Betrayal in Munich: America's Stunning Rebuke of NATO and Ukraine at the 2025 Security Conference

The sixty-first annual Munich Security Conference, held starting February 14, 2025, marked what may be remembered as a watershed moment in transatlantic relations. Rather than addressing emerging threats through collective security frameworks, the gathering was dominated by the United States delivering a series of stunning rebukes to its traditional allies. America made abundantly clear that NATO cannot rely on its involvement in the future, upended years of alliance strategy regarding Ukraine, announced a Saudi-brokered meeting with Putin that excluded both Ukraine and Europe, and signaled its intent to pursue a peace deal in Ukraine regardless of Ukrainian consent. As world leaders departed Germany, they left behind a vacuum of strategic leadership and a fundamental question about the future of the Western alliance.

Key Takeaways

• The United States rejected Ukraine's proposal offering critical mineral extraction rights in exchange for security guarantees, despite the deal's apparent alignment with American interests in great-power competition with China.
• America announced direct talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia scheduled for February 18, 2025, explicitly excluding both Ukraine and European nations from negotiations about Ukraine's future.
• The US made clear it would not prioritize Ukraine's NATO membership, would not deploy American troops for post-war security, and considers a return to pre-2014 territorial conditions (including Crimea and Donbas) 'unrealistic.'
• Vice President JD Vance delivered a confrontational 22-minute speech attacking European governments on domestic policy issues like migration and speech censorship, with security matters mentioned only sparingly, forcing European leaders into defensive postures.
• President Trump held a direct phone call with Vladimir Putin and subsequently announced that a ceasefire deal was 'on the way,' signaling America's willingness to accept Russian demands for permanence in any settlement.
• European leaders convened an emergency summit in France on February 17, 2025, without American participation, bringing together major defense players to formulate their own strategic response to America's policy shift.

Ukraine's Failed Proposal and Deteriorating Position

Heading into what may be remembered as the most consequential weekend of 2025, Ukraine and its backers had reason for cautious optimism. The nation had laid out what appeared to be a winning proposal tailored specifically to appeal to the Trump administration: extraction rights for critical mineral resources in exchange for long-term security guarantees from Washington. This bare-bones transactionalism, with meaningful implications for America's coming great-power competition with China, seemed precisely calibrated to resonate with Trump and his allies.

However, very soon after the Munich conference began, it became clear that not all was proceeding as planned. Talks on the first day between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and American Vice President JD Vance concluded without resolution on the critical minerals deal—or on anything else, for that matter. Kyiv had already revised its proposal to improve its chances of success after the US responded to Ukraine's initial offer with a counter-proposal that Ukraine and its other allies found concerningly minimal on security guarantees. Zelenskyy's comments after the fact indicated that even the revised version hadn't been enough to secure America's cooperation.

According to sources familiar with the meeting, Zelenskyy had attempted to express his displeasure with America's counter-proposal, which had been given to Ukraine just two days before the meeting with hardly any time to review, and was written in a way that multiple sources described as one-sided. From there, Ukraine's situation only deteriorated further.

The Trump-Putin Phone Call and America's New Red Lines

The United States made international headlines on the same day it sent Ukraine its counter-offer, when President Trump held a direct phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose troops still occupy a sizeable portion of Ukraine's east. That phone call came just after Trump's own Defense Secretary had explained to NATO leaders that according to the US, a return to pre-2014 conditions was "unrealistic." Those pre-2014 conditions basically consisted of Ukraine having control over all of its sovereign territory, including the peninsula of Crimea and the eastern Donbas region.

Secretary of Defense Hegseth also made clear that America would not consider deploying US troops to help maintain security in Ukraine after the war, and that the US did not intend on making Ukraine's prospective NATO membership a priority in any peace talks. Against that backdrop, it should have been no surprise when Trump's phone call with Putin that same day was followed by Trump's announcement to American press that a ceasefire deal was on the way.

Trump stated: "I think we're on the way to getting peace. I think President Putin wants peace, President Zelenskyy wants peace and I want peace. I just want to see people stop getting killed." Trump further specified that Putin "doesn't want to end it and then go back to fighting six months later." The implication was clear: America was prepared to accept Russian demands for permanence in any settlement.

