Expert Q&A: ‘No Precedent’ for US-Europe Upheaval

EXPERT Q&A — As Ukraine and other European nations grapple with the past week’s sudden U.S. pivot towards Russia, they are scrambling to find ways to respond, and to bolster the defenses of Ukraine and the rest of the continent.

A series of events have sent shockwaves across Europe: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s statement that European security is no longer a primary focus of Washington; Vice President JD Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference that lambasted European democracy; President Donald Trump’s 90-minute call with Vladimir Putin, after nearly three years of Washington’s refusal to engage with the Russian leader; and the Trump administration’s face-to-face negotiations with Russia on the Ukraine war – to which no Europeans were invited.

In this game-changing week for U.S.-European relations, The Cipher Brief turned to John McLaughlin, who served as Acting Director of the CIA, to discuss these developments and their ramifications. McLaughlin – just back from the recent Munich conference – spoke about the prospects for an “Army of Europe,” which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for, and more broadly, he addressed the tectonic shifts in transatlantic relations. “Europe and the United States are going to have a different relationship when this is over,” McLaughlin said, “than they have had for all the years since NATO was created in 1949.”.

McLaughlin spoke with Cipher Brief Managing Editor Tom Nagorski. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity. You can also watch the full discussion on The Cipher Brief YouTube channel.

Nagorski: You have said, in the wake of the recent developments, that the Trump administration is either confused, divided, or has dramatically shifted the American posture in terms of the alliance. Do you have a thought as to which of those it is?

McLaughlin: I think it is all of those, but I would put the emphasis on the latter one. I think they are shifting or have shifted the American posture in Europe dramatically. And the key thing seems to be that we will be less the dominant power in terms of everything. Committed, but less committed; less out front, more in the background, more pushing others. Whether that will work or not, I don’t know, because Europeans for decades have been accustomed to looking toward America for leadership. 

Nagorski: Nearly three years ago, when the Russians first invaded Ukraine, one of the silver linings of a really terrible global event was the unity that it brought to the NATO alliance, and to Europe and the United States. How badly fractured or damaged do you think that unity and that alliance is at the moment?

McLaughlin: There’s really no precedent for what’s going on right now. The main thing I picked up among Europeans in Munich was anger and confusion on many levels. On the other hand, I think that they are now approaching seriously the question of what they do in the event Trump throws this to them, in the sense we don’t know yet what throwing it to them will mean. 

What I detected was, first, a commitment not to abandon Ukraine, regardless of what the U.S. does. Number two, a hope and a belief that the United States will stay involved because they don’t feel completely confident taking total responsibility themselves. And that’s come through in the initial reporting out of their meetings, wanting at least reconnaissance and intelligence help and backup, if not actual American troops in Ukraine. So it’s a mixed bag. 

I think it begins with the anger and confusion, and now I’m sensing a certain amount of resolve on the part of the Europeans. Does that fracture the alliance? I don’t think so, but it changes it in a way. And that may be what Trump intends. It’s hard for me to impute something to Trump, but if he’s seeking to push the Europeans to a point where they take more responsibility for their own defense – whether they can do it or not is a question, but they certainly appear to be trying to do that.

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Listen to ‘Dispatches from Munich’ with General David Petraeus (Ret.) as he lays out Ukraine’s options while discussions take place between the U.S. and Russia on how to end the war – exclusively on The Cipher Brief’s digital channel on YouTube

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Nagorski: On that front, there was a phrase that was first spoken in the last few days by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky: an “Army for Europe.” What did you think when you heard that phrase coming from the Ukrainian leader?

McLaughlin: Let’s be clear: the Europeans have talked for years about some kind of defense capability that would either be parallel to or independent from NATO. They get hung up on that problem all the time, on the fact that so many of them are in NATO; how can we be doing something that is separate from NATO? And they never have been able to resolve that. 

Those words tumble freely from [Zelensky’s] mouth in part because — and this is something I felt the Trump administration didn’t fully internalize or grasp in dealing with all of this in Munich — he’s a wartime leader. He’s different from all of us. He’s different from all of the Europeans. He is a wartime leader who has led a war for three years, has lost a lot of his people and friends, and has seen tragedy and devastation and horror. He now has the strongest army in Europe. If he turned that army on Europe, he could cut through to the French coast overnight. He’s not going to do that of course — I’m just saying that metaphorically, to say that the idea of an army for Europe is a very easy concept for him to grasp, because he’s had to put together the strongest army in Europe and fight a war. 

What he doesn’t take into account, and that’s the other side of this coin, is that this is not a new idea for Europe, but it’s always been an idea that has not taken root because they can’t get past intellectually how to do it. Plus, they have operational issues. Their weaponry and their strategy and their tactics are all compatible with NATO, in terms of weapon caliber and so forth. But they’re not necessarily compatible with each other. 

