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國際現勢 -- 開欄文
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瀏覽11,491 ｜回應13｜推薦1 |
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川普上台後，世局大戲一齣接一齣；國際高潮一波又一波。他並非原因或主角，只不過身間觸媒和插科打諢兩個角色而已。悲劇變鬧劇一再上演，根據「量變導致質變」法則，在川痞/川瘋/川丑三合一變形臭蟲下台前，我們怕不是要看好幾場慘劇。能不能渡過這個「川劫」，就要看我們大家的造化，和一眾善男信女「阿門」或「阿彌陀佛」的修為了。
由於節目繁多，劇情層出不窮：
1) 「親愛的，我把『規則』變沒了」
2) 「親愛的，我不裝了！自由主義的面具太沉重，還是帝國主義本尊帥氣」
3) 「親愛的，『大衛大戰歌利亞』的戲碼改成『卡尼勇嗆川瘋子』」
4) 「親愛的，『阿貓阿狗』們登場機會來了」
5)、6)、7)、8)、9)…，族繁不及備載。
故開此欄，一起欣賞當下各顯神通，讓人眼花繚爛的棋局和好戲。同喜還是同悲，且聽下回分解。本部落格原有個別地區或重大議題的專欄，仍然照常營業。
本文於 修改第 2 次
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歐洲走上獨立於美國之外的路 - Marina Henke等
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Europe Goes Its Own Way
Drifting From America, the Continent Is Rearming and Reordering Itself
Marina Henke, Iren Marinova, and Till Knobloch, 06/29/26
Europeans have been humiliated, disparaged, and sidelined since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to office in 2025. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that Europe has become the president’s favorite punching bag. The continent is, his administration believes, militarily emaciated, economically irrelevant, politically unfit, and culturally doomed to civilizational erasure. Trump’s attempt to coerce Denmark into relinquishing Greenland in 2025 was symbolic of the administration’s dismissive attitude.
So set is Washington in its beliefs about Europe, however, that it has overlooked the profound changes that are taking place. For the first time in decades, Europeans recognize the dangers that surround them. They are, accordingly, willing to invest in military resources and serve in their countries’ armed forces. From these shifts a new grand strategy is slowly being forged, which signals a new European geopolitical and strategic trajectory. Europe has come to recognize that its old paradigm—wealth without military strength, influence without sacrifice, and protection without obligation—is no longer sustainable. To dismiss Europe as permanently irrelevant is to ignore the scale and depth of the changes that are now underway. For decades, European countries reflexively aligned themselves with Washington’s priorities. They were even willing to send their soldiers to fight in U.S.-led wars that many of their publics—and at times their governments—regarded as misguided, peripheral, or strategically costly. A Europe that invests seriously in its own defense will no longer do that—and Washington had better get ready.
EUROPE AWAKENS
After decades of complacency, Europeans have awakened to the reality that they live in a dangerous world. According to polling conducted for the European Commission, 77 percent of Europeans think that Russia’s war in Ukraine represents a direct threat to Europe’s survival. Concern is strongest in eastern and northern Europe, but 59 percent of respondents in Germany, 50 percent in France, and 49 percent in the United Kingdom also consider Russia the greatest threat to their country’s national security. These are Europe’s largest and most powerful states. The Russian threat is thus no longer a concern confined to Europe’s periphery. It has moved to the heart of the continent.
This sense of insecurity is increased by the fact that many Europeans now realize that they can no longer rely on the United States. According to a YouGov poll commissioned by the European Council on Foreign Relations in May, only 11 percent of Europeans across the 15 surveyed countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) viewed the United States as an ally—down sharply from 16 percent six months earlier and 22 percent in November 2024. While confidence in the United States has been steadily declining in most surveyed countries, it is a more recent development in Hungary and Poland. Majorities in every country surveyed expressed doubt that the United States would come to their defense in the event of an attack, while 25 percent of respondents now see the United States as either a rival or an adversary.
Given the Russian threat and U.S. unreliability, many Europeans now support military buildups. Majorities in Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Poland, Portugal, and the United Kingdom favor increasing national defense expenditures. Italy is the only country where a clear majority remains opposed. Remarkably, across the 15 countries surveyed, 47 percent of respondents now support collective EU borrowing to finance defense initiatives, with 59 percent in favor in Portugal, 56 percent in Denmark, and 55 percent in the Netherlands. Until very recently, this idea was politically unthinkable. Equally striking, majorities now also favor cutting Europe’s dependence on U.S. military hardware and turning instead to European alternatives. Support for buying European is especially pronounced in Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
Finally, majorities in France, Germany, and Poland now support reinstating mandatory military service, which is already in place in countries such as Denmark, Estonia, and Switzerland. Poland and Germany ended compulsory conscription in 2010 and 2011, respectively, whereas France phased out mandatory military service in the late 1990s. Over the past 30 years, support for conscription in many European countries had become a minority position. Today, it is becoming increasingly mainstream.
GOING IT ALONE
European defense spending is going through the roof. In 2024, the 27 EU member states spent approximately $402 billion on defense, far surpassing Russia’s military outlays of $160 billion. Germany has taken a leading role, and Berlin now accounts for roughly a quarter of total EU defense spending, making it the world’s fourth-largest military spender. It is on track to spend $172 billion (or roughly 3.6 percent of its GDP) by 2029—an increase of almost 200 percent from 2022. In most European states, this increase has been welcomed as a necessary measure to deter Russia. As Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski put it in April: “As long as Germany is a member of the EU and NATO, I am more afraid of a German aversion to armament than I am of the German army.” France, meanwhile, worries that German rearmament threatens a long-standing division of labor: Germany as Europe’s economic power, France as its military-strategic power. Paris is adjusting to this new reality by trying to bind Germany to a system of French-German defense industrial cooperation—so far with mixed success.
To reduce its dependence on U.S. equipment, Europe is also ramping up its military-industrial capacity. In Berlin, startups such as Helsing and Stark Defense are competing for multibillion-euro drone contracts. Meanwhile, Quantum Frontline Industries, a German-Ukrainian defense venture, started industrial-scale drone production near Munich earlier this year. Although Berlin is still at the beginning of its endeavors to develop autonomous capabilities, it can draw on decades of experience in heavy equipment manufacturing. Rheinmetall, Germany’s largest defense contractor, is partnering with the Italian defense company Leonardo on the production of more than 1,000 new infantry fighting vehicles and up to 350 Panther KF51 main battle tanks for the Italian army.
Such developments are not confined to equipment. Croatia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Sweden have reintroduced compulsory military service in response to Russian aggression. Germany, which suspended conscription in 2011, has decided to reactivate military service. Since it is initially relying on voluntary enlistment, policymakers including German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier questioned whether sufficient numbers of young men would sign up for the armed forces, or Bundeswehr. But their fears have proved unfounded. By the end of March 2026, 12,700 people were completing voluntary military service in the Bundeswehr, up 13.5 percent from the previous year, while around 22,700 had applied for a military career, a gain of 20 percent. This development puts the German armed forces on track to approach the country’s medium-term target of 260,000 active soldiers and 200,000 reservists by the mid-2030s, advancing Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s stated goal of making the Bundeswehr once again “the strongest conventional army in Europe.” In Sweden, the shift is even more astounding: it has more qualified and motivated applicants to serve in its armed forces than it can absorb and accepts less than ten percent of the eligible young people who apply.
THE ROAD AHEAD
After the Cold War, most European countries made economic prosperity rather than national security the organizing principle of their grand strategy. At the heart of this vision lay a deep faith in global trade. Economic interdependence, their policymakers believed, would moderate political conflict and make war less likely. Where states remained unruly, Europe sought to discipline and transform them through aid, trade, law, regulation, and standards. This was the grand strategy: to govern geopolitics through markets, rules, and integration.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shattered this notion, and the search for a grand new design began. Merz has provided the most coherent account of it so far, articulating the concept of “principled realism” in an essay in Foreign Affairs. At its core, his grand strategic framework features a cold-eyed analysis. The international order, which was based on rights and rules, no longer exists, and we have entered an era that is instead governed by the naked exercise of power. Germany must adapt and reenter the realm of hard power—undertaking large-scale military rearmament, overhauling its armed forces and intelligence services, and sustaining support for Ukraine for as long as necessary.