The Saudi Arabia Meeting: Negotiating Ukraine's Future Without Ukraine

With both America's non-negotiables and the prior Putin conversation in mind, the events that came after America and Ukraine's unsuccessful negotiation weren't a surprise—but news doesn't necessarily have to be surprising in order to be stunning. According to insider sources, later confirmed by the Kremlin, the United States and Russia would hold a meeting in Saudi Arabia within days of the conclusion of proceedings in Munich. That meeting, scheduled for Tuesday the eighteenth, involved face-to-face discussions between America's Secretary of State and Russia's Foreign Minister, paving the way for an upcoming direct meeting between Trump and Putin.

The major catch: Ukraine was not invited to these peace talks, and neither was Europe. America's Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, justified the decision by stating that previous negotiations with Russia had failed because too many parties had been involved in the discussions. For Kyiv, already watching Washington cede many of its demands without a fight and watching Washington inexplicably decline what should have been a golden-goose resource extraction deal, the implications are devastating.

Russian officials indicated that the talks would focus in part on "restoring the entire complex of US-Russian relations," as well as a partial focus on Ukraine, lending credence to the idea that Ukraine may be just one bargaining item out of many for the two nations actually holding talks. With that US-Russia dialogue, three years of NATO policy to ice Russia out of the international community have been thrown out the window. Trump, for whatever it's worth, has pledged to keep Kyiv in the loop, but it's not clear that such a process would involve anything more than filling Zelenskyy in on terms that have been worked out without his involvement.

Ukraine's Limited Options and Leverage

It's all but impossible to overstate just how profoundly America's actions change the game in Eastern Europe. Moscow is fully aware, as is Europe and Ukraine itself, that Ukraine's other allies are simply not capable of organized resistance right now if the US were to agree to Moscow's peace terms. NATO nations are growing a bit stronger year over year, but they're still quite a long way off from being able to support Ukraine militarily without US involvement, and they've got little practical leverage to force the United States toward a more favorable negotiating posture.

Zelenskyy has insisted, in conversation with foreign journalists, that talks between the US and Russia without Ukraine would "yield no results," and has indicated that he will travel to Saudi Arabia on the day following the Russia-US talks there. But that trip to Saudi Arabia is only minimally relevant to those talks, Ukrainian officials have no intent of meeting directly with their Russian counterparts, and in truth, a conversation between Russia and the US without Ukraine can yield quite a few results. Kyiv is well within its right to resent that reality, but it'll have few, if any means to resist once the US and Russia have gone over Ukraine's head and agreed on whatever terms they decide.

JD Vance's Confrontational Speech: Beyond Diplomatic Critique

Yet as impactful as America's actions on Ukraine have undoubtedly been, they're far from the only global shift that went down in Munich. Just as important, if not even a bit more so, was what appeared to be the opening salvo in a nasty divorce between the United States and Europe. Although the US has yet to simply pull itself out of the NATO alliance, the events of Munich made it abundantly clear that America and its European allies are on the outs.

That change was best encapsulated in a fiery speech on Friday the fourteenth by America's new Vice President, JD Vance, on the same day that he concluded US-Ukraine negotiations without a mineral rights deal. On that day, Vance took to the stage in a 22-minute address eviscerating European democracies on matters from migration to the censorship of speech to other matters that are referred to in the US as 'culture war issues'—the same ones that brought Vance's own boss to re-election. Ukraine and other security matters were mentioned only sparingly in the address.

Far more relevant from a strategic perspective, however, was the fact that Vance was directed to make such a speech at all. Sentiments of defiance notwithstanding, Vance's address was the clearest indicator yet that the United States now has little interest in working with Europe as a collaborative partner—let alone an equal one. The speech itself, singling out and lambasting individual governments as well as issuing blanket condemnations against continental leaders, was the sort of thing that went well beyond diplomatic critique. While it doesn't particularly matter whether a Prime Minister here or a President there might have their feelings hurt, Vance's speech was the sort of thing that would force European officials into a defensive posture—and it appears transparently obvious that that's what the US had intended to do.

European Response: Stunned Consensus and Sharp Rebukes

European leaders took the bait. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius issued harsh rebukes, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas accused the US of "trying to pick a fight," countries that were on the receiving end of individual allegations gave their own sharp rebuttals, and according to journalists who'd been present at the event, the vast majority of European attendees left in a stunned but resigned consensus that America's position toward them had fundamentally shifted.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed the sentiment best: "The US vice-president made it clear: decades of the old relationship between Europe and America are ending. From now on, things will be different, and Europe needs to adjust to that." The reality is that European leaders must take these statements as they're given, not as Trump may hope they'd be received. And as of now, the overwhelming consensus coming out of Munich is that Vance's remarks, America's complete lack of interest in bringing Europe in on negotiations with Russia, and many of America's other recent geopolitical actions indicate that the US simply does not intend to maintain its support of Europe.

