Russian President Vladimir V. Putin gave his audience at the annual security conference held in Munich in 2007 by demanding that a rollback of American influence and a new balance of Europe be suitable for Moscow. It shocked me.
He didn't get what he wanted.
Almost 20 years later, at the same meeting, the top officials of President Trump's cabinet revealed one thing. Putin has found an American regime that may help him realize his dreams.
Comments by Defense Secretary Pete Hegses and Vice President JD Vance have raised fear among attendees that the US may attack Europe alongside Russia or abandon it altogether under the new administration. I've raised it.
Analysts say such a shift would make Putin a victory that is far more important than any other Ukraine objective to him, analysts said.
“Since the dawn of the Cold War in the late 1940s, the Kremlin has dreamed of ousting America from its role as a cornerstone of European security,” says Andrew S., Vice President of Research at the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace. Weiss stated. “President Putin is well versed enough to strike the openings offered by the new administration.”
The existence of the US military has been the foundation of 80 years of peace in Western Europe since the end of World War II. But in a speech in Warsaw on Friday, before arriving at the conference, Heggs warned European leaders that the United States should not be assumed to be there forever.
Later that day, at the Munich Conference, Vance conveyed an even more frightening message to many European participants. The enemies he sees are not Russia or China, but Europe itself.
Vance set out to attack European countries using what he called undemocratic methods to curb the far-right parties supported by Russia. He argued that the continent needs to recognize voters' desires, stopped trying to alleviate disinformation in undemocratic ways, and instead thrives such parties as the will of the people. I've allowed it.
“If you're running for fear of your voters, there's nothing America can do for you,” Vance said. “There's nothing we can do about that for the Americans who elected me and elected President Trump.”
Mr. Vance was a hit especially in Romania. There, the country's constitutional court in December cancelled a presidential election that seemed ready to win, where the ultra-nationalists, supported by the obvious Russian influence campaign. The election was rescheduled in May.
“If you could destroy your democracy with hundreds of thousands of dollars of digital ads from abroad, it wouldn't have been that strong in the first place,” he said.
For years, the Kremlin has sought to undermine Europe by boosting political parties that Vance had argued that he had to be allowed to flourish. On the same day he said at the meeting, Vance met with the leaders of the extreme righteous German movement, who were challenging this month's general election, boosting the party Russia had sought to justify.
Moscow is also trying to drive a wedge between the US and Europe, realizing that the long-standing destruction of the Euro-Atlantic alliance from within leads to a world where Moscow can wield far more power .
Natalie Tockey, director of the Institute of International Affairs in Rome, saw Vance's speech and interpreted the message as a direct threat to the European Union by the United States. She called it a twist in a conspiracy by the US.
“The plot is that we're there to destroy you,” Tockey said.
“The point isn't even Ukraine,” she added. “The point is a deliberate weakening, if not the destruction of Europe, where Ukraine is a part of it.”
Tocco described Vance's statement as an attack on European democracy, as Russia often does when it seeks division within Europe.
The dramatic reorganization of power in Europe seemed like a dream for Putin when he clarified his vision at the Munich Conference in 2007. Robert M. Gates, then-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Senior-Se
However, Russian leaders are lamely stuck in his vision, becoming a central point in his debate in the months leading up to war. He argued that he omitted Moscow and made it an existential risk.
Putin cast the invasion of Ukraine as a broader battle with the West and as a wake-up value he portrays as an anathema.
Putin believed that the US and Europe would eventually turn to him, according to Alexander Baunoff, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia and Eurasia Centre, in a recent analysis.
The United States is changing, Baunoff wrote, and that Washington today is “closing Moscow to overlook Europe, not for Europe, but for itself, even for Europe.” It's there.
The challenge to Europe comes as Germany and France, two of the European Union's biggest countries, are struggling with leadership crisis due to the surge in political movements that are wielding the same rhetoric as Trump. In 2015, Germany and France took the lead by ending Putin's first invasion of Ukraine.
Britain, which left the European Union due to a campaign that Trump publicly supported, has seen a significant weakening of its continental impact.
It is unclear how far Trump's deal with Putin will go, and the new rebirth settlement between Washington and Moscow could easily evaporate during negotiations over Ukraine. This week, the representatives of Saudi Arabia from the United States and Russia.
However, foreign leaders have previously managed to plead Trump in their favor, and so far Russia has benefited from the new administration.
The Kremlin has won a string of victories since Trump returned to the White House.
Less than a month after the second term, Trump snatched up USAID, a US foreign aid agency that had long been covered in Moscow. He pushed through Cabinet officials who regularly travel at Kremlin talk points, including Tulsi Gabbard, the new US intelligence agency. He exacerbated discord in relations with Europe, threatening Washington's closest allies with a trade war. He spread the useful falsehoods to Moscow in X, empowering and elevating Elon Musk, who publicly advocated in favour of the German far-right movement.
Trump has probably not had a European leader, but Ukraine itself has been resolved to how the biggest conflict on the continent since World War II will be resolved and affect the broader security balance in Europe. Any impact that can exceed will affect the way it affects.
These leaders, who view the rebel right-wing populist movement as a threat to the European Union and to continental freedom, are worried, especially given the obvious alignment between Trump and Putin against them.
“This is the most vulnerable moment for us,” Toki said.
“If ultimately what you're trying to do is destroy this project,” she added, referring to the EU, “This is the moment to do that.”
