europe

War game reveals Trump would allow Russia to conquer Europe

A recent war game exercise revealed that, because of President Donald Trump’s flagging support for NATO, Europe’s nations would be vulnerable to an attack from Vladimir Putin’s Russian forces.

The German media outlet WELT collaborated with the German Wargaming Center of the Helmut-Schmidt-University of the German Armed Forces to conduct the exercise on Dec. 1, 2025, according to a report by Politico. As the theoretical exercise continued over several days, Russia crossed the Lithuanian border and openly menaced the rest of Eastern Europe. NATO and America’s larger post-World War II alliance with Europe would make the United States responsible for defending Europe from attack, but the war gamers instead played out a scenario in which Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio refused to do so.

“The National Security Strategy of November 2025 states that the era of the United States acting as the sole guarantor of the global order is over,” Politico reported, describing how the war gamers implemented Trump’s articulated foreign policies. “The document then ranks America’s strategic priorities. First comes the Western Hemisphere. Second is Asia, which primarily refers to China and the Indo-Pacific. Europe comes in a distant third.”

The war gamers found that while Rubio would stay in touch with both sides, he would claim his main priority would be avoiding getting pulled into another war with Europe.

“People are raising all sorts of concerns about whether the United States is going to get wrapped up in a conflict that frankly we thought had been addressed several months ago,” the Rubio impersonator told the panicked Europeans in the war game. Even after Germany, Poland and the NATO Secretary General explained they were facing literal attack by Russia, the Rubio analogue reiterated, “We don’t want to do anything that might call into question the work that has been done to create a broader basis for a constructive relationship with Russia, including economically.” The result is that Washington refused to sanction Russia or even discuss Article 5 of NATO, which pledged the nations to each other’s mutual security.

“The simulation ended with many questions left unanswered,” Politico concluded in their report. “Does Russia fully hold the corridor? Does NATO eventually activate its defense plans? Can Europe act without the United States? Does the German brigade ultimately fight? Would a Russian advance succeed in reality? None of this is resolved.” Nevertheless, it did make one point “clear: Deterrence does not fail at the moment of escalation. It fails long before.”

This is not the first time that Europeans have raised the alarm about Trump’s foreign policy. On Wednesday the British publication The Guardian ran an in-depth profile of Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Susan B. Rogers. Rogers is “arguably… the public face of the Trump administration’s growing hostility to European liberal democracies,” supporting far-right parties and politicians like AfD in Germany, UKIP in the United Kingdom, Marine Le Pen in France and Viktor Orbán in Hungary.

Similarly on Monday the Munich Security Conference, widely regarded as the world’s top independent foreign policy forum, warned that Trump’s “wrecking ball” approach to foreign policy is putting the continent at risk.

“Transactional deals may well replace principled cooperation, private interests may increasingly trump public ones, and regions may become dominated by great powers rather than governed by international rules and norms,” the report authors warned. Meanwhile Sara Bjerg Moller of the magazine Foreign Affairs wrote that the United States’ own foreign policy goals may be undermined by weakening its alliance with Europe.

“[The United States] will find that walking away from overseeing NATO’s military machinery is far harder than anticipated,” Moller wrote. “NATO’s command structure was built around US infrastructure and personnel, and no other member of the alliance is currently equipped to replace Washington.”

World leaders view Trump's threats as a 'wake-up call' to stop him: report

Ahead of President Donald Trump's appearance at this week's annual meeting of world leaders and business executives in Davos, Switzerland, many European leaders are reportedly determined to use the meeting to dissuade the president from his attempts to claim Greenland for the United States.

That's according to CNN business editor-at-large Richard Quest, who told host Erin Burnett that European officials have been strategizing about how to confront Trump when he arrives at Davos. Burnett played a clip of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent from Davos, in which he called on Europe to "take a deep breath, do not escalate."

"President Trump has a strategy here. Hear him out, and then everything will be fine," Bessent added.

When Burnett asked Quest "how much fear and uncertainty is there" from European leaders, the CNN correspondent said it was "off the charts."

"I've spoken today to the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde. She talks about this being the greatest wake-up call that Europe has had over what needs to be done for Europe to come together," he said. "She talks about mounting, growing uncertainty."