I think this must have [the Europeans] a bit spooked at this point. How do you put together a European army? The closest thing to a concept is the idea of a multiple brigade force made up of Europeans that would somehow be policing a line of contact between Russian forces and Ukrainian forces. And yet we still don’t know what the Russians would agree to here, and what the Ukrainians would agree to here.

Nagorski: A peacekeeping force [in Ukraine] would be one thing. But we’re talking about the scenario in which the United States really does just say, as National Security Advisor [Mike] Waltz said, the Europeans must “own” what comes next. So militarily, we’re talking not just about a peacekeeping force, in a buffer zone. It sounds like we’re talking about a NATO force except without the U.S. in it. You just made a very good point about Ukraine having one of the most significant armed forces. So I assume if there is to be an “Army for Europe,” that it’s got a big Ukrainian contingent, even if they’re not in NATO, right?

McLaughlin: It has to be. There are many ways to think about the question of Ukraine and NATO. If I’m correct in saying that they have the strongest, most battle-hardened army in Europe, and if NATO’s mission, as once again Americans defined in Munich, is to stand against aggression, why wouldn’t you want the Ukrainians in the tent? I guess the answer to that is because it’s provocative to Russia, but isn’t it Russia’s aggression that you’re standing against? So the internal logic of all of these things is tortured. 

We’re talking about all of this now with no knowledge whatsoever of what an agreement might look like. I sat next to a former prime minister of Ukraine who said to me at one point, as all of this was taking place and as all of the confusion was unfolding, Wait a minute, we Ukrainians, we have a vote and if we don’t like the agreement, we’re going to fight on. An authoritative source, I won’t reveal exactly who, said, Look, there’s still a year or two of weapons in the pipeline coming to Ukraine. So unless the Russians ramp up dramatically, the Ukrainians can fight on. They’re not without leverage in this. The fact that Putin is now relying on North Korean troops and help from Iran; that Russia has taken, by some measures, 600,000 casualties; and that it is having trouble mobilizing troops – all of this tells me he’s not in a great position either. So Ukrainians get a vote here. And Zelensky’s speech at the end [of the Munich Security Conference] was an angry speech. It was a speech that conveyed a wartime leader who was feeling not just pressure, but maybe a degree of betrayal.

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Nagorski: It’s been quite clear for some time that there will be no U.S. boots on the ground in any of this. We had a couple of former U.S. commanders, Philip Breedlove and Ben Hodges, on our platform just before the Munich conference got underway, and they both were talking in hypothetical terms about a force for Ukraine, and saying that if Putin sees anything that does not have some American component, whether it’s leadership or command and control or just some advisory capacity, that he’s far less likely to be deterred. Is an American involvement or component necessary in whatever an Army for Europe might look like?

McLaughlin: I think it’s necessary that America at a high level, in this case the president, at minimum would need to say to Putin, we’re standing in the background. Even though our troops are not in the front line, we support this. And if you break this agreement, it will be at your own peril. If I were putting the statement together, it would not have a threatening tone, but would have enough ambiguity in it to imply a threat. And the other problem here that we have to think about is this: let’s assume hypothetically that an agreement is reached and the Europeans agree to do a peacekeeping mission and there’s no U.S. direct component to it. If that peacekeeping mission goes bad, if, as the generals suggest, Putin is not deterred and he does something provocative that breaks the agreement and the Ukrainians and the Europeans are in trouble, if the United States doesn’t come to the rescue, I think Trump would suffer a catastrophic defeat politically. So whether the U.S. is seeking to construct this thing without U.S. involvement or commitment or fingerprints, I don’t think the United States can avoid exposure and risk here in any circumstance. That has to be said to Putin, whether we’re in it with frontline troops or not. It has to be said to him that the United States endorses and will enforce this agreement.

Nagorski: You’re also a scholar and you teach a class in global security issues. What are you going to tell your students about what’s just happened?

McLaughlin: I guess I’m going to tell them that we are at a pivotal point, an inflection point in history, but particularly in U.S.-European relations. And that this could go any number of directions. It could lead to a closer relationship, redefined between the United States and Europe. It could lead to a break between the United States and Europe, depending on how this plays out. And we’re in a very dangerous moment in terms of our relations with Russia. 

The one thing I would say is: make no mistake — Europe and the United States are going to have a somewhat different relationship when this is over than they have had for all the years since NATO was created in 1949.

The Cipher Brief is committed to publishing a range of perspectives on national security issues submitted by deeply experienced national security professionals.  Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views or opinions of The Cipher Brief.

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