
Is Europe ready to break free from US security dependence?
trans-Atlantic security. As evident, the Trump administration is unlikely to commit to a security framework in Europe where it pits Washington against Moscow. In fact, Washington is demonstrably against security commitments abroad, to the extent that its age-old commitments under Nato now hang in the balance.
What is certain, though, is that any road to getting Washington's security commitments is likely to involve a large economic component. As such, the semblance of an offer that the US has put on the table for Ukraine as a guarantee against Moscow is a mineral deal without any explicit security guarantees. Clearly, this approach may not be acceptable to most countries, certainly not to Ukraine.
An immediate repercussion of Washington's security recoil has been the beginning of an almost pan-European consensus on the need to step up and fill potential gaps that could emerge as a result. Most European leaders appeared bound in a consensus to carve a new security assurance for Ukraine, except this time without the US. France, Germany and Britain, along with the EU as a bloc, depicted existential urgency at Sunday's leaders' European security summit in London, knowing that the block may have to take charge of not just its own security but also negotiations on part of Ukraine.
Two recent meetings — one in February in Paris convened by France after the Munich Security Conference, and Sunday's London summit — attest to a fork in the road moment for Europe. While these efforts might be a realistic way to deal with a