"The president of Microsoft, Brad Smith, he told me today: 'Look, the sheer amount of business being done between NATO countries and the companies means this has to be solved in a favorable way,'" Quest continued. "And yet at the same time, you have these leaders like [Mark] Carney from Canada, [Emmanuel] Macron from France, [Ursula] von der Leyen, from the [European Commission], they are saying that the message from Donald Trump, this one of strength, power, force, that Stephen Miller put out only a few weeks ago. They have to take it seriously."

Quest alluded to financial markets tumbling on Tuesday in response to Trump's refusal to rule out using the military to annex Greenland. But he noted that the president's remarks about Greenland during his recent White House press conference – in which he said Americans will "find out" what his plans are for the Danish-controlled island territory — mean that European leaders will likely seek a firm promise from the president that he will back down from threatening to seize Greenland.

"It's not an option to sort of follow Scott Bessent's line. And that's why you saw the market fall. That's why you saw the worst day since October as reality is sinking in," Quest said. "To be sure, Erin, tomorrow, here at Davos, Donald Trump could come here and play nicey-nicey, and Gary Cohn could be right, maximalist down to compromise. but which European leader wants to be on the wrong side of that decision? And that's the dilemma that they face here tomorrow."

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'Lurching from crisis to crisis': How a 'fumbling' Trump can’t possibly put America first

Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, tells the New York Times that President Donald Trump doesn’t really know how to ‘put America first,’ despite his constant bluster. So far, Trump has failed to stop the carnage in Ukraine and Gaza and find a diplomatic deal with Iran.

“He has delivered no peace, whether in Europe or in the Middle East,” says Wertheim. “His strike on Iran sums up his struggles: a frantic, fumbling attempt at negotiation cut short by a risky attack that sets the stage for further war.”

But “inartful dealings are only half the trouble,” adds Wertheim. “Year after year, the United States stations its military forces on geopolitical fault lines in Europe, Asia and the Middle East simultaneously. And year after year, it gets exactly what it has placed itself to receive, inheriting distant conflicts as its own and lurching from crisis to crisis at times of its many adversaries’ choosing.”

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If Trump truly plans to reduce the country’s “exorbitant defense burdens, as he claims to want,” Wertheim said he must take the U.S. out of the position that guarantees high costs and “shift the burden of defending Europe onto increasingly capable European allies.”

“Since his secretary of defense announced in February that Europeans must ‘take ownership of conventional security on the continent,’ U.S. military assets there have essentially remained in place,” Wertheim points out. “If the United States is going to withdraw certain capabilities, Europeans need to know what they should replace; they cannot step up unless America steps down.”

But Trump “can’t seem to decide whether to remove some U.S. forces or simply get Europeans to spend more.”

However, Trump saved “his most characteristic shortcomings for Asia,” said Wertheim.

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The U.S. traditionally dances a thin line between cooperating with China and competing with it, but Wertheim said Trump’s huge tariffs on everyone — not only China but also Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and others —damaged U.S. prospects for cooperation and competition alike for much of Asia. Within a span of months, Trump managed to reduce America’s own influence there, “while making Beijing look reliable by comparison.”

“At the bottom of the president’s foreign-policy vision is a curious void,” said Wertheim. “Mr. Trump is famously all about putting American interests first. Yet he has never figured out what he thinks America’s most basic interests are. He flits between caring little about geostrategic matters, especially compared with trade or immigration, and defaulting to the exorbitant aims of the status quo. He may not truly believe in the latter, but he won’t devise a replacement if he has no concept of what is essential for the United States to defend and what is not.”

Read the full New York Times report at this link.

World leaders rush to support Zelenskyy as Americans debate Trump’s allegiance

President Donald Trump’s MAGA supporters in the U.S. are cheering his Oval Office ambush of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, declaring they are “proud” of Trump and Vice President JD Vance.

But across the globe, world leaders swiftly reaffirmed their support for President Zelenskyy, his country, and Ukraine’s fight to defend its sovereignty and democracy against Russia’s illegal invasion—making clear their allegiance is with him and his country, effectively icing out Donald Trump and the U.S.

Meanwhile, at home, some Americans—perhaps already weary just weeks into Trump’s presidency—are voicing their belief that the President of the United States is behaving like, and may very well be, a witting or unwitting “Russian asset.”

