Mapping The U.S. Strategic Pivot Between Russia and Europe

The geopolitical landscape of Europe is shifting beneath its feet, driven by a monumental recalibration of U.S. foreign policy. The once-unquestioned alignment between Washington and its European allies is fraying, as the Trump administration redefines its strategic priorities—placing burden-sharing at the center of its transatlantic approach while seeking rapprochement with Russia.

This shift has played out in real-time. Verbal clashes between President Trump and Ukraine’s President Zelensky have underscored Washington’s growing impatience with Kyiv, signaling a departure from the unwavering support that defined the early years of the war. The recent meeting between Zelensky and Keith Kellogg, the U.S. envoy for Ukraine and Russia, which conspicuously lacked a joint press conference, further illustrated the widening gap in public messaging between the U.S. and Ukraine. Driving the point home even further was President Trump’s assertion today that Zelensky had no cards and need not be at the negotiations.

Meanwhile, Europe—caught between its pre-existing stance and the new reality—is struggling to adapt. Two emergency summits in quick succession failed to produce a unified course of action, exposing the fractures among European leaders. With national governments prioritizing their own positions over collective strategy, the continent finds itself disjointed, hesitant, and increasingly reactive. As the U.S. and Russia engage in broader discussions of cooperation, Washington’s stance toward Europe has grown colder. Secretary of State Rubio’s assurance that the U.S. won’t impose conditions on European allies did little to assuage their concerns.

With British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron set to visit Washington next week, the moment demands a closer look at how we got here. Why has the U.S. pivoted toward Russia? What does this mean for Europe? And what are the possible outcomes of this evolving power dynamic? Before these key meetings unfold, it is critical to take a bird’s-eye view of the situation—to understand the drivers behind this transformation and where it might lead next.

Why the Rapprochement with Russia?

To dismiss Trump’s approach to Russia as mere whims or personal affinity with Putin is to oversimplify a calculated shift in U.S. foreign policy under his administration. While Trump’s personal instincts play a role, the broader rationale is strategic, not sentimental. This policy shift was outlined well before his administration took office in Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership.

At the heart of this recalibration is the recognition that the U.S. must now deter two nuclear peers—China and Russia—simultaneously for the first time in history. Washington’s policymakers may have assessed that by pulling Russia out of China’s orbit, or at least ensuring Beijing and Moscow do not act in lockstep, they can prevent the emergence of a more formidable and cohesive adversarial bloc. The Trump administration, therefore, does not necessarily see Russia as a friend, but rather as a rival that must be managed and neutralized.

The Strategic Underpinnings of the Shift

A close reading of Project 2025 provides clear insights into how this approach is being structured:

First and foremost, China is the defining threat to U.S. interests in the 21st century. Every aspect of American foreign policy is now being reoriented around containing China’s influence, which has resulted in a major reshuffling of Washington’s global commitments. The implementation of this foreign policy outlook was made clear by Rubio as soon as he assumed his role as Secretary of State.

Second, the U.S. wants its allies to take on more responsibility in their own defense. The mandate outlines a vision in which NATO is transformed to ensure that European allies bear the burden of conventional deterrence against Russia, while the U.S. focuses primarily on nuclear deterrence and select high-priority capabilities.

Third, policymakers recognize that China’s nuclear expansion is fundamentally changing the strategic balance. For the first time, the U.S. must deter two peer nuclear adversaries at once—a problem previous administrations never faced. Given this, the logic follows that Washington must neutralize one of these threats to avoid dealing with both simultaneously. In this scenario, Russia is seen as the easier challenge to compartmentalize—if not through full cooperation, then at least by reducing the intensity of its confrontation with the West.

Yet, despite this shift, Project 2025 does not advocate treating Russia as an ally. The document makes this explicit: while there may be tactical areas of cooperation, Russia remains a rival and potential adversary. A key example is the Arctic, where the U.S. has signaled interest in working with Russia to block China’s self-declared status as a “near-Arctic state”. The rationale here is straightforward: Russia has existing Arctic dominance, while China is the rising challenger. By aligning with Moscow on this front, the U.S. can contain Beijing’s Polar Silk Road ambitions, reducing China’s influence in a key strategic region. This, in parallel to increased U.S. interest in Greenland, highlights the prioritization of this dual approach to the Arctic circle, the resources it has to offer, and its geostrategic position.