Yet in this transformation, Germany must not lose sight of the principles of democracy, the rule of law, and international cooperation that have guided it since 1945. Although it cannot uphold the global rules-based order single-handedly, it can help shape a regional order—and perhaps even an order among like-minded states outside Europe—that preserves a minimum of stability and predictability. In this context, relations with the United States will be adjusted, not abandoned. A sentimental friendship will become a pragmatic partnership.
A renewed tendency toward European cooperation can be seen across the continent. Brexit has shown the economic costs of leaving the European single market, with a study by the National Bureau of Economic Research estimating that British GDP in 2025 was six to eight percent lower than it would have been had the United Kingdom not left the European Union. Meanwhile, Switzerland, which never joined the EU, has been engaged in difficult and costly negotiations with the United States over tariffs, underscoring the vulnerabilities of small states in bilateral power-based bargaining. The opposite approach was demonstrated when Trump pressured Denmark over Greenland. That clash proved that even a small state can withstand great-power coercion when backed by European partners—an outcome Copenhagen would have struggled to achieve alone. As a consequence, even Iceland is reconsidering its long-standing opposition to EU membership, and a majority of British citizens now favor rejoining the EU. European states recognize that collective action and alliances are essential, as few can effectively defend their interests in isolation.
WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
This strategic alignment can be put in jeopardy. Differences in national preferences persist, and Euroskeptic parties threaten the continent’s cohesion. Polls currently show France’s National Rally winning next year’s presidential election. Although the party has softened its earlier calls for the country to leave NATO and the EU, it remains committed to an agenda that would weaken French support for deeper European integration, constrain cooperation with Brussels, and complicate efforts to strengthen European security cooperation. Meanwhile, the Euroskeptic party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has emerged as a major force, polling at around 28 percent nationally. Although institutional barriers and coalition politics make it unlikely that the AfD will capture the German chancellorship in the near term, the party’s increasing power at the state level will limit the country’s dedication to European rearmament initiatives.
It is therefore unlikely that the EU, with its 27 often unruly members, will be able to jointly adopt any new grand strategic framework—let alone the institutional adaptations required to implement it. For the bloc to truly turn into a defense institution, it would need to move toward a majority voting mechanism, which would require each member state to transfer sovereignty to Brussels. Even in the most pro-EU states, there is little appetite for such a profound overhaul. The likeliest development, then, is the emergence of overlapping European security institutions. NATO will remain fundamental, but Europeans will likely begin to slowly take over responsibility for the organization’s planning, leadership, and manpower.
Alongside NATO will be clusters of European states that seek deeper strategic integration. A successful recent example of this development is the Joint Expeditionary Force. This British-led military framework of ten northern European states is designed for rapid, flexible crisis response—especially in the Arctic, North Atlantic, and Baltic Sea regions. Another example is a French-led “advanced deterrence” initiative for which nine other European countries have signed up. Under this arrangement, the ten countries’ militaries will participate in exercises involving France’s air-launched nuclear forces and host air bases capable of accommodating French nuclear-capable aircraft. Participating countries will also contribute to the development of supporting capabilities, including space-based early warning systems, air defense to intercept drones and missiles, and long-range strike systems. The initiative is focused on the integration of nuclear and conventional weapons, as well as on finding a European response to Russian nuclear blackmail—the most plausible and immediate nuclear scenario Europe may face in the years ahead—and for which U.S. forces might not stand ready to help.
ACROSS THE WATER
Transatlantic tensions are nothing new. European relations with Washington suffered over the botched British, French, and Israeli attempt to seize the Suez Canal in 1956, over U.S. actions in Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, and over the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. Yet the current level of conflict between Washington and European capitals is unprecedented. So, too, is the action that Europe is taking to ensure its own security. Russia may be a formidable nuclear power, but it lacks the economic and technological foundations of a superpower. As a result, Europe’s ambition to achieve its security goals is realistic in the medium term. A Europe responsible for its own security has not been seen for almost a century. During the Cold War, Europe depended on the United States; those days are gone.
It would be a mistake for Europe to simply wait out Trump and hope for a more sympathetic U.S. president. The war in Ukraine may be decided before the Trump presidency ends, and with it the future balance of power on the European continent. Europe, therefore, cannot defer the hard choices about its own defense in the hope that Washington will eventually return to form. Nor would Trump’s departure necessarily restore the old order. Many Europeans now suspect that even a future Democratic administration would be pulled inexorably toward the Indo-Pacific, where the United States increasingly sees China as its central strategic competitor. Finally, Trump’s assault on democratic institutions, combined with the broader erosion of governing capacity in Washington, has raised doubts about whether the United States will remain able—or be seen as able—to honor its commitments in a moment of crisis. If Moscow, Beijing, or any other adversary comes to believe that the United States is too fractured, distracted, or depleted to respond with force and speed, Europe cannot afford to be left improvising. It must have its own answer ready.
Although the Trump administration might applaud the changes in Europe, their downsides have already become apparent. As the United States initiated Operation Epic Fury in February, Spain would not allow U.S. warplanes access to its airspace, and the United Kingdom would not allow U.S. forces to use the Diego Garcia base. Later, Merz publicly criticized the ongoing war—much to Trump’s fury. New economic, political and social constituencies are emerging that will block any full restoration of the transatlantic bond. Future relations may be friendly and they may be close. But they will be different.
MARINA HENKE is Professor of International Relations at the Hertie School and Director of its Centre for International Security.
IREN MARINOVA is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
TILL KNOBLOCH is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
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俄國財政崩盤是普丁垮台前兆 - Jason Ma
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請參考：
* Putin: Russia is facing problems in Ukraine war (06/29)
* In Viral Post, Russian Veteran Warns Putin Of Mutiny, Then Walks Back Threat
The end of Putin’s regime will spring from war spending chaos, former central bank advisor says, amid military mutiny threat and fuel-shortage brawls
Jason Ma, 06/28/26
Vladimir Putin's grip on power has remained resilient despite the economic woes caused by his invasion of Ukraine, but the seeds of an eventual decline may have already been planted, according to a former Russian central bank advisor.
A telltale sign is the Kremlin's abandonment of any fiscal discipline as the costs of fighting the Ukraine war, which is now in its fifth year, strain existing resources.
Alexandra Prokopenko, who is now a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, pointed out in a recent Financial Times op-ed that the war has forced Russia to unwind its long-touted fiscal restraint.
In a striking example of the turnaround, Russia's parliament recently gave the finance ministry a blank check to spend more and borrow past its debt ceiling without a formal budget or explicit legislative approval.
That's as the budget deficit through May is already double 2025's full-year level, hitting 2.6% of GDP, or about $83 billion. At the same time, Russia's sovereign wealth fund, which has been tapped to cover budget shortfalls, is being rapidly depleted and just a fraction of prewar levels.
"A cornered autocracy is rewriting the fiscal rules as it goes, cutting parliament out of the loop, and will not admit to dangers it cannot control," Prokopenko wrote. "It's less dramatic than a palace coup, but this is what decline looks like."
The precipitous deterioration in Russia's finances coincides with Ukraine's stunning military successes this year. Advanced drones and new tactics have allowed Kyiv to not hold off the Russian military's attacks but push them back and regain territory. Long-range drones are also reaching deep into Russia, including St. Petersburg and Moscow, targeting refineries and the defense industrial base.
The result has been devastating battlefield casualties that now outpace the ability to raise fresh recruits as well as soaring death-benefit payouts and widespread fuel shortages across the country.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin has been unable to defend against all of Ukraine's drone attacks, forcing companies to spend more than $1 billion of their own money on makeshift protection. But Moscow also refuses to reimburse them.
Putin's "juggling act" has now come to an end as he can no longer fund his war, keep a lid on inflation, and continue growing the economy all at once, Prokopenko said.
"The war is increasingly paid for by quietly invoicing the population and suspending the state's own rules," she added. "A regime sustained this way is heading for a poorer, angrier country, a financial system out of control, and war funding it cannot count on. The end, when it comes, will spring from this kind of decline, the sort that begins long before anyone names it."
For now, Putin's grip on power is secure, but public discontent is growing as average citizens buckle under the pressure of high inflation and onerous interest rates.