The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum, who has written numerous books on the Soviet Union and authoritarianism, framed Friday’s events for MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace:

“I think all of Ukraine’s allies, and all of not just Europeans who have a border with Russia or who are near Russia, but Europeans who understand that Russia has coordinated sabotage attacks across the continent engages in sometimes daily cyber attacks on different kinds of institutions, infrastructure all over Europe, whose country, whose propagandists constantly threaten Europe and constantly repeat threats to bomb or even nuke European cities, I think everybody felt today a kind of chill understanding that this was a very different United States.”

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Alexander Vindman, the whistleblower whose warnings led to the first impeachment of Donald Trump, told Wallace that Zelenskyy “looks like a world leader. He’s standing his ground against Vance and Trump and the rampant ignorance about what is going on, on the ground [in Ukraine], who the belligerents are and how to work your way out of it.”

‘RUSSIAN ASSET’?

Several notable Americans made public their thoughts after Friday’s Oval Office attack that the President of the United States might, knowingly or not, be a “Russian asset.”

Noted political scientist, The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, concluded, “Not that we had a bunch doubt before, but Donald Trump is a Russian asset.” He later wrote, “This is one of the saddest days for America in my lifetime.”

Former Tea Party Republican congressman turned podcaster and political commentator, Joe Walsh, wrote: “I said two weeks ago on @CNN that Donald Trump is a Russian asset. I stand by that. The entire world should now know that this is the scary truth.”

Political commentator and SiriusXM host Dean Obeidallah added, “We officially have a Russian asset in the White House in Trump. Period.”

Cheri Jacobus, the political strategist, pundit, and frequent cable news guest, wrote: “Trump is a war criminal. A traitor. A Russian asset since the 1980’s. There is now no doubt.”

Earlier this week former Obama White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod, lamenting the Trump administration’s vote at the UN in favor of Russia over Ukraine, wrote: “It would be irresponsible to suggest, without evidence, that Trump is a Russian asset. But ask yourself, if he were a paid agent of the GRU, would he say or do any differently than he is right now?”

On Friday, Axelrod added: “I love my country with all my heart and I’ve never been more embarrassed for America than the spectacle I just witnessed in the Oval Office. Zelensky is fighting for the survival of his country, his people and their democracy. Trump and Vance appear to be completely aligned with Putin, the invader whose aim has been to conquer Ukraine. Zelensky should know that millions and millions of Americans still stand with him and his valiant people.”

U.S. Senator Tina Smith (D-MN) struck a balance: “That press conference was choreographed for an audience of one and he sits in Moscow. Once, we fought tyrants. Today Trump and Vance are bending America’s knee. And that weakens us.”

Former Obama Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes offered this take: “The Republican Party enables this every single day. Just the complete trashing of our country’s standing and full capitulation to a playbook that the Kremlin couldn’t script better if they were writing the words.”

WORLD LEADERS RUSH TO SUPPORT UKRAINE

“Russia illegally and unjustifiably invaded Ukraine. For three years now, Ukrainians have fought with courage and resilience,” Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared. “Their fight for democracy, freedom, and sovereignty is a fight that matters to us all. Canada will continue to stand with Ukraine and Ukrainians in achieving a just and lasting peace.”

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Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, wrote:

“There is an aggressor: Russia. There is a victim: Ukraine. We were right to help Ukraine and sanction Russia three years ago—and to keep doing so. By ‘we,’ I mean the Americans, the Europeans, the Canadians, the Japanese, and many others. Thank you to all who have helped and continue to do so. And respect to those who have been fighting since the beginning—because they are fighting for their dignity, their independence, their children, and the security of Europe.”

“Dear Volodymyr @zelenskyyua,” wrote Friedrich Merz, expected to become the next Chancellor of Germany, “we stand with #Ukraine in good and in testing times. We must never confuse aggressor and victim in this terrible war.”

Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister of Poland, wrote: “Dear @ZelenskyyUa, dear Ukrainian friends, you are not alone.”

Luís Montenegro, the Prime Minister of Portugal, declared, “Ukraine can always count on Portugal, @ZelenskyyUa,

Alexander Schallenberg, the acting chancellor of Austria, wrote, “#StandWithUkraine”

Ilie Bolojan, the acting president of Romania, declared: “The security of Ukraine is crucial for the security of Europe. We all need to stand together to fight for our values, freedom, and peace.”

The Prime Minister of Denmark, Mette Frederiksen, wrote: “Dear @ZelenskyyUA, Denmark proudly stands with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.”