America's recent imposition of blanket tariffs on steel and aluminum producers only served to further reinforce that perception—as did Vance's meeting with the far-right German party, the AfD, shortly after his public remarks concluded.

Europe's Emergency Summit: Responding Without America

In the wake of the Munich conference, European leaders began their own efforts toward a rapid response. French President Emmanuel Macron, himself fresh off a political crisis at home, hosted a summit between Europe's largest defense players—with the United States quite conspicuously not invited to join. Those talks began on Monday the seventeenth, a day before US and Russian officials sat down in Saudi Arabia, and they brought together leaders from France, the United Kingdom, Poland, Germany, Italy, and others of Europe's more potent military powers, along with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

At the emergency summit, those European nations intended to directly address and form a response to America's change in policy toward Ukraine, while also laying the groundwork for a much larger strategic pivot on the continent. Of course, it's not yet clear what, if anything, this emergency summit will achieve. After years and years of deadlock, infighting, and quite embarrassing hesitation from European leaders on security matters, it's certainly fair to expect the same here. But if what European leaders needed in order to get their act together was a collective dunk into cold water, then they've certainly gotten that—and if the continent is ever going to take any sort of useful group action on defense, it's got to happen now.

As Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who joined Emmanuel Macron in calling the meeting, stated: "President Trump has a method of operating, which the Russians call reconnaissance through battle. You push and you see what happens, and then you change your position, legitimate tactics. And we need to respond."

The American Questionnaire: An Opening for European Leverage

Among European leaders' priorities will be their response to a questionnaire put out by Washington to European capitals, in what appears to be America's only real attempt to engage Europe in the upcoming peace process. That questionnaire asks European nations whether they'd be willing to deploy troops to Ukraine in a peace settlement, how many troops they'd deploy in such a scenario, and whether they can contribute to any security guarantees made to Ukraine or Russia. The document also asks what those same nations would need from Washington, opening the door for Europe to remind Washington that in its current posture, it can only provide security guarantees with American support.

At present, there's an open discussion between European leaders on whether the continent may provide the US with a collective answer. Perhaps as a sign of encouragement for Europe, the questionnaire does raise the prospect of increased sanctions on Russia, and directly requests information on capabilities that might "increase pressure on Russia" while improving Ukrainian leverage in negotiations.

Additional comments by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio may be intended to encourage Europe to take advantage of this moment, with Rubio claiming in a CBS News interview that Europe would be part of any "real negotiations." Trump reportedly spoke with Emmanuel Macron over the phone immediately before the start of Europe's emergency summit, although the nature and contents of that call have not been disclosed at the time of writing. If Trump and Vance do indeed intend to stir European leaders into a panic in order to get them to react decisively, then it appears that this questionnaire is America's way of inviting a decisive reaction—although there are no guarantees that Europe will swallow that panic and make a quick contribution.

The European Army Debate: Off the Table for Now

One potential answer did find itself shot down by European leaders in Munich: the idea of a unified European army. That's a long-debated concept that Volodymyr Zelenskyy brought back up to the surface during his own remarks in Munich, first pointing out that in regard to negotiations with Russia, "not once did Trump mention that America needs Europe at that table. That says a lot. The old days are over – when America supported Europe just because it always had."

Zelenskyy continued: "We need confidence in our own strength so that others have no choice but to respect Europe's power. And without a European army, that is impossible. Once again, Europe needs its own armed forces." European officials would go on to stress that a unification of the continent's armies would not happen. As Poland's Foreign Minister, a leading voice on European rearmament, put it: "If you understand by it the unification of national armies, it will not happen."

While Europe could propose a whole range of potential solutions in response to America's recent actions, it appears that at least for now, military unification is off the table. That said, both the United States and NATO's Secretary-General have recently urged Europe to step up its defense spending, with Trump in January calling for NATO to raise its two-percent-of-GDP minimum spending expectation to five percent. In a moment that the US has indicated Europe should regard as dire times, an agreement on rapid spending increases might finally be within reach.