However, Project 2025 was drafted in April 2023, and in the time since, major geopolitical developments have altered the implementation of its core principles. While its structural logic remains intact, the way Trump’s administration is enacting it has diverged in several ways.

The Trump Factor and the Influence of His Inner Circle

The Mandate may provide the roadmap, but President Trumps perspective and inclinations, as well as the ideological bent of the people surrounding him, are influencing the manner in which it is being executed.

The most obvious shift is that the administration has been far more openly critical of Europe than of Russia, which would seem counter intuitive to an American foreign policy perspective, but nevertheless aligns well with the strategy of containing China. Europe has little leverage and impact on China, and is already allied with if not dependent on the U.S.. Russia however is strongly connected with China, and their combined power is more difficult to manage than if they were less entangled, and therefore driving a wedge between them works in American favor.

This does not mean that the Trump administration is anti-Europe in the broadest sense, but rather it is cool toward the European center-left, which it views as both ideologically unaligned with its own agenda and overly dependent on American military support without contributing proportionally, i.e. sharing the burden.

This sentiment is reinforced by key figures in Trump’s orbit, such as Elon Musk, Steve Bannon, and J.D. Vance, who align more closely with Europe’s far-right movements, with the latter making a point of meeting the head of the German right wing AfD party during his visit to Munich. The ideological connection due to similarities of positions on issues like migration and Russia policies, helped shape the current administration’s less confrontational stance toward Russia, as much of the European populist leaders -Victor Orban of Hungary and Robert Fico of Slovakia for example- have opposed deeper escalation with Moscow.

This ideological influence has pulled the administration’s approach toward Russia in a different direction than the one envisioned by Project 2025, softening its rhetoric and increasing the focus on European burden-sharing instead of a purely adversarial stance toward Russia. Rather than treating Russia as an outright adversary, Washington is exploring limited engagements that serve broader U.S. strategic goals—most notably, countering China’s expansion.

Another major departure from Project 2025 lies in how the administration is approaching the Russia-China dynamic. The original document acknowledges the challenge of deterring two nuclear adversaries simultaneously but does not explicitly advocate splitting Russia from China. The Trump administration, however, appears to be actively pursuing this course—testing whether a closer relationship with Russia can create a strategic wedge between Moscow and Beijing. The logic behind this approach is straightforward: if Russia remains deeply tied to China, the U.S. faces the risk of a formidable geopolitical bloc working against its interests. But if Moscow retains some level of strategic independence, Washington has a far easier time isolating China as the primary adversary.

The former policy, that of isolating Russia did not pan out. It simply entrenched its ties to Beijing while Moscow redoubled its efforts with the Global South, which remained unsupportive of the collective Western approach toward Russia as evidenced by the growing membership of the BRICS, and the lack of support in multilateral platforms for European or American led sanctions against Russia. What that meant was that Russia would progressively become more reliant on China, and therefore more inclined to align with Chinese policy rather than American.

This gamble is not without risk of course. The rapid shift in posture by the American government, a pattern repeated twice now under successive administrations, has painted the U.S. as an unreliable ally. Therefore, even if Russia were to engage positively with the current administration, it is unlikely to fully invest in any long term relationship with the U.S. given the likelihood of another drastic shift in direction after any upcoming elections. Russia, like others, will likely have reassessed its U.S. policy to reflect four year commitments, with nothing guaranteed beyond the term of any given administration.

Shifting Global Norms and Power Carve-Ups

Beyond U.S.-Russia relations, this policy shift signals a broader transformation in how Washington approaches the global order. When the U.S. approached the world through a unipolar lens, with itself as the primary power, it adopted a “rules for thee, not for me” approach to international law and the ruled based order, where it sought to breach international law when convenient and enforce it -through the use of international systems- against others.