Petteri Orpo, the Prime Minister of Finland, wrote: “Finland and the Finnish people stand firmly with Ukraine. We will continue our unwavering support and work towards a just and lasting peace.

Kristen Michal, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Estonia, said, “We stand united with @ZelenskyyUa and Ukraine in our fight for freedom. Always. Because it is right, not easy.”

More continued to flood in, including from world leaders in Ireland, Sweden, Latvia, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, and others.

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'Disgust': Vance’s 'disturbing' speech alarms Europe, sparks foreign policy fears

JD Vance’s speech on Friday at the Munich Security Conference deeply offended European leaders, drawing widespread criticism and fueling serious concerns about President Donald Trump’s foreign policy.

“Hard to convey the level of disgust with and rejection of Vance remarks,” explained veteran foreign policy journalist Laura Rozen, “which included lecturing Europe to be more open to Musk promoting the German far right party and which ignored Russia.”

Vance’s speech, Rozen continued, “was not about Europe doing more to protect European security. It was telling them how to be internally—more open to right wing/ hate speech/techno oligarchd/Russian election interference.”

“Truly disturbing,” she concluded.

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The New York Times did not hold back. Its headline reads: “Vance Tells Europeans to Stop Shunning Parties Deemed Extreme.”

A member of France’s armed services committee “could not believe [Vance] did not mention Ukraine/Russia,” Rozen noted, while adding that “the German defense minister was the most forceful in expressing his rejection.”

Indeed, Tom Nutall, the Berlin Bureau Chief for The Economist wrote: “Blistering response by Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defence minister, to JD Vance’s speech.”

Nutall quoted the minister as saying: “Democracy does not mean that a vociferous minority can decide what truth is…democracy must be able to defend itself against extremists.”

Pistorius continued, describing himself as “a staunch believer in the Transatlantic Alliance,” and “a staunch ally and friend of America,” Real Clear Politics reported.

“The American dream is something that has always fascinated me and influenced me, and this is why I cannot just ignore what we heard before, I cannot not comment on the speech we heard by the U.S. Vice President.”

“This democracy … was just called into question by the U.S. vice president. And not just the German democracy, but Europe as a whole, he spoke of the annulment of democracy and if I understood him correctly, he compares the condition of Europe with the condition that prevails in some authoritarian regimes.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is not acceptable. That’s it. This is not acceptable,” Pistorius declared.

Damian Boeselager, a member of the European Parliament, wrote: “JD Vance speech at the MSC was a disgrace. Telling Europe how to run a democracy and free speech while centralizing all power in the hands of a couple of power hungry people is a horrible cynicism.”

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The Guardian reported that the European Union’s “foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, reacting to US vice president JD Vance’s speech, said it felt like Washington was ‘trying to pick a fight’ with Europe.”

Other experts also agreed with Rozen’s remarks.

“This is definitely how most foreign policy elites in Europe interpreted US Vice President Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference,” wrote Dr. Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the U.S. and Americas program at the London-based think tank Chatham House, and a professor of international relations at the University of London.

“Exactly this. Another disturbing glimpse into MAGA thinking,” added David Hartwell, a former UK Ministry of Defense intelligence analyst.

“Shocking hypocrisy from Vance – lecturing Europe on democracy when he serves as vice president to a man who attempted a coup in the US,” wrote Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator for the Financial Times.

“It does not appear,” noted former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath, who has a Master of Arts in international and global security studies from Johns Hopkins University, “that Vance, Hegseth or Trump on the same page when it comes to Europe, Ukraine, Russia. No coherent message. The world has no idea what American foreign policy is right now. I don’t think [the Trump] team knows either.”

Watch a portion of Vance’s remarks below or at this link.

European leader wonders why 'no one is asking about' Trump’s 'bizarre' ramblings: Senate Dem

One longtime Senate Democrat recently recalled a conversation he had at this week's North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Washington, D.C. that revealed how American allies are reacting to the current frenzied news cycle regarding President Joe Biden's viability as a candidate.

In an interview on Wednesday night with CNN host Kaitlan Collins, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware), who is now in his third term, said he had a revealing conversation with an unnamed "European head of state." That leader appeared worried about the double standard the media was applying to Biden, while largely ignoring former President Donald Trump despite his increasingly unhinged tone during press conferences and public appearances.