Russia's fuel shortage has added to the misery, creating long lines at gas stations with motorists waiting for hours to fill up. Frustration is boiling over, and fights are breaking out between people struggling to buy rationed supplies of gasoline.
In addition, the Russian military's "meat-grinder" tactics in Ukraine, where troops suffer ruinous losses for barely any gain, are creating a backlash.
In fact, the average life expectancy of a new recruit is about 10 days to three weeks, and once on the battlefield, their survival averages just 20-35 minutes, according to Russian military bloggers.
One Russian blogger, who is a veteran the Ukraine war going by the name Aleksandr Lunin, posted a video on Thursday that went viral. In it, he described regular torture of soldiers by their own commanders, according to Radio Free Europe.
Lunin also demanded a live, on-air meeting with Putin and warned that if it did not take place soon, "the army will turn its weapons against the Kremlin." He added that he was relaying the sentiment of active-duty military and security officials who met with him earlier.
But he walked back the mutiny threat on Friday, explaining that if soldiers wanted to rebel, they would do it quietly and not ask him to issue a warning for them.
Still, the original video was so widespread that Putin's spokesman was asked to comment on it, and said the Kremlin was aware "that such an appeal exists."
Peter Frankopan, a professor of global history at the University of Oxford, cautioned in a Foreign Policy article that a revolution in Russia is not likely.
Instead, continued economic pain and disenchantment over the war will convince certain factions in the regime "that it is time for a new start," he said, adding that "today's cracks can become tomorrow's fissures."
But that could also make Putin more dangerous as fights to cling to power, raising the risk of escalation in Ukraine or other parts of Europe.
"Beware the drowning man: The coming months will likely be dangerous outside and inside Russia as Putin tries desperately to stay afloat," Frankopan warned.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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美國不再具有全球一哥實力 -- Nick Lichtenberg
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Ray Dalio just finished a 10-day trip to China. He says global leaders know America ‘doesn’t have what it takes to fight to maintain its empire’
Nick Lichtenberg, 06/24/26
Ray Dalio has spent 42 years visiting China, building relationships with senior officials and studying its political history back to 221 BCE. But after a recent 10-day trip to Beijing—part of a monthlong tour of Asia—the Bridgewater Associates founder says something has changed, and changed fast.
"Over the past few months there has been a big shift in the world order," Dalio wrote in a sweeping essay published June 18 on LinkedIn, where his newsletter has 750,000 subscribers. (A truncated version of the piece also previously appeared in the Financial Times.)
The catalyst, in Dalio's telling, was the United States' handling of Iran's seizure of the Strait of Hormuz. The episode convinced leaders across Asia—including those who host American military bases—of something they had long suspected but never quite said aloud: that the American public "does not have the willingness to endure the discomforts of war," and that Washington "doesn't have what it takes to fight to maintain its empire."
The historical parallel Dalio reaches for is pointed. "This situation looks a lot like the British handling of Egypt's taking of the Suez Canal," he wrote, "which signaled the end of the British Empire."
It is a comparison that Dalio has been building toward for months: In March, he wrote in Fortune that the 2020s feel like "the rise of a new type of world order" resembling "pre-1945 world orders with great powers conflicts and gunboat diplomacy"—a view he illustrated with a Bank of America chart tracing 2,000 years of GDP dominance that showed China's current ascent as a return to historical norms, not a disruption of them.
A new hierarchy takes shape and the righting of a 100-year wound
What Dalio observed in Beijing was not an adversarial standoff but rather a diplomatic migration. World leaders, he says, are now traveling to meet President Xi Jinping to "build tribute-type relationships"—a phrase that is the essay's central thesis. We are, he argued, witnessing the early emergence of a modern version of China's ancient tribute system (朝貢制度): a hierarchical but nonmilitary order in which smaller powers acknowledge Chinese primacy in exchange for economic access and stability.
The diplomatic traffic has been visible: President Trump made a state visit to Beijing in May, a trip that McKinsey's China practice leaders believe reflects a U.S.-China relationship that is no longer "in free fall"—though Dalio would argue the direction of that stabilization matters as much as the fact of it.
The tribute system governed Chinese foreign relations for roughly 2,000 years, from about 200 BCE until the late 19th century. It was not an empire in the Western sense, as China did not occupy or control subordinate states. Instead, it expected deference and received it—with rewards for good relationships and punishments, typically economic, for bad ones. "In the tribute system, relations are not between equals," Dalio wrote, "but between superiors and subordinates that recognize their relative positions in the hierarchy."
The last tribute system, historians know, crumbled under what the Chinese call the "100 Years of Humiliation"—a century of foreign invasion, unequal treaties, and national trauma that began with Britain's defeat of China in the Opium War of 1839 and ended only with the founding of the People's Republic in 1949.
Dalio's lens on the dramatic events that saw the British take control of Hong Kong and open Chinese ports to foreign trade, among other things, focuses on the terms of trade that China was forced to accept and its diminishing influence over Taiwan, Korea, and the South China Sea. These are all situations that, he argues, China will seek to reverse now that the U.S. has played its hand—but China will do so in a very un-American way. "The full story of the 100 Years of Humiliation remains vivid in Chinese leaders' and most Chinese people's minds," Dalio wrote, arguing that it is not history to them, but a wound that reunification with Taiwan would help close.
Xi has been saying as much publicly. In April, as the Iran crisis was roiling global markets and the IMF was cutting its global growth forecast to 3.1%, Xi told Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez that the international order was "crumbling into disarray"—using a Chinese phrase that connotes not just chaos but moral decay. Fortune reported at the time that the comment reflected Beijing's view that the current moment of U.S. retrenchment represented not a crisis to be weathered, but an opportunity to be seized.
Dalio said he suspects that Xi wants that reunification achieved during a potential new term beginning in 2028. Taiwan's own presidential election is scheduled for January of that year, and the island's KMT opposition party—which favors closer ties with Beijing—has been quietly meeting with both Xi and members of the U.S. Congress. A KMT victory could open the door to a Hong Kong–style arrangement, Dalio suggests, without requiring American military intervention or Chinese military force.
Dalio believes that the model is returning and that Xi is actively engineering it through a new version of the 19th-century tribute system.
Fighting without fighting
Dalio's framework for understanding Chinese strategy draws heavily on Sun Tzu's The Art of War, which he recommended that readers study. Its central insight, as Dalio applies it: "To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."
In practice, that means China will pursue reunification with Taiwan and the dismantling of U.S. containment policies not through direct military confrontation but through relentless indirect pressure—economic, diplomatic, financial. The analogy Dalio offers is the difference between chess and Go. Chess is about annihilating your opponent. Go is about limiting their area of influence.
"China can gain ground by simply making the threats and not facing resistance," he wrote. "There is a good chance that the war will be so subtly fought that we won't see it being fought."
The most significant sign of this shift, Dalio says, was a private exchange between Xi and President Trump: Xi made clear, "in the form of a veiled threat," that planned U.S. arms sales to Taiwan "would not be appreciated." Dalio expects Trump to ultimately cancel those sales. If he doesn't, Dalio predicted China will respond with a dramatic demonstration of force—something far more severe than the military exercises that followed Nancy Pelosi's 2022 visit to Taipei.
The leverage China holds over Taiwan is not merely military. It is technological. Taiwan produces the overwhelming majority of the world's most advanced semiconductors—the chips that power AI. Dalio puts it bluntly: "AI is everything, and AI without Taiwan is nothing."
A Chinese blockade of chip exports, he noted, would not need to happen. The threat alone would be enough to crater global stock markets, particularly AI-related equities. And China is racing toward the moment when such leverage becomes even more one-sided—Dalio said Beijing plans to achieve chip self-sufficiency by late 2027, while the U.S. and its allies remain dependent on Taiwanese production.
What this means for markets
For investors, Dalio's message is structurally bearish on U.S. primacy. China's external economy—what he calls "China, Inc."—is generating massive export surpluses and accumulating financial assets at speed. The renminbi's role in global trade is growing. Chinese companies are "understandably reluctant to accumulate American assets that can be sanctioned." Capital is flowing away from the dollar-denominated system that has underpinned global finance for 80 years.
"The world order is now in the process of changing from a U.S.-led, multilateral, rules-based order to a bipolar, power-based, hierarchical order," Dalio wrote.
