World Economic Forum: Will Trump and Davos herald a new world disorder?

Davos comes just in time for the inauguration of Donald J. Trump 2.0, and Europe is worried. Hubert Védrine, a former French foreign minister, says Mr Trump is like an asteroid hurtling towards Earth, and debate over the impact will dominate the cozy, internationalist bubble that gathers each year in the expensive snow of the Swiss Alps.

Mr. Trump talks variously about huge new tariffs, seizing Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal, linking America’s involvement in Europe’s defense not only to increasing European military spending, but also to reducing the trade surplus with the United States.

Mr. Védrine and other analysts warn that Mr. Trump likes to talk big and then make deals, and threats and challenges come and go. Like his former national security adviser, John Bolton once told USA Todayworking in Mr Trump’s White House was “like living in a pinball machine” as Mr Trump bounced from one issue to another.

But one of the dominant topics in Davos is likely to be Ukraine. Mr. Trump says he wants to end the war on a day that virtually no one takes literally, not even his special adviser on Ukraine, Keith Kellogg. Mr. Trump or not, Ukraine is slowly losing the war and talks are underway to end the bloodshed, probably this spring.

But the main question is on what basis. Russian President Vladimir V. Putin faces high inflation and interest rates, but has plunged his country into a war economy in what he has described as an existential conflict with the West. Despite very high casualties, it has so far been able to cover its losses with huge financial incentives: 70 percent of its forces are contract soldiers and only 7 percent are conscripts, said Zaki Laidi, a French analyst who advises the former European Union foreign policy chief. , Josep Borrell Fontelles.

Liana Fix of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington believes that Mr. Putin is claiming that the war has been won and that the West’s resolve to continue supporting Ukraine at such high economic cost is weakening. So even if Mr. Putin were to agree to Mr. Trump’s request or demand to start negotiations, he is unlikely to agree to an unconditional ceasefire and will insist on tough terms to end the war.

At the end of the year, at his regular press conference and on spectacular television, Mr. Putin reiterated his claim that Ukraine was not, in fact, an independent state. According to him, any negotiations will start from “realities on the ground” and will be based on the position Russia took in the negotiations with the Ukrainians in Istanbul in 2022: Ukraine agrees to give up NATO aspirations and become a neutral state, accepting strict restrictions. to amend some of its laws to respect the size of its armed forces and Russia’s interests. It is unclear whether Mr Putin will accept Ukraine’s membership of the European Union, but it is doubtful given his opposition to a weaker association agreement between Kiev and Brussels that led to the 2013 Maidan uprising.

“Putin wants a reordered world where Ukraine is under control and NATO is withdrawn,” Ms Fix said. The US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said Mr Putin wanted “not just a neutral Ukraine, but a neutralized Ukraine”.

Norbert Röttgen, a foreign policy expert and Christian Democratic Union lawmaker, believes that Mr. Putin’s intentions to rebuild Europe’s security architecture, undermine NATO and divide Washington from Europe go far beyond Ukraine and should not be ignored. At the end of February, he won the elections in Germany. “The future of Europe is a matter of security and we must make this war a failure for Russia,” he said. “Because even with all the success, the lesson is that war works.”

It is not clear how to ensure that Russia fails without sharply and rapidly increasing European support for Kiev. European leaders talk about the need for this and spend more to defend themselves. But there is disagreement over how immediate a threat Russia poses to them. They have their own financial challenges with low growth and an aging population, and they disagree on how much to spend on their militaries, even as Mr. Trump is expected to ask Europe to shoulder much of the burden of supporting Ukraine.

Mr Röttgen said Mr Trump’s lack of interest in multilateral alliances and his desire to shift to a focus on China meant that responsibility for Europe’s security was “ours for the first time since December 1941 and Europe is not ready for this fundamental change”.

New NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who will be in Davos, similarly argues that regardless of who America is, Europe must do more in its defense to support Ukraine so that America can negotiate with Russia in the future, regardless of who America is. the president. The European allies “need to get into a wartime mindset,” he said. He will urge NATO to set a new military spending target of 3 percent, or even 3.5 percent, of gross domestic product at the alliance’s next summit in The Hague this summer.

Noting that Russia is not about to collapse, Mr Laidi said: “We need to deter Russia in Europe, strengthen our defenses and start working together in earnest.”

Mr. Röttgen repeated this call. Europe simply needs to do more and more effectively, and do it through NATO, with less nationalism, he argued. “Europe must understand that its defense industry is not only about jobs, but about security.”

Ukrainian leaders understand that negotiations are underway. For some time now, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has stopped insisting that the war can only be ended by Ukraine fully regaining control of its 1991 borders, including Crimea and large parts of eastern Ukraine long occupied by Russian troops. Mr Zelensky, who will travel to Davos, is instead emphasizing security guarantees for his country once the fighting stops, insisting that only membership of the NATO alliance will be satisfactory.

That is unlikely to happen, most analysts and officials in Washington and Europe agree. But many, including Mr. Rutte and key members of the outgoing Biden administration, nevertheless argue that another major boost to Ukraine this year will push Mr. Putin into more serious negotiations. But it is not clear where this big push will come from.

“We still hear that Ukraine is waging our war, but let’s tell the truth,” said Charles A. Kupchan, a former Obama administration official and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The US has a policy without a strategy,” he said, insisting that the West will support Ukraine as long as it needs and that Ukraine can decide on its own when and how to conduct negotiations, as if Washington has no interests of its own. “This is dangerous and makes Ukraine a failed state,” he said.

According to Mr. Kupchan, some see Russia and its desire to continue the war collapsing under economic and business pressure. “But I see the opposite: Russia is fine, and Ukraine is running out of gas without enough manpower and air defense, and it’s not like the West is sitting in its warehouses – we don’t have that.”

But even if the fighting is over, the most pressing issue, everyone agrees, is Ukraine’s future security. Is there a possible form of NATO membership and collective security that includes only a part of sovereign Ukraine? Will membership of the European Union, and membership considered far down the road, be enough? What would Russia put up with, and could any promises of no further invasion be trusted?

Some argue, and Mr. Trump may demand, that Europe should handle Ukraine’s security and offer to deploy European troops after the ceasefire. But will they be there to monitor the ceasefire or the police? If so, how many thousands of troops would be needed, given Ukraine’s enormous size and its long border with Russia? How much will all this cost? Will it distract troops from defending NATO members and undermine their confidence in the alliance’s commitment to collective defense? And wouldn’t they require American air cover?

The proposal for European troops, originally floated by Estonians and sometimes mentioned by French President Emmanuel Macron, has been met with considerable skepticism, including in Poland, which shares a long border with Russia.

A senior German official, speaking anonymously in normal diplomatic practice, called the whole discussion premature and irresponsible, giving Russia an easy way to divide Europe and the United States. According to him, first it is necessary to see how the war ended.

For Mr. Röttgen, the war is more about territory than Ukraine’s sovereignty. “Ukraine must emerge as a sovereign, viable country,” he said. This is at least doable, but what is not clear is how to ensure that the emerging Ukraine is not invaded again.