"In a lot of those press conferences, and in a lot of his campaign rallies now, [Trump] is saying bizarre and incoherent things," Coons said. "I talked to a head of state from a European country last night who said, 'how is it possible that former President Trump is rambling on about electrocution by sharks and exploding pine trees… and no one is asking about it, and people seem only concerned about the current president.' We've got two candidates."

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"When Donald Trump was president, we had four bad years. Joe Biden had one bad debate night. But he's had three and a half great years of accomplishing good things for our country," he added.

As Coons referenced, Trump's rally speeches have become less coherent the longer the campaign cycle drags on. Trump has lately appeared obsessed with fictional serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter from the 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs. And during one Florida rally earlier this week, the 78 year-old Trump claimed without evidence that Americans "don't eat bacon anymore."

The New Republic documented other directionless rants from Trump's rally in Doral, Florida, in which he claimed that Biden didn't know what a synagogue was, and bragged that he could beat the 46th president of the United States in golf even with a handicap.

"This evening, I’m also officially challenging Crooked Joe to an 18-hole golf match right here on Doral’s Blue Monster,” Trump said. “I’ll even give Joe Biden 10 strokes aside. And if he wins, I will give the charity of his choice $1 million.”

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The former president predicted that Biden — who is currently hosting European leaders for the critical NATO summit — wouldn’t accept his challenge because he’s “all talk.”

Despite Coons' wishes for the media to focus instead on Trump's repeated gaffes on the campaign stump, the post-debate narrative that has hounded Biden is persisting in its second week. A group of leading Democrats on Capitol Hill are scheduled to meet with Biden's top campaign officials tomorrow in Washington, presumably to pressure them to convince their candidate to step aside.

Watch Coons' segment below, or by clicking this link.

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'Something may go very, very wrong': European diplomats fear Trump 'shooting from the hip'

European diplomats have reportedly been blitzing Washington to meet with allies of former President Donald Trump to gauge how he would handle foreign policy crises in the region should he win a second term.

CNN reported Thursday that chief among Europe's concerns about Trump winning the November election are how he may change the US' relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and whether he would be committed to helping Ukraine fend off the ongoing Russian offensive in its easternmost regions. Diplomats who are preparing for another possible Trump presidency also admit that the ex-president's mercurial nature is a point of contention, with one unnamed senior diplomat telling CNN they're worried about his "random bursts of rage."

"It’s more the general, rather than the specific: something may go very, very wrong just because some decision is made – basically shooting from the hip, without enough information, without appreciation of the possible second or third order effects," the diplomat said.

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Diplomats specifically said they were worried Trump would undermine Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which states that the alliance would come to the defense of any NATO ally that experiences an "armed attack." Trump has said in the past that he would exert pressure on NATO member states to meet their obligations under the treaty to spend at least 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defense. More recently, he has suggested he would let Russia — whose military NATO was established to defend against — "do whatever the hell they want" to a country that doesn't meet the 2% GDP threshold.

"We are getting a lot of calls from ambassadors, we know what they are doing, they are pumping us for information and trying to find out what will happen if Trump comes back in," an unnamed former Trump administration official told CNN, adding that they have had roughly 30 meetings in Washington with various European diplomats.

NATO countries are reportedly working to set up a $100 billion fund specifically for Ukraine to help the besieged nation defend itself against Russia over the next five years. Diplomats told CNN they consider it "future-proofing" in the event Trump wins the 2024 election and reneges on US support for NATO and Ukraine. NATO Secretary General Jans Stoltenberg recently addressed the far-right Heritage Foundation think tank — which is the principal organization behind the authoritarian Project 2025 initiative — in an effort to deepen his relationship with Trumpworld.

"The demand signal has been through the roof. People are grazing the entire Republican space, trying to talk to everybody to figure out what is going on," Heritage vice president James Carafano said.

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An unnamed source who is reportedly "familiar with Trump's thinking" told CNN that should the former president retake the White House, one of his first foreign policy decisions would be to arrange a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to facilitate discussion on how to end the war. The source specifically said Trump would use US military aid to Ukraine as leverage to bring both leaders to the table.

“If Ukraine wants continued aid they gotta to sit down and negotiate, and if Russia doesn’t want us to give mass amounts of new support to Ukraine then they have to sit down and negotiate,” CNN's source said. “It does not mean giving into Ukraine or giving Putin all that he wants.”

Click here to read CNN's full report.

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