In the Four Nations Hockey tournament a couple of weeks ago, the soon-to-be-American team was destroyed by real American Patriots. I am, of course, referencing Canada’s thrashing at the tournament. The game started with Canadian fans booing our national anthem. Subsequently, we were shown two and a half hours of the best America has to offer, which is, of course, defeating countries that think they can get away with disrespecting Uncle Sam.
This game should be seen as a microcosm of American foreign policy going forward, as we have already seen from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance in Europe. For decades, Europe has publicly derided our great nation by decrying “American Imperialism,” even while sitting in the shade of our nuclear umbrella. However, they have failed to meet the barest of requirements for our coming to their defense.
Europe’s combined economic might barely reaches that of the United States, and that is without the defense spending that they have ungratefully shouldered on us since the end of World War II. Now that the Secretary of Defense has told them that America will be pivoting to Asia, the pearl-clutching of our effete allies came as a predictable response.
Further, European heads of state, as well as Ukrainian representatives, have criticized President Trump for moving forward unilaterally with a peace deal in Ukraine, which European leaders have said will be illegitimate without European involvement.
To our so-called allies, I only say this: The chicken that picked the seeds and made the dough gets to eat the bread.
Throughout the war in Ukraine, Europe has just barely contributed over half of what the United States has offered, in terms of dollar value. Still, nearly all Ukrainian Air defense, as well as armored vehicles, have been American. Germany, which has Europe’s largest economy and which the war economically affected more heavily than Russia, started their aid with a whopping 5,000 helmets. Quite the contribution.
It would be unfair to say that Europe has not offered the best of what they have to Ukraine’s defense, but if Europe’s best is a pittance of the U.S.’s military might in the ’90s, of what true use is it? Europe has failed in its collective responsibility to itself for security and is now reaping the consequences. The reason that Europe won’t simply let the U.S. cut off aid and be done with it is that they know that combined, their support for Ukraine is nothing without us.
That failure on the part of Europe will cost them their seat at peace negotiations, as it should. Hopefully, it will serve as a wake-up call to those once-great nations that the only way America can save the day in the 11th hour is if the Europeans fight for themselves.
A further criticism of President Trump has been comparing a peace deal with Putin to another Munich Agreement, in which Czechoslovakia was abandoned by its Western allies to the mercy of the Nazis. I, for one, do not call a conservative estimate of 600,000 dead Russians as appeasement, and further, the Luhansk and Donetsk Oblasts have proven their commitment to separating from Ukraine both in their public declarations as well as in their protracted struggle stretching back to 2014. Additionally, fear mongering about Russia invading NATO is hot air blown out by debutant bureaucrats seeking to scare the public into policies that would continue a war which neither side can win.
Some have said that Russia astroturfed those insurgencies. Still, if the commitment of those men fighting for nearly 8 years before the Russian invasion does not convince you, I doubt anything else will.
Now, a peace brokered where the aggressor remains on occupied land is tricky to negotiate. We ought to learn two lessons from Versailles and its disastrous effects on the peace of Europe following WWI.
First, for lasting peace, humiliation should not be inflicted on any nation, as it will stoke the flames of another war. At the same time, security guarantees are to be backed up vigorously.
Case in point, the defense of Ukraine, which Russia and the United States supposedly guaranteed in the 1990s, seemed to be backed by Russian duplicity and Western half-measures. If at the opening of this war Europe and America had banded together and declared a no-fly zone over Ukraine, and a massive coalition mobilization moved to the Dnieper River, this war would have ended much sooner and on better terms.
Due to Europe’s weakness and the Biden administration’s corrupt timidity, Putin knew this would not happen and seized the opportunity. Much like the booing Canucks, put in their place by a demonstration of force, Europe ought to remember who is really in charge of negotiating peace.
Europe’s decision to stand on principles of sovereignty, when the moment to stand for it is long gone, is a sign not only of weakness, but also of self-important cravenness that rightly deserves to be ignored by enemies and chastised by allies, namely the U.S.
Santiago McMunn is a senior history major.