However, the Trump administration approaches the world as a de facto multipolar world, and therefore the approach it adopts is different. It may be more inclined to disregard enforcement of international laws and norms toward others it regards as peers –‘great powers’- added to its preexisting disregard for international systems and multilateral frameworks to begin with. Under this new multipolar paradigm, the Trump administration appears to be testing a different approach—one where great powers informally coordinate to ensure that breaches of international norms do not disrupt their own strategic interests.

Ultimately, the shift in U.S. policy is not about embracing Russia, but about reordering America’s global priorities. Washington now sees China as the primary geopolitical challenge, and Russia’s role is being adjusted accordingly, possibly through distancing it from Beijing. Whether this gamble succeeds—or whether it emboldens Moscow in ways Washington cannot control—remains to be seen; after all there is nothing to stop Moscow from playing both sides.

Europe’s Miscalculations: A Policy Trapped in Inertia

As the U.S. redefines its strategic priorities, Europe finds itself locked into a rigid policy framework that is ill suited to address the realities of the shifting geopolitical landscape. Prior to the U.S. diplomatic push in late 2021, France and Germany were reluctant to take an excessively adversarial stance toward Russia, recognizing that there were enough intertwined economic and security interests to explore other avenues of engagement and dissuade Russia from a path to war.

Yet, when the U.S. launched its diplomatic campaign in favor of a more hard line position toward Moscow, Europe gradually shifted position and adopted the American stance under the NATO and EU umbrellas. It did so leaving few, if any, avenues open for future negotiations with the Kremlin, or to hedge its bets against future policy shifts.

As the conflict escalated, European states dug deeper into their position, reinforcing their stance with every step and growing more rigid over time. The assumption was that a cohesive Western response would cripple Russia’s ability to sustain the war, sever its economic ties, and force a political collapse or retreat. However, the reality did not unfold as expected.

Unintended Consequences: A Strategy That Failed to Deliver

Despite extensive political and economic pressure on Moscow, Europe has struggled to meaningfully weaken Russia’s position—militarily, economically, or diplomatically.

First, Russia proved far more resilient than anticipated. Rather than collapsing under Western sanctions, it rapidly adapted to a wartime economy, reconfiguring its supply chains and securing new trade partnerships across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The expectation that Russia would be isolated failed to materialize—its international influence actually expanded. The Kazan conference and the growth of BRICS have only reinforced Moscow’s prominence on the world stage, showing that Russia is not as isolated as Europe had hoped.

Second, Europe failed to rally the Global South to its position. European efforts to convince the Global South to align against Russia largely fell flat. Many nations in Africa, the Middle East, and South America saw Europe’s stance as hypocritical—another case of Western double standards rather than a principled stand against aggression. The failure to anticipate this lack of support exposed a major gap in Europe’s foreign policy approach, one that had been years in the making.

Third, European security efforts have fallen short of expectations. Even with U.S. financial and military backing, Ukraine has struggled to hold the line against Russian advances. Meanwhile, Europe’s own military capacity remains limited, and despite years of warnings, it has yet to prove it can independently mount an effective deterrent force, further strengthening the U.S. position that it is over burdened by its European Allies. Even Ukraine’s Zelensky stated flatly that without the U.S., Europe cannot provide enough of a security guarantee to deter Moscow.

Now, as the U.S. shifts its position, Europe must grapple with the uncomfortable reality that its strategy has not only failed to achieve its objectives but has also left the continent exposed to shifting U.S. priorities.

A Region Bound by Bureaucratic Inertia

Instead of adapting to this new strategic reality, European leadership remains largely constrained by institutional inertia. Rather than acknowledging the failures of their approach and seeking a more flexible or pragmatic alternative, leaders across the continent appear more inclined to double down on their existing stance—even when it is no longer strategically viable.

This is a classic case of the sunk-cost fallacy: policymakers, having invested so much political and economic capital into a single course of action, now fear the reputational cost of reversing their position. To do so would open the doors for their domestic political opponents to dethrone their governments and assume the reins in upcoming elections.

