peace without endorsing an arrangement that Moscow had not accepted. His renewed offer to hold elections after a 60-day ceasefire reflects the same dilemma. Ukraine must constantly demonstrate its willingness to negotiate, while Russia faces far less pressure to do the same.
When diplomacy rewards aggression
This pattern goes back to the Alaska summit in August 2025. Putin was welcomed to a high-profile meeting with the American president without agreeing to a ceasefire. Trump subsequently moved away from demanding an immediate halt to the fighting and towards negotiating a broader peace settlement. The change was more important than it might appear.
A ceasefire would have required Russia to demonstrate its willingness to stop fighting before wider political negotiations could proceed. By moving directly towards a comprehensive settlement, Washington allowed Moscow to continue its offensive while negotiating over Ukraine’s future and the wider European security order. Putin had gained diplomatic recognition without having to make a meaningful concession.
The negotiations involving Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have reinforced this pattern. Both men are trusted members of Trump’s inner circle, with backgrounds in business rather than traditional diplomacy. Their involvement reflects the president’s preference for personal relationships and direct negotiations over established diplomatic channels.
Such an approach is not necessarily a problem in itself. The difficulty arises when economic cooperation with Russia becomes an objective of the negotiations rather than a reward for meaningful progress towards peace.
Recent reporting on the Miami talks makes the problem clearer. Witkoff and Kushner reportedly told Ukrainian officials that Putin was unwilling to negotiate an end to the war, while suggesting that the diesel agreement could encourage Moscow back to the table. The assumption appears to be that Russia can be persuaded through the prospect of profitable cooperation.
Yet Putin’s ambitions are not primarily commercial. He wants to determine Ukraine’s political future and secure Russia’s influence over its neighbours. Offering economic benefits without securing concessions risks teaching Moscow that refusing to compromise can be a successful negotiating strategy.
This is the central weakness in Trump’s approach. He seems to measure diplomatic progress by the prospect of an agreement rather than by changes in Russian behaviour. Putin, by contrast, is prepared to fight a long war, absorb considerable costs and wait for Western governments to lose patience.
If Moscow believes that Washington needs a deal more urgently than Russia does, it has little reason to make concessions. The negotiating process itself can become an instrument of Russian strategy, buying time on the battlefield while keeping open the possibility of better relations with the United States.
Trump and Europe see Russia differently
There is a broader difference in how Trump and European governments see Russia. For Europe, the war concerns more than Ukrainian territory. It is about whether borders can be changed by force and whether Moscow can dictate the security choices of its neighbours.
Trump appears more inclined to view Russia as another major power with which America should be able to do business. Sanctions become bargaining chips, economic cooperation becomes an incentive and Ukraine risks being treated as an obstacle to better relations between Washington and Moscow.
This does not mean Trump necessarily wants Putin to win. He does not need to favour Russia for his decisions to work in its interests. Nor has his administration abandoned every instrument of pressure against Moscow. Washington has also imposed sanctions on Russia, making its policy difficult to describe as consistently conciliatory.
The problem is precisely this lack of consistency. Measures intended to weaken Russia can be undermined by decisions taken to serve other political priorities, leaving Moscow uncertain about American policy but increasingly aware of opportunities to exploit its contradictions.
The war in Iran has made these contradictions harder to ignore. The United States remains the world’s strongest military power, but its resources are not unlimited. Air defence missiles, precision weapons and other equipment used in the Middle East cannot simultaneously be deployed in Europe or Asia.
The conflict has placed additional pressure on American military supplies and complicated deliveries to allies. It has also created the economic difficulties that Trump is now trying to ease through an arrangement with Russia. American decisions in one region are undermining Washington’s objectives in another.
For Europe, the problem is therefore both political and military. Washington may become less willing to support European security when doing so conflicts with the president’s immediate priorities. At the same time, American commitments elsewhere may limit its ability to provide that support.
Neither development means NATO is finished. But together they raise a question that Europeans can no longer afford to avoid. What happens if the United States remains formally committed to European defence but cannot, or will not, provide the forces on which NATO’s plans depend?
NATO’s theory of victory faces a political test
This question has become particularly timely following remarks by NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Alexus Grynkewich, in Warsaw. He outlined what he called a theory of victory, explaining how NATO would not merely stop a Russian attack but dismantle the military systems needed to sustain it.
The aim would be to prevent Russian forces from securing a foothold on NATO territory and then deprive them of the supplies, command structures and military capabilities required to continue fighting. The strategy also envisages strikes against military targets supporting an attack, potentially including those on Russian territory.