A Turning Point for the Transatlantic Alliance

Regardless of what happens next, the events of Munich are likely to be remembered as a turning point for Europe, Ukraine, and the NATO alliance for years to come. What was intended to be a moment for NATO nations and Ukraine to decide on a unified approach to peace negotiations instead turned into an American rejection of the European continent, and one that won't soon be forgotten by any side.

How the United States intends to play this situation in the long run is anybody's guess, and arguments that Trump has either lost his marbles or is playing eight-dimensional chess will have to be settled in real time as the situation evolves. But no matter what else, Europe has been quite abruptly informed that to Washington, it is now a bargaining chip, and any leverage it wants to exert is leverage that it'll have to build all by itself.

Perhaps Europe can rise to the challenge, or perhaps it can't. The fate of Ukraine may well hang in the balance. The vacuum of strategic leadership left by America's withdrawal from its traditional role will now be somebody else's to fill—if anyone proves capable of filling it at all.

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FAQ

What was Ukraine's proposal to the United States at the Munich Security Conference?

Ukraine proposed offering extraction rights for critical mineral resources in exchange for long-term security guarantees from Washington. This proposal was designed to appeal to the Trump administration through transactionalism with implications for America's great-power competition with China. However, the US responded with a counter-proposal that Ukraine and its allies found concerningly minimal on security guarantees, and negotiations between President Zelenskyy and Vice President Vance on February 14 concluded without resolution.

Why was Ukraine excluded from the US-Russia talks in Saudi Arabia?

America's Special Envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, justified the exclusion by stating that previous negotiations with Russia had failed because too many parties had been involved in the discussions. The meeting, scheduled for February 18, 2025, involved face-to-face discussions between America's Secretary of State and Russia's Foreign Minister, with neither Ukraine nor Europe invited to participate in negotiations about Ukraine's future.

What did the US Defense Secretary say about Ukraine's territorial integrity?

Defense Secretary Hegseth explained to NATO leaders that according to the US, a return to pre-2014 conditions was 'unrealistic.' Those pre-2014 conditions consisted of Ukraine having control over all of its sovereign territory, including the peninsula of Crimea and the eastern Donbas region. Hegseth also made clear that America would not consider deploying US troops to help maintain security in Ukraine after the war and would not make Ukraine's prospective NATO membership a priority in peace talks.

What was the focus of Vice President JD Vance's speech at the Munich Security Conference?

Vice President JD Vance delivered a 22-minute address on February 14 that primarily focused on criticizing European democracies on domestic policy issues including migration, censorship of speech, and culture war issues. Ukraine and other security matters were mentioned only sparingly. The speech singled out and lambasted individual governments and issued blanket condemnations against continental leaders, going well beyond typical diplomatic critique.

How did European leaders respond to America's actions at Munich?

European leaders issued harsh rebukes, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius criticizing the US approach, and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas accusing America of 'trying to pick a fight.' In response, French President Emmanuel Macron hosted an emergency summit on February 17, 2025, bringing together leaders from France, the UK, Poland, Germany, Italy, and other major European military powers, along with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, notably without inviting the United States.

What is the American questionnaire sent to European capitals?

The questionnaire asks European nations whether they would be willing to deploy troops to Ukraine in a peace settlement, how many troops they would deploy, and whether they can contribute to security guarantees made to Ukraine or Russia. It also asks what those nations would need from Washington and raises the prospect of increased sanctions on Russia while requesting information on capabilities that might 'increase pressure on Russia' and improve Ukrainian leverage in negotiations.

What did President Zelenskyy say about a European army?

Zelenskyy stated that 'not once did Trump mention that America needs Europe at that table. That says a lot. The old days are over – when America supported Europe just because it always had.' He continued: 'We need confidence in our own strength so that others have no choice but to respect Europe's power. And without a European army, that is impossible. Once again, Europe needs its own armed forces.' However, European officials stressed that unification of national armies would not happen.

Can Ukraine resist a US-Russia peace deal without its consent?

Ukraine has very limited ability to resist. Moscow, Europe, and Ukraine itself are all aware that Ukraine's other allies are not capable of organized resistance if the US agrees to Moscow's peace terms. NATO nations are growing stronger year over year but are still far from being able to support Ukraine militarily without US involvement, and they have little practical leverage to force the United States toward a more favorable negotiating posture. Zelenskyy indicated he would travel to Saudi Arabia the day after the US-Russia talks, but Ukrainian officials have no intent of meeting directly with Russian counterparts.

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