As Ukraine War Nears Its End, Europe Faces Strategic Security Dilemma

The Ukraine war has reached the limits of what continued fighting can realistically achieve for any of the belligerents. All four principals – the United States, Russia, Ukraine, and the Europeans – have long understood that the conflict’s underlying geopolitical realities would eventually force a negotiated settlement. The question now is no longer whether diplomacy will take over, but when the parties can align their domestic constraints and strategic imperatives to engineer a deal. Yet even a cessation of hostilities will leave unresolved the deeper question of Europe’s long-term security architecture, which the war has exposed and whose conclusion will transform.

Axios reported late Nov 30 that senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials engaged in five hours of “difficult” and “intense” negotiations on the de facto border with Russia, reflecting the strategic reality that Ukraine could not reclaim lost territories and Russia found further gains prohibitively costly, making it inevitable that a line be drawn roughly along the positions both sides have held for some time. The U.S. delegation, led by Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and adviser Jared Kushner, met with Ukraine’s national security adviser Rustem Umerov, military chief of staff Gen. Andrii Hnatov, and deputy head of military intelligence Vadym Skibitskyi. Speaking to reporters, Secretary Rubio emphasized that the discussions were not only about ending the fighting but also about establishing conditions for Ukraine’s long-term prosperity, noting, “I think we built on that today, but there’s more work to be done.” Witkoff and Kushner are now scheduled to travel to Moscow for further talks, including with President Vladimir Putin.

Understanding where these negotiations are headed requires first grasping the strategic situation in the battlespace. The Ukraine war has underscored a fundamental point: Russia is no longer the Soviet superpower but a markedly diminished state. After nearly four years of fighting, Moscow has managed to seize only about 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, a limitation that reveals the structural weaknesses of the Russian military machine. That constraint reverberates through the international system, shaping a moment in which the United States is seeking to limit its exposure to protracted land wars while recalibrating its global commitments.

From Washington’s perspective, Russia no longer represents a direct threat to the United States itself. More to the point, whatever danger Moscow poses to Europe is one America’s allies are increasingly capable of managing on their own. The United States no longer needs to serve as Europe’s primary shield as it has since World War II, because the balance of power on the continent has shifted in favor of the Europeans. This gives Washington room to retrench into a supporting role, reallocating attention and resources to the maritime space, particularly the Western Pacific, which is more central to its long-term strategic interests.

This shift aligns with the emerging U.S. geostrategy that the Trump administration is attempting to translate from concept into practice for managing the wider international system. Under this framework, Washington expects allied and partner states to assume primary responsibility for security in their own regions. The United States envisions itself not as the frontline enforcer but as the architect and supervisor of this reorganized global order. Yet before such a handoff is possible, Washington must first wind down the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and prevent the eruption of new conflicts such as the brief but destabilizing 87-hour clash between India and Pakistan earlier in May.

From the European perspective, this strategic reorientation is deeply unsettling after eight decades of relying on the United States to carry the bulk of the security burden. Americans enjoy the insulation of the Atlantic, while Europe sits exposed with a direct land frontier abutting Russia. Even if the Donbas, the Azov littoral, and Crimea amount to only a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, Russia’s advances have brought its forces uncomfortably close to the heart of Europe. European leaders therefore fear, reasonably, that once Moscow regenerates its economic and military capacity, it could seek to push westward again.

Therefore, the pressing question for the Europeans is: how do they become net security providers for the Continent? Any change of this magnitude is extremely unsettling; it takes time for states and their publics to recognize and adapt to a new strategic reality. The status quo is familiar and comforting, whereas change introduces uncertainty and risk and can be very messy. This explains the attachment to the old order and the hope that what the Trump administration is doing is not permanent and that things will reset once his term is over.

Wishes aside, European leaders understand that there is no going back to the postwar status quo. They realize that the ball is in their court and that they must develop a new security mechanism for their region. Their biggest challenge toward any form of collective action is that, unlike the United States—a singular sovereign actor—the European Union is a bloc of 27 nation-states, each with its own imperatives and constraints. It was easy for them to follow the American lead, but much harder to reach consensus on a European leadership structure.

NATO functioned effectively largely because the United States served as its organizing principle, institutionalized through the structures of Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) and the American-led Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR). European militaries found it far easier to operate under a U.S. commander than under one of their own, which helped suppress historic rivalries. But it is far from clear that British forces would accept orders from a French general, or that the French would submit to German command, once the American anchor is removed. Complicating matters further are rising regional powers such as Poland and the broader Intermarium states, whose proximity to Russia gives them a far more acute threat perception than their Western European counterparts.

Despite their shared influence, the EU3 diverge sharply in strategic priorities, capabilities, and geopolitical outlook, reflecting fundamentally different national trajectories and threat perceptions. The United Kingdom, having left the European Union five years ago, continues to navigate a strategic balance between its deep alignment with the United States and ties to the continental bloc. Because of Brexit, France stands alone among EU members as a nuclear-armed power, cementing its role as Europe’s strategic counterweight. Meanwhile, Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is leveraging its economic heft to execute a historic military modernization – expanding budgets, upgrading forces across all domains, and positioning the Bundeswehr as the continent’s central security anchor under Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Germany’s deployment of a brigade-sized force—including mechanized infantry, armored vehicles, and air-defense units—to Lithuania marks the country’s first permanent overseas military presence since World War II. The move represents a historic recalibration of Berlin’s military posture, signaling a willingness to assume frontline responsibilities on NATO’s eastern flank. At the same time, it revives deep historical anxieties, challenges constitutional and domestic norms, and tests the limits of public tolerance for an assertive German military. This deployment highlights the strategic tightrope Germany must walk: projecting credible deterrence against Russia while managing enduring European fears of German domination on the Continent.

As the United States signals a strategic retrenchment, European states are increasingly pursuing unilateral security initiatives to safeguard their national interests. This response is natural, since acting independently is far easier than building a truly collective framework, which would require substantial revamping of both NATO and the European Union. More importantly, these national initiatives can undermine a coordinated European defense posture capable of deterring Russia. Ultimately, Europe must reconcile these unilateral moves into a coherent collective security arrangement if it hopes to project credible strength and stability in an increasingly contested strategic environment.

The Trump White House will need to engage European allies in a deliberate process to design a new security architecture in which they move from secondary to primary responsibility for their own regions. Washington cannot simply step back; it must define clearly what this role reversal entails in practical terms: command structures, force commitments, intelligence-sharing, and rapid-response mechanisms. The United States’ task will be to provide guidance, oversight, and strategic calibration while allowing allies to assume greater operational autonomy. Success will hinge on translating conceptual shifts into concrete, executable arrangements that ensure both European credibility and continued transatlantic cohesion.