Fortune senior contributing columnist Steve Hanke made a similar case ahead of Trump's May state visit to Beijing, arguing that China had spent six years methodically building leverage the U.S. no longer has—dominating rare earths, critical minerals, and materials supply chains that underpin both defense and AI hardware. "China has intellectual firepower and technical firepower," Hanke said in May. "The real strategic winner has been China." Where Dalio frames that leverage in historical and cultural terms, Hanke frames it in the blunter language of commodity markets: The U.S. simply doesn't control what it needs to control.
Dalio, who has been wrong about a third of his market calls by his own accounting, was careful to hedge, but not on the big picture. The tribute system, he believes, is not a metaphor for what is coming. It is the operating manual.
"Just having power, showing it, and not having to use it is very effective," he concludes, "and in keeping with the Chinese approach."
For this story, Fortune journalists used generative AI as a research tool. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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五角大廈釐清美「中國戰略」 - Ken Moriyasu
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下文最大的問題，在於作者森保先生的「論述前提」不能成立；至少，有相當大的爭議。如果：川普和赫格塞斯兩人，頭腦都清楚、都有戰略素養、都能一邊走路一邊嚼口香糖而不摔跤，則這篇文章的觀點也許還有個立足點。可惜，美、伊「和議草案」曝光後，很清楚的顯示：
主導伊朗戰爭的川普和赫格塞斯，恐怕連把腳踏車直直停的本事都沒有；我甚至懷疑他們兩人能把「戰略」這個英文字正確的寫出來。
至於森保先生的三個申論是：自說自話，自由聯想，還是「取證偏執」(或者說他在「發台灣燒」)，就有待網友們自行判斷了。
Why dropping ‘Indo-Pacific’ clarifies the Pentagon’s China strategy
By removing ‘Indo’ from the name of its largest command, US has told India, China, its allies and Pakistan exactly where they stand
Ken Moriyasu, 06/18/26
On June 16, the US Department of Defense announced that the US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) will officially revert to its previous name, the US Pacific Command (PACOM).
The move reverses a decision made during President Donald Trump’s first term to include “Indo” in the name of its largest combatant command.
This publication reported in June 2018 that the original change “highlights the increasing significance of India in Washington’s strategic thinking and also marks India’s re-entry into the American government’s ‘Asia Nexus.’”
As much as New Delhi may protest, this change signals the opposite: the decreasing significance of India in Washington’s strategic thinking – and its exit from the American government’s “Asia Nexus.”
There were already hints of this in US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in late May. “India was mentioned last,” an Asian diplomat in attendance recalled.
Hegseth praised the efforts of South Korea, the Philippines, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam before finally turning to India.
A strong India, “acting in its own self-interest,” advances a shared goal of maintaining a regional balance of power, he said – hardly a description of a core ally in a coordinated strategy.
This name change, however, does not represent a toning down of competition with Beijing. On the contrary, it clarifies where competition with China will actually be fought — and where it will not.
The decision moves the strategy in the right direction. There are three key takeaways.
First, the fact that the Pentagon made this significant move absent any immediate trigger suggests it is sending a deliberate message: the Indian Ocean is not central to dealing with China.
That message is aimed at both allies and Beijing itself. To its allies, it signals that in a potential conflict with China, the United States will concentrate on the Taiwan Strait, operating primarily from Japan and the Philippines.
In all other regions, allies and partners will be expected to take primary responsibility for conventional defense. South Korea will deter North Korea, Europe will confront Russia and the Indian Ocean will largely fall to India to monitor and control.
Symbolically, Hegseth made no mention of “Indo-Pacific” in his Shangri-La speech, nor did he reference Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s efforts to “update” the Free and Open Indo-Pacific concept championed by her mentor, the late Shinzo Abe. Japan’s region-wide strategic framing may soon require a rethink.
To China, the message is equally clear: in a crisis, the US will prioritize the Taiwan Strait above all other theaters.
Second, the shift signals that India is being written out of the core contingency that matters most: Taiwan.
Washington believes Chinese President Xi Jinping has instructed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to take Taiwan by force, if necessary, by 2027. The Trump administration has little patience for fence-sitters.
It is prioritizing allies such as South Korea and the Philippines – who act like they “live on the front lines,” as Hegseth said. India is not aligned, and Washington is no longer hoping that one day it will be.
Third – and most intriguingly – by treating India as a normal partner rather than a strategic centerpiece, Washington gains greater flexibility in dealing with Pakistan, India’s archrival.
Trump has turned to Pakistan’s Field Marshal Asim Munir as a key backchannel to Tehran, relied on him in defusing the 2025 India-Pakistan crisis and invited him to discussions on expanding the Abraham Accords.
Pakistan matters not because of India, but because of China’s westward pivot.
Over the past 15 years, China has steadily reduced its reliance on maritime energy routes through Indian Ocean chokepoints, such as the Malacca and Hormuz straits, shifting instead toward overland pipelines across Central Asia.
In responding to this Chinese pivot to Eurasia, Pakistan – not India – emerges as the more relevant partner.
The return to PACOM reflects these strategic realities. It is a recognition that clarity, not geographic sprawl or vague values-based alignments, will define how the US competes with China. And it is the right move.
Ken Moriyasu, a former correspondent for the Japanese newspaper Nikkei, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
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中東停戰中國偷笑 -- Simone McCarthy
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China is counting its wins from the Iran war
Analysis by Simone McCarthy, CNN, 06/20/26
When US and Israeli bombs first began falling on Iran at the end of February, China's leaders were staring at the very real possibility of another friendly regime being decapitated, much like had happened with Venezuela only weeks before.
The view is quite different nearly four months later: the United States and Iran have reached an interim agreement after weeks of peace talks, but the regime in Tehran remains in place and the war is widely seen to have exposed the limits of American power.
Meanwhile, Beijing's own diplomatic clout has appeared to rise – as it's hosted a parade of foreign leaders and cast itself as a proponent of peace, even earning repeated praise from US President Donald Trump for its response to the war.
The world's second largest economy has also weathered the historic energy crunch triggered by the conflict better than many of its neighbors – in particular due to its copious strategic oil reserves and embrace of green tech and electric vehicles.
China's Foreign Ministry welcomed the announcement of a US-Iran deal in comments this week, with a spokesperson saying Beijing "stands ready" to play an active role in "restoring peace and tranquility" to the Middle East.
When asked whether Beijing had a hand in the agreement, the spokesperson, Lin Jian, didn't confirm any specific role. But he also didn't hesitate to point to China's "tireless" efforts to end the war, including through leader Xi Jinping's release of a four-point peace proposal in April.
And that praise wasn't only emanating from Beijing.
"I want to thank China, President Xi … he stayed neutral, totally neutral, and I appreciate it," Trump said at a G7 press conference in France on Wednesday, noting how the Chinese leader didn't use his country's naval might to defy the US blockade on Iranian ports.
"They didn't do that. President Xi helped me. He tried to help, and I think he probably helped get it solved," Trump added.
China walked a careful diplomatic line during the conflict. It condemned the US and Israeli attack on Iran and continued to buy Iranian oil, in defiance of US sanctions. But it also kept communications open with players on both sides.
Numerous foreign leaders have made their way to Beijing as the conflict has worn on – including Trump last month, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi days earlier, and leaders of Pakistan, the conflict's main mediator.
Early in negotiations, Tehran had been eager to secure China's backing as a guarantor in a peace deal, but Beijing has shown little interest in playing such a formal - and potentially vexed - role.
On Wednesday, China's top diplomat Wang Yi spoke with Araghchi over the phone and called for navigation in the Strait of Hormuz to be "properly handled."
"The dawn of peace has emerged. The key to the next step is for all parties to truly implement their commitments and eliminate interference from all sides," Wang said.
It's not clear whether or to what degree Beijing used its diplomatic weight to backchannel toward the latest agreement, a memorandum of understanding formally signed Wednesday, triggering a 60-day period to negotiate the final terms of a deal.
But for Beijing, these very public visits amplified its message that while others are waging war, it is a responsible global power – and power broker.
Debating the 'Suez moment'
As the two sides enter into the next phase of negotiation, observers are watching closely for what exactly the US gained from a conflict that took a heavy global economic toll.
In China – where opposition to a US-dominated world order is a tenet of foreign policy – political thinkers have also been debating how the conflict has impacted the US' place on the global stage.