Already we see a considerable rise of the right wing AfD in Germany in the upcoming elections, spurred by both an anti-immigrant policy and a more neutral approach to Russia. Rising energy costs and economic strain have fueled growing public dissatisfaction with the government’s policies. The war’s economic impact has been significant, with many European businesses and industries struggling to absorb the cost of severed energy ties with Russia.

To counter this growing discontent, European leaders have increasingly resorted to heightened rhetoric—as seen in Macron’s recent statements portraying Russia as an existential threat. But the contradiction remains glaring: if European leaders truly believed Russia was an existential threat, they would already be massively increasing their defense spending. As John Mearsheimer pointed out in a recent interview, "If they actually thought Russia was a threat, they would be spending more on defense."

The fact that they are only now beginning to seriously discuss ramping up military spending suggests that one of two things, either Western European leaders truly do not believe that Russia poses as much of a threat as they claim, or they do believe that and left their national security in the hands of another country, specifically the U.S.. In the case of the former, it would entail that they have been lying to their constituents about the geopolitical realities they face as nations, and in case of the latter it would mean that they are guilty of a critical national security failure, lending credence to the new American administration’s approach of coercing burden sharing.

What’s at Stake for Europe?

With the U.S. signaling its reduced commitment, Europe now faces an urgent need to reassess its security framework, diplomatic strategy, and global positioning.

First, Europe must develop a credible independent defense strategy. The previous assumption that the U.S. will always act as Europe’s security backstop has now been disproven. If European states continue to operate under this outdated assumption, they risk leaving themselves exposed in future engagements without a clear plan of action.

Second, Europe must confront its foreign policy failures. The inability to rally the Global South against Russia was not just a miscalculation—it was a fundamental diplomatic shortcoming. To remain relevant in global geopolitics, European states must now actively work to repair and strengthen their engagement with non-Western nations.

Third, Europe needs to restore confidence in NATO and the EU’s ability to defend its own members. Eastern European nations are watching closely to see whether the EU can uphold its security commitments. If confidence in NATO’s deterrence capability weakens, internal fractures within the alliance could widen.

Yet, despite these pressing concerns, European leaders appear to be approaching their upcoming meeting with Trump from the wrong angle. Instead of carefully engaging with Washington to navigate the policy shift, Macron and Starmer are attempting to pressure Trump by framing him as weak on Russia— suggesting a fundamental misreading of both Trump’s personality and the basis of his administration’s policy shift.

What’s Next?

The U.S. has made its strategic priorities unmistakably clear: it is reorienting its foreign policy to counter China, recalibrating its stance toward Russia, and redefining its expectations of European allies. Meanwhile, Moscow has responded with measured openness to engagement, recognizing the potential leverage it gains as Washington reshapes the global balance of power.

Europe, by contrast, has yet to produce a unified or effective response. Despite holding two emergency summits, the continent remains caught between its old strategic assumptions and the new reality it faces. The prior expectations that Russia could be weakened through economic isolation and military pressure have not materialized, leaving Europe scrambling to adjust to a world where U.S. priorities have shifted away from its immediate concerns.

While European nations have committed to increasing their defense spending, this is more a reaction to U.S. burden-sharing demands than a demonstration of true strategic autonomy. Defense commitments are rising, but they remain fragmented, uncoordinated, and as of yet insufficient to fill the security vacuum left by Washington’s new position. The continent remains on the sidelines in discussions about the future of Ukraine, with even less influence over the evolving dynamics between Washington and Moscow.

The arrival of Macron and Starmer in Washington represents a critical juncture. Their meetings with Trump will provide a glimpse into the future of transatlantic relations. Will European leaders recognize the shift in U.S. priorities and pivot toward a more independent security strategy, or will they double down on outdated assumptions, further eroding their leverage on the world stage? Will they be able to bring Trump around on Europe and Russia? If European leaders adjust their approach, the larger question remains: will Europe step out of America’s shadow and redefine its role in global power politics?

The answers to these questions will not only determine the future of European security and global alliances—they will shape the next era of geopolitical realities.