The military logic is clear. Deterrence depends on convincing Russia that aggression would fail and that the costs would outweigh any possible gains. But there is a political contradiction. NATO’s American commander is describing how the alliance would defeat a Russian attack at the same time that Washington is seeking economic arrangements with Putin and pressuring Ukraine to limit strikes on Russian infrastructure.
These are not identical situations, and an attack on NATO would carry different treaty obligations. Nevertheless, Moscow will draw conclusions from how consistently Washington is prepared to confront Russian aggression.
The weakness in any theory of victory is that military capability alone does not guarantee political resolve. Russia does not need to believe it could defeat NATO in a conventional war. It might be enough for Moscow to believe that a limited attack could create divisions among allies before they agreed on a response.
A military plan that depends on rapid decisions, long-range strikes and sustained operations is only credible if governments are prepared to authorise those actions when the risks become real.
This is where Europe needs to think beyond higher defence budgets and another round of institutional reforms. The EU has already launched programmes to strengthen its defence industry, expand joint procurement and close critical capability gaps by 2030. These are necessary steps, but they do not by themselves answer the question of whether European forces could defeat a major Russian attack without American participation.
Europe needs a victory plan of its own
Europe should therefore establish its own European Victory Plan, built around one measurable objective. Within the next decade, European NATO members should be capable of defeating a major Russian conventional attack and sustaining their defence without relying on American combat forces.
This would not mean abandoning NATO or creating a rival alliance. It would mean ensuring that NATO’s European members could carry out the alliance’s own defence plans even if Washington chose not to participate in a conventional military operation.
The first step should be a common European military assessment of what such a scenario would require. European governments should commission a detailed examination of NATO’s regional defence plans under the assumption that American conventional forces are unavailable.
The assessment would identify the capabilities Europe still relies on Washington to provide, including intelligence, command systems, long-range weapons, air defence and the logistics needed to sustain a prolonged war. Regular military exercises would then test whether European forces could operate effectively under those conditions.
The crucial difference from existing defence initiatives would be the link between these assessments and binding political commitments. Governments should agree in advance that identified shortfalls must lead to specific procurement, funding and readiness decisions.
Sensitive operational details would remain classified, but the public should be able to see whether agreed targets are being met. Defence readiness should be judged not only by how much money countries spend or how many weapons they buy, but by whether their forces can achieve the military outcomes required of them.
The programme should also have clear milestones. By 2028, European allies should complete their first common assessment and conduct a major exercise based on limited American participation. By 2030, they should aim to close the most urgent gaps and demonstrate the ability to repel a limited Russian attack.
By 2035, the objective should be to conduct and sustain a large-scale conventional defence operation without American combat forces. These dates would be political targets rather than guarantees of military readiness, and the timetable would need to be tested against the findings of the initial assessment.
The nuclear question
There is also a harder question that Europe cannot avoid. Conventional military strength is only one part of deterrence. Russia possesses a large nuclear arsenal and has repeatedly used nuclear threats to influence Western decisions. If European forces were fighting a major defensive war without American participation, how would they respond to Russian nuclear coercion?
Britain and France possess independent nuclear forces, but decisions about their use remain national. A credible European victory plan would therefore need to include a serious discussion about the role of British and French nuclear deterrence in European security, without pretending that a common nuclear policy could be created overnight.
Political decision-making would be just as important. European countries could build powerful armed forces and still fail to act effectively if governments could not agree on their use in time. A credible plan would have to examine how European allies could authorise and coordinate military operations quickly enough to deny Russia the opportunity to achieve a limited victory before a collective response was organised.
This would require difficult discussions about national sovereignty, command arrangements and the political risks governments are prepared to accept.
The ambition may sound excessive. Yet Europe has the economic resources, technological expertise and industrial capacity to become a formidable military power. What it has lacked is a sufficiently clear common objective against which its military readiness can be tested.
Spending more on defence is essential, but it is not the same as knowing how to win a war. Europe needs a strategy that connects military capabilities, industrial production and political decision-making to a defined outcome.
For decades, Europeans have asked how much America is prepared to do for their defence. It is time to ask a different question. What would it take for Europe to defend itself, defeat an aggressor and sustain that victory without American forces? Until Europeans can answer that question, their security will remain vulnerable to decisions made in Washington.
While Trump may not have a grand plan for Russia, Europe cannot afford to be without one.