Some pundits are asking whether the conflict is a so-called "Suez moment" for the US, a reference to Britain's loss of control over the Suez Canal in the 1950s, widely seen as a bellwether for Britain's international decline and its eclipse by the US as a global power.
"Is the scene that cast a shadow over the British Empire during the Suez crisis now being replayed for the United States in the Strait of Hormuz?" asked Sun Degang, director of Fudan University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies in Shanghai, in an opinion piece published Tuesday in China's state-run Global Times.
"Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has become the world's 'sole superpower,'" Sun said. This time, however, "US military power did not prove as overwhelmingly powerful as Washington had imagined," while the absence of key allies backing its war is a sign that "the US-led global alliance system has shown increasing signs of division," he wrote.
It's a question that's also been debated in the West, but in China, some voices have also spelled out a view that Beijing has gained from Washington's war.
"China has no interest in wearing the 'victor's halo' of a distant Middle Eastern war," political commentator Hu Xijin wrote on the social media platform Weibo earlier this week.
But the conflict has influenced the world's perception of China – showing the success of its "strategic planning" to weather energy shocks and the appeal of its peaceful "development path," he said.
The war has also "significantly diminished" the US' overall deterrent power when it comes to Taiwan, Hu wrote, pointing to how it showed limits in US munitions stockpiles and its inability to form a Western coalition even against an isolated enemy like Iran.
China claims the self-ruling Taiwan as its own and has not ruled out using force to take control of the democratic island.
"What leverage does the US have to convince its allies in Europe to go head-to-head with China for American interests?" Hu wrote.
China's balancing act
How China responds to what it sees as a diminished US is an open question.
Beijing has long positioned itself as the champion of a "multipolar world" and it's likely to use the conflict to push for another change it wants to see in the world: the end of security environment dominated by the US and its alliances.
Throughout the war, however, Beijing looked to carefully navigate its interests, rather than taking a front seat in conflict resolution or overtly picking sides.
While backing its longtime partner Iran rhetorically, China has been measured in its criticism of the US for sparking the conflict and held multiple calls and meetings with Gulf states that came under Iran's attack.
Beijing is widely seen to have pushed Tehran toward talks with Washington earlier this spring, even as Chinese companies – according to the US government – have supported Tehran's weapons procurement. Beijing broadly denies providing weapons to countries in conflict.
That Xi was able to host Trump for a friendly meeting last month, despite these assessments and while China held its longstanding place as the largest buyer of Iranian oil, may be testament to Beijing's clout – and its carefully calibrated balancing act.
But observers in China also say that a potential "Suez moment" for the US wouldn't mean China automatically takes its place at the top of the world order. And Chinese officials and analysts have long said that Beijing doesn't want to be a superpower in the mold of the US.
"The US remains the most powerful external actor in the Middle East. What has changed is that its dominance now requires far greater political, military, economic and reputational costs," Sun Chenghao, a fellow at Tsinghua University's Center for International Security and Strategy in Beijing, told CNN.
The conflict may make China's worldview – emphasizing sovereignty, non-interference, political settlement and development-oriented security – more attractive to many countries, he said.
"But credibility is built not only through criticism of US actions; it also depends on whether China can provide practical diplomatic solutions, protect energy stability, and help create conditions for de-escalation."
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美、伊議和之幾家歡樂幾家愁 - Ben Farmer
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* Trump says deal to end war with Iran already signed and details to be released 'pretty soon'
The winners and losers of the Iran war
Ben Farmer, 06/15/26
A deal to end the Iran war has finally been agreed, Donald Trump has said, almost four months after the US and Israel launched their attacks on Tehran.
The conflict has torn apart the Middle East, choked the global economy and tested some of the world's greatest powers.
This is how the war has affected some of the key players.
Iran
Iran has been hammered by air strikes by the US and Israel, which enjoyed nearly complete air dominance during their campaign.
Its conventional navy has been sunk, and many senior leaders, including Ayatollah Khomeini, have been killed. An economy which was suffering badly before Feb 28 is now in even worse shape.
However, the regime remains in control and analysts say that, if anything, it is more hard line than before.
Tehran still has substantial missile and drone stocks, even though its defence industry appears to have been badly damaged.
While much of Iran's uranium enrichment infrastructure was destroyed or badly damaged by Israel and the US's earlier bombing campaign in June 2025, a large part of the highly enriched uranium it amassed is thought to have survived in Iranian hands.
Perhaps most importantly, Iran has shown its control over the Strait of Hormuz. The strait has been reopened through negotiation with Iranian permission, not through US force of arms.
Meanwhile, there appears to be no credible alternative to the Iranian regime, which killed thousands of its own people in January.
United States
The US has faced less economic disruption from the war than some countries, but it has not been pain-free. Petrol prices at the pump have risen by half, and Americans have spent nearly $450 extra per household on rising energy costs.
Polling shows they blame the war for their cost of living increase, and they are not happy with the way Washington has handled it. The US military colossus was able to strike at will, but the war showed limits to its might.
Air strikes did not remove the regime, or break its grip. Tehran has for decades readied for such a one-sided war by hiding away missiles and nuclear material and building cheap drones to strike back.
Iran damaged 20 US military sites across the region. Diplomatically, trust in the US has been further eroded, allies complain. Mr Trump plunged the Middle East into crisis with little consultation and has left allies to pick up the pieces.
Donald Trump
The US president has forged a war that has been increasingly unpopular with his Maga base and which most Americans were sceptical about.
A Fox News poll in late May reported that 60 per cent of Americans opposed the war. Such unease has fed into a slide in Mr Trump's approval ratings.
And his deal to end the war has also not delivered on his main goals, at least not yet.
The White House in April said his "clear and unchanging" objectives were to wipe out Iran's missile stocks and production, annihilate its navy, sever its support for terrorist proxies, and ensure it never acquired a nuclear weapon.
He has come closest with regards to Iran's navy, though Tehran retains a "mosquito fleet" of speedboats to harass shipping in the strait. Missile stocks have been cut by as much as half, according to some estimates, and manufacturing has been degraded, but not knocked out.
Iran still has enriched uranium, the wider nuclear issue has been kicked down the road, and Tehran continues to sponsor proxies across the Middle East, though these have been significantly weakened since 2023.
The largest initial result of the agreement appears to be the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which was open and unimpeded before the war.
Sagging poll numbers and the hangover from an unpopular and inconclusive campaign risk following Mr Trump to the November midterms.
Israel
Israel and the US began the war shoulder-to-shoulder, but it is Mr Trump who is ending it after sidelining Benjamin Netanyahu.
At the start, the prime minister of Israel told his nation that the campaign offered a chance to "put an end to the threat from the ayatollah regime in Iran".
After more than three months, Israeli officials are worried that a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz will not sufficiently address their core concerns.
As a recent analysis in the Times of Israel put it: "The Iranian regime still exists. It still possesses much of its ballistic missile arsenal and its stockpile of enriched uranium. And it also controls the Strait of Hormuz."
Faced with a lack of progress in the Gulf, Mr Trump has appeared frustrated with Mr Netanyahu, and he has reportedly frozen the Israeli leader out of negotiations. A deal that may be critical to Israel's security has been taken out of its hands.
Gulf states
The decision by the US and Israel to attack Iran despite their advice shocked Gulf states.
They have gone on to bear the brunt of Iran's retaliation, though each has been affected in different ways over the past three months.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) suffered the worst barrages of drones and missiles, though its air defences prevented large damage or loss of life.
The onslaught widened existing gaps between Gulf monarchies, with the UAE complaining of a lack of solidarity from neighbours.
In its hour of need, the UAE is thought to have grown closer to Israel and the US. Other Gulf states are expected to reduce their military dependence on what they see as an unpredictable Washington.
Their reliance on the Strait of Hormuz has been laid painfully bare. The Arab Gulf states are expected to rapidly invest in alternative export routes and pipelines to ensure they are never held hostage again.
China
Iran is a Chinese ally and oil supplier, but Beijing has not been a major player in the conflict, despite an estimated 35 per cent of all the oil it consumes passing through the strait.
China has seemingly withstood the short-term economic impact better than many and even cut oil purchases. It already had large strategic reserves and a quickly growing renewables sector and has been receiving Iranian oil via a shadow tanker fleet, the US alleges.
Beijing has meanwhile enjoyed the sight of Washington caught in a costly bind over Iran and has been trying to learn whether the war's lessons could be transferred to the Indo-Pacific, analysts believe. That could include copying Iran's use of economic attrition in any stand-off over Taiwan.
Russia
Sky-high oil prices boosted Russia's finances, temporarily at least. Yet the extra revenue has not profoundly changed Vladimir Putin's worsening economic predicament, analysts say.
Labour shortages caused by mounting casualties in Ukraine and limited production capacity mean Russian industry is struggling to keep up with military demand.
Meanwhile, Kyiv's drone attacks on Russia's oil industry have helped prevent Moscow from taking advantage of the higher prices, while Ukrainian forces are causing terrible battlefield losses and may even be starting to regain slivers of territory.
Diplomatically, the Iran war has also shown, as the fall of Bashar al-Assad did in Syria two years ago, that an alliance with Moscow is no guarantee of significant Russian protection or intervention when the chips are down.
Ukraine
When the Iran war erupted, it seemed to be bad for Ukraine in many ways.
There were predictions that Western attention, funding and military support would be diverted to leave Kyiv exposed. An oil bonanza would supercharge Putin's military machine.
Instead, as the world watched Iranian drones strike Dubai's skyscrapers, Kyiv's military experience and expertise in stopping them became highly valued.
Volodymyr Zelensky acted swiftly to take advantage of his country's newfound status as a drone superpower and made new alliances with Gulf kingdoms seeking Ukrainian savvy.
Kyiv in April announced new security pacts with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The war has earned Ukraine rich new allies and military respect.
World economy
The oil price's roughly 40 per cent jump has upended outlooks for inflation and interest rates. A massive release of reserve stocks cushioned the blow, but the price surge has still hit countries that rely on imported energy and fertilisers.
The effect has been harder to dodge as the war has gone on and has particularly hit some of the world's poorest countries.
Yet global stocks have weathered the storm on the back of AI optimism and persistent hopes that the war will only be short term.
That resilience may not have lasted through the summer, economists had warned as reserves were used up.
Britain
Higher costs from the war have only just started to feed through to a country already tortured by a cost of living crisis.
Household energy bills are expected to rise by an average of £200 in July and inflation is expected to rise to around 4 per cent by the end of the year. The war is expected to trim growth, too.
Sir Keir Starmer's refusal to provide military help to Mr Trump has damaged transatlantic relations. The King's barnstorming state visit to Washington cooled some of Mr Trump's ire, but relations have been strained.
The days of the unlikely Starmer-Trump friendship are long over.
The war also highlighted UK military vulnerability when a drone hit an RAF air base on Cyprus on the second night of the war, with no major Royal Navy warship in the Mediterranean at the time.
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亞美尼亞親歐政府贏得選舉 – K. Armstrongand/R. Demytrie
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Armenia's pro-West government wins election despite Russian pressure
Kathryn Armstrongand/Rayhan Demytrie,Caucasus correspondent, 06/08/26
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's party has won a crucial election billed as being key in deciding whether the country continues to move closer to the West.
Pashinyan's centrist Civil Contract Party secured 49.8% of the vote, with the Strong Armenia Alliance coming in second with 23.2%. The Armenia Alliance was third with 9.9%.
Sunday's vote was the first general election since Armenia, a small South Caucasus country of three million people, suffered a crushing military defeat by Azerbaijan in 2023.
It was viewed as a test of the prime minister's push to deepen ties with the West while facing mounting economic pressure from Russia, its largest trading partner and traditional ally.
Pashinyan, who has been in power since 2018, declared victory on Monday after early results showed his party had secured more than 50% of the vote.
"Armenian people voted for peace, regional prosperity and cooperation," he said.
The election drew significant international attention to the country. On Monday, France and the EU were among European powers that congratulated Pashinyan, praising Armenia's closer ties with the West.
Russia's foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova was quoted by the Tass news agency as saying "unprecedented pressure" had been put on opposition parties and alleged there had been "interference" from the West.
Zakharova also said the election had demonstrated that Armenian society was "extremely polarised".
Civil Contract's success came despite Pashinyan's domestic support falling from 54% in 2021 to around 30% today, according to polls.
A total of 19 parties and alliances took part in the election but few of these earned enough votes to gain a seat in the national assembly. Turnout was 59%, the electoral commission said.
The conservative Prosperous Armenia party, led by businessman Gagik Tsarukyan, came fourth with 4% of the vote.
It, like the Strong Armenia Alliance - led by Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, and the Armenia Alliance - led by former President Robert Kocharyan, are pro-Russian.
"We will continue the course of rapprochement with the West, but we will also continue our participation and membership in the Eurasian Economic Union," Pashinyan also said on Monday.
In late May, the Russian president called on Armenia to hold a referendum "as soon as possible" on whether to join the EU or remain in the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), a customs bloc from which Armenia benefits.
Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin listed the economic benefits Armenia stood to lose if it pursued closer ties with the West - pointedly noting that "the crisis in Ukraine began with efforts to move toward EU accession".
Russia supplies Armenia with gas at $177.50 (£132.90) per 1,000 cubic metres, while European market prices, as Putin pointed out to Pashinyan in April, exceed $600.
In the two weeks preceding the election, Moscow banned the export of Armenian flowers, mineral water, cognac, fresh vegetables and fruit.
Pashinyan efforts to try and steer his country away from Moscow include passing a law to launch the process of joining the EU, and accelerating the peace process with neighbouring Azerbaijan via a US-brokered agreement. The latter has won him US President Donald Trump's endorsement.
He also hosted a large summit of EU leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the capital, Yerevan, earlier this year.
Despite Pashinyan developing, good-natured relationship with European leaders, Armenia doesn't even have EU candidate status yet, and membership of the bloc is still a long way off.
His loss of popularity is mainly due to the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous enclave inside Azerbaijan that was home to 100,000 ethnic Armenians until Azerbaijan took it by force in 2023.
Pashinyan's critics have never forgiven him for making concessions in favour of peace with Azerbaijan, like refusing to campaign for the release of former leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh who are in jail in the neighbouring country.
The peace deal with Azerbaijan, too, remains deeply divisive, with one recent poll showing 44% of public opinion in support and 41% opposed.
In the Armenian capital, Yerevan, the election results were not met with much excitement and people were going about their days as usual.
Lala, 70, is a gardener who looks after the roses in the city's central Republic Square. She told the BBC that she voted for Pashinyan.
"I am excited. He is the one who is taking us to peace, he raised pensions and we have free healthcare, we can see what he is doing, we are not voting for him blindly."
Gohar, 40, said she was sceptical about a possible future for Armenia in the EU.
"I don't have any evidence that the European Union is waiting for Armenia. We know that Georgia is waiting for a long time, Turkey is waiting for a long time."
When asked about Pashinyan's peace agenda, she said: "Yes, of course, in Nagorno-Karabakh there is also peace now, but there are no Armenians left, I don't want the same thing to happen here."
For Arshak, 25, the number one issue in the election is the displaced people from Nagorno-Karabakh.
"It is their right to live in peace like we are living," he said, adding: "Before we talk about our external relations with the EU or Russia, we should first focus on the topic of displaced Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh."
Anahit and Kimma, both 16, are still too young to vote but said their thoughts have been formed by what their family members have been saying.
Anahit is a student at a medical college and said she hopes the government will reduce the cost of education.
Kimma, meanwhile, said: "I did not think any of the candidates was good, but now that Pashinyan is elected, I hope he will be better than he was before."
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西班牙總理素描及槓川普立場 - Aitor Hernández-Morales
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This World Leader Took on Trump Over Iran — and It’s Paying Off
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez may be embattled at home, but his opposition to the war in Iran has made him a “rockstar” who's defying the odds.
Aitor Hernández-Morales, 06/08/26
MADRID — When Europe's leaders hold their periodic gatherings in Brussels, Pedro Sánchez isn't often at the center of media attention.
As a rule, when Spain's 54-year-old prime minister strides down the red carpet below the giant glass oval structure in which the EU's heads of government meet, only Spanish reporters surge forward to shout out questions about domestic affairs. Correspondents from other countries tend to focus on their own leaders, or chase after French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz or Italian premier Giorgia Meloni — the heavyweights most consider to truly "run" the EU.
But at recent summits, Sánchez has been met by unusually swollen packs of journalists elbowing one another while waving microphones, eager to hear what he has to say.
Why the sudden surge of interest?
It's not because his government is doing well at home. The prime minister's fragile coalition has been abandoned by its parliamentary partners and is incapable of passing legislation. Moreover, a succession of corruption scandals involving members of Sánchez's inner circle are undermining his administration.
Instead, the attention on Spain's prime minister is driven by the fact that the head of a country better known for its beaches and nightlife has lately become the unlikely face of Europe's opposition to the war in Iran and, more broadly, to U.S. President Donald Trump.
When the U.S. and Israel began their attack on Iran in late February, Spain's prime minister stood out as the sole EU leader to openly condemn the military operation. In contrast to figures like Macron and Merz, who opted for a cautious, hedged reaction to the conflict, Sánchez's denunciation of the "illegitimate" aggression was unequivocally blunt.
So was Washington's reaction to the Spaniard's criticism. Sánchez's decision to bar U.S. warplanes from using jointly operated bases and the country's airspace infuriated Trump. Calling Spain "terrible" and "unfriendly," the president threatened to cut off all trade relations with Madrid, and later suggested the country should be booted from NATO.
By singling out Sánchez, the White House inadvertently helped turn Spain's isolated opposition to the war into a position embraced by nearly all of Europe. In response to the threats, EU leaders scrambled t express support for their colleague in Madrid — and, emboldened, joined him in condemning the attacks on Iran.
In the span of just a few months, Spain's prime minister went from being an outlier in Europe to the EU's moral leader.
"Spain was never alone," said Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares, a longtime Sánchez ally, in an interview. "We were simply first, leading so that others could follow behind."
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Sánchez's newfound prominence on the international stage is all the more striking because it comes at a moment of profound vulnerability at home. Although Spain's leader has not been implicated in the scandals that hound his government, political opponents have endeavored to link him to the criminal cases.
"Pedro Sánchez is synonymous with corruption," said Senator Alicia García, spokesperson for the center-right People's Party, during a recent session of the Spanish Senate.
Yet respect and admiration for the prime minister continues to grow in the rest of Europe. That's because his opposition to Trump reflects the majority view on the continent that the U.S. president poses a major threat to the bloc.
Overall, Europe's leaders have been reluctant to clash with Trump. The U.S. is one of the EU's largest trading partners, and maintaining stable ties is considered essential for countries like Germany. Additionally, despite Trump's efforts to undermine NATO, European defense continues to not only be U.S.-led, but U.S.-centered.
But Sánchez is an exception to that status quo.
Spain's limited trade relations with the U.S. means the country is shielded from Trump's tariff threats, and it is also geographically distant from potential military threats. The country is even comparatively immune from Iran-related energy shocks, thanks to a renewable energy boom spearheaded by Sánchez that has earned plaudits from the rest of Europe.
The prime minister's allies argue his consistently defiant stance toward Trump is driven less by pragmatism than conviction. At a moment when multilateralism and the postwar global order are seen as outdated concepts, the center-left moderate is described as a true believer, willing to defy the most powerful country in the world in defense of those ideals.
"He's always been committed to the respect for human rights, the dignity of all people," said Albares. "It's just what he truly believes in."
Sánchez — who declined to be interviewed for this article but allowed members of his administration to participate — has urged his European counterparts to follow Spain's example. During POLITICO's European Pulse Forum in Barcelona last April, he called for Europe to "rearm itself morally, so that it can contribute to stable and peaceful development throughout the world."
"Europe's citizens don't want their leaders to look the other way, to be self-absorbed," he said. "They want them to get involved in finding the solutions to the global challenges facing humanity."
The moral stance underpinning the Spanish prime minister's opposition to Trump can, paradoxically, be traced back to a link forged in the U.S. president's hometown.
Shortly after graduating with a degree in economics and business administration in Madrid in 1995, Sánchez moved to New York City to work at a consultancy. While there, Carlos Westendorp, the late Spanish ambassador to the United Nations — whose wife was an acquaintance of Sánchez's parents, two solidly middle class civil servants — began inviting him over for meals.
The inquisitive 24-year-old won the former foreign minister over by peppering him with questions about international affairs and eventually became a mentee of sorts. After Westendorp was named High Representative for Bosnia in 1997, he reached out to Sánchez — who by then was wrapping up a stint as an assistant in the European Parliament in Brussels — and offered him a spot on his team.
The Spaniard arrived in a city "in which every building was pockmarked by bullets" fired during nearly four years of siege. Journalist Victoria García, at the time the U.N. mission's spokesperson, recalled the women on the staff fawning over the handsome, 6-foot-3-inch Sánchez.
"But he was more than just a pretty face, [he was] a hell of a hard worker," she said in an interview. "That country had been reduced to rubble and we were charged with redesigning it from scratch, coming up with a constitution, a criminal system, even the flag and national anthem."
Sánchez, who had just earned his masters degree in economics from the Free University of Brussels, was brought on board as an economic adviser and tasked with laying out Bosnia's future financial system in a series of complex position papers. In an early sign that he could be headstrong when defending matters he believed in, García said Sánchez clashed with a high-ranking American representative who offhandedly dismissed his policy proposals.
"He was just a kid, but he'd push back hard," she recalled. "He wouldn't hold back."
As U.N. peacekeepers attempted to keep violence between Croats, Serbs and Muslims from flaring up again, Sánchez travelled across Bosnia with Westendorp, attending meetings with regional leaders. According to García, it was impossible for anyone on the team to not emerge from their time in Bosnia "with a newfound understanding of the importance of multilateralism and the rule of law, and a profound respect for the work done by organizations like the U.N."
In his 2019 memoir, Manual de Resistencia — which translates to "Resistance Manual" — Sánchez said his experience in Sarajevo "inoculated him from the ravages of nationalism and identity politics."
"I saw unscrupulous politicians who don't consider the consequences of their hate speech — not the social, political, or economic ones," he wrote. "Or rather, it's not that they don't consider them, it's that they feed the worst in their people, because they thrive on that confrontation."
The prime minister recalled sleepless nights during which "U.S. jetfighters and bombers flew over the city, en route to Serbia and Kosovo," where Washington was attempting to stop ethnic cleansing. In his book, Sánchez praised then-U.S. President Bill Clinton's "brave decision" to bomb Yugoslavia — a measure "few of his countrymen supported."
"I saw a man deeply involved, who truly committed himself, his presidency, and his country to ending a deadly war," wrote Sánchez in 2019. Lamenting America's withdrawal from multilateralism under Trump, he noted the isolationist Republican president was "no Clinton."
Despite his deep admiration for the U.N.'s work, García said Sánchez was always clear-eyed about wanting a future in Spanish politics. When Westendorp would travel back to Spain to attend Socialist Party conferences, the young Spaniard would push to accompany him so as to make contacts within the political organization.
"Sánchez believed in what we were doing in Bosnia," she said. "But even then it was obvious that he was a political animal with aspirations that were bigger than Sarajevo."
The lessons Sánchez drew from Bosnia would remain largely invisible for years. But they would eventually become central to how he viewed conflicts abroad, the role of international institutions and the obligations of democratic governments in moments of crisis.
Sánchez's political convictions would soon collide with the realities of political survival.
When his time on Westendorp's staff concluded in 1999, the Spaniard returned to Madrid, entering local politics as a member of the Socialist Party. He remained a backbench figure for over a decade, but in 2014 he launched an unexpectedly successful dark horse bid to become party leader.
Albares, then a career diplomat, recalled first meeting Sánchez at that time and being entranced by the young and dynamic Socialist leader — the first frontline Spanish politician to speak English fluently and regularly read the international press. The future foreign minister was so taken by Sánchez that he eventually took a leave of absence from the diplomatic service to become his adviser on global affairs.
"I made that decision because I was impressed by his defense of the same principles he continues to uphold today," said Albares. "He had, and continues to have, a clear vision of the European project and its values, earnest concern about climate change, the defense of gender equality, a profound respect for the United Nations and multilateralism, and of the idea that the dignity and human rights of every human being must always be respected."
At a time when populist forces were steadily gaining traction among voters, Albares thought Sánchez was just the man to lead Spain. But the Socialists' old guard was unconvinced by their new leader, who questioned the decentralized party structure that gave disproportionate power to its regional leaders.
Sánchez had taken the reins of the center-left party amid a crippling economic crisis that hastened the collapse of Spain's bipartisan political system, and new far-left and economic-liberal political groups ate away at the Socialists' traditional voting base. Seizing on a series of electoral setbacks, the old guard painted Sánchez as an overwhelmed novice and forced him to step down in Oct. 2016.
For many politicians, that would have been the end. But for Sánchez, it was the beginning of an unlikely comeback. In a move that has since become Spanish political lore, he embarked on a grassroots campaign to win back support, traveling across the country in his Peugeot, meeting party members face-to-face and rebuilding his base from the ground up.
Accompanying him were several figures that have since become major liabilities for Sánchez. Among them were José Luis Ábalos, who would eventually be appointed transport and public works minister — but today is imprisoned on corruption charges — and Santos Cerdán, who would become one of the most powerful figures in the Socialist Party before being implicated in a kickback scandal.
Sánchez's odyssey coincided with Trump's surprise defeat of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election and the first months of his administration. Albares, who remained loyal to the ousted Socialist leader, said they followed the developments with fascination and discussed the impact of Trump's measures on the rest of the world.
"The conversations were not, and to this day are not, about what the U.S. president does, but rather about the context in which those actions place Spain," he said. "They were always about how we stay true to our principles, how we meet our objectives within that context."
Albares said Sánchez remained an indefatigable, cheerful figure on the cross-country tour. "Even at the lowest moments, he has this enthusiasm rooted in an unwavering belief in his project," he said. "And I think Spaniards perceived and rewarded that determination."
The retail politicking paid off. When elections were held to select the Socialist Party's new leader in May 2017, Sánchez handily defeated his rivals and was restored to the post from which he was ousted seven months before.
During his second turn in his party's top spot, Sánchez took pains to not repeat the mistakes that had led to his downfall. Moving swiftly to reshape the party in his own image, he sidelined internal opponents and transformed the Socialists into the hyper-centralized, leader-driven organization that it is today.
His next move was even more brazen. Capitalizing on a series of devastating corruption scandals, in 2018 Sánchez orchestrated a no-confidence vote to topple then-Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy — a maneuver unprecedented in modern Spanish politics. The bid succeeded, swiftly transforming the once ousted opposition leader into Spain's head of government.
At a summit of global mayors in Madrid last April, municipal leaders from around the world cheered after Sánchez gave a speech in defense of open cities that embrace migrants and diversity.
"He's a rockstar, he's exactly what the world needs: a progressive who isn't afraid of Trump," said an American municipal official who I agreed not to name because of his concerns that federal funding for his city could be jeopardized by a perceived criticism of the U.S. president.
Sánchez's popularity and perceived strength on the global stage contrasts with his divisive reputation and a weak domestic political position — one that isn't solely motivated by the corruption scandals involving members of his inner circle.
While the prime minister has managed to remain in power for the past eight years, he has always led fragile minority governments that required the support of smaller parties to get legislation through Spain's fractured parliament. The Socialist leader often says he operates by "making virtue of necessity" — in other words, by adapting his positions to align with strategic partners.
But that pragmatism has not gone down well among Spaniards. Prior to Sánchez, they had never experienced a coalition government at the national level or the flexibility required to make them work.
One of Sánchez's most controversial measures remains his 2023 move to amnesty separatist politicians who led an independence movement in the Spanish region of Catalonia. The decision — a complete reversal of his longstanding opposition to the clemency measure — was key to winning the support of the Catalan parties he needed to remain prime minister, but it alienated voters, many of whom have yet to forgive him for the U-turn.
According to the latest monthly survey conducted by Spain's state-run Center for Sociological Research while Sánchez ranks as the country's highest-rated political leader, 63 percent of Spaniards say they trust him "little, or not at all."
Meanwhile, the separatist politicians with whom Sánchez made the amnesty deal have since abandoned the prime minister, which is why his minority government currently lacks the backing required to pass laws, much less a fresh budget.
And then there are the scandals.
Sánchez came to power in 2018 promising clean government, but over the past years many of his closest allies — among them his cross-country campaign companions, Ábalos and Cerdán — have been prosecuted for alleged corruption.
That situation worsened last month, after Spain's National Court indicted former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero — whom Sánchez had previously described as "an example to follow and a source of inspiration" — for money laundering, influence peddling and other criminal offenses. Just days later, agents of the Civil Guard's elite Central Operative Unit raided the ruling party's headquarters in an unrelated investigation into an elaborate scheme to discredit Sánchez's critics.
These latest developments appear to mark a breaking point for the prime minister's parliamentary allies. Regional groups like the Basque Nationalist Party, which Sánchez depends on to pass legislation, seem increasingly wary of being associated with the ruling party's scandals and are now calling for early elections.
But leaving office is ultimately up to the prime minister. Spain's opposition is too split to force him from power, and Sánchez has vowed to serve out the legislative term, which is due to end in August 2027.
The current deadlock could make Sánchez lean even harder into international affairs, said Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Madrid's Carlos III University. "The parliamentary paralysis impedes him from doing anything at home, but abroad he can make the most of personal political positions that happen to be quite aligned with that of most Spaniards."
The strategy has worked well for Sánchez in the past.
Following Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attacks, in which some 1,200 people were killed in Israel, Spain's prime minister made headlines by speaking out against the military operations in Gaza, describing them as "genocide." The stance led Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar to label him "a disgrace to Spain," but boosted Sánchez's standing domestically.
Opposition to Trump's policies have similarly benefitted Sánchez. Spaniards overwhelmingly backed the prime minister when he rebuffed the U.S. president's push to increase NATO's defense spending targets and refused to ramp up Madrid's military expenditures. However, it's Sánchez's stance against the war in Iran that really resonated with Spaniards, who are among the Europeans most opposed to the operation.
In recent POLITICO polling, 56 percent of Spanish respondents said they strongly disapprove of the offensive, and 43 percent said Madrid should publicly oppose the military operation and push for an end to the conflict. And a majority of Spanish respondents — 51 percent — also said Washington poses a "threat" to Europe, the largest proportion of the six EU countries polled.
It's unclear if the latest controversies will undo the domestic gains Sánchez has made on the back of global politics. But polling conducted before the most recent corruption cases were reported suggests that if elections were held today, Sánchez's scandal-ridden Socialist Party would still win the greatest share of the vote.
"By taking on Trump, he's managed to make Spaniards talk far less about domestic squabbles and corruption, and focus on international politics," said Simón. "Trump's nature is to fill the space and constantly draw attention to himself, and that makes the act of opposing him a constantly relevant action — and Sánchez's decision to oppose him an undeniable success."
Sánchez and Trump may be ideologically opposed, but they share one notable trait: Both molded established political parties around themselves after surviving political defeats that might have ended others' careers.
Diego Rubio, a 39-year-old Oxford-educated scholar who has served as the Spanish prime minister's chief of staff since 2024, described Sánchez as a born fighter.
"He's a self-made man who only ended up in this position by overcoming the status quo within his own party," he said. "He isn't like other prime ministers that were named by the party to be their candidate — he had to fight to remain in his own party."
"Given that spirit has worked out pretty well for him, why would he do anything differently now?" he asked.
Rubio said progressive politicians on both sides of the Atlantic had avoided direct confrontations with rising populist leaders, failing to challenge their talking points.
"Over here we had the advantage of seeing Hillary [Clinton] and others fail, of seeing that saying things like 'Trump is a liar' isn't enough to stop these people," he said. "You have to fight. Left-wing leaders are elected to fight — inequality, injustice, the big guys that make our society worse."
According to Rubio, the fundamental difference between Spain's prime minister and the U.S. president is that while neither backs down from a fight, "Sánchez never insults, never attacks people's families."
Since coming to power in 2018, the prime minister's outspoken defense of progressive ideas have made him an outlier in an EU that has drifted to the right.
Out of the bloc's 27 heads of government, Sánchez is one of the only three center-left prime ministers currently in power. The other two are Maltese leader Robert Abela, and Denmark's Mette Frederiksen, who has faced Trump's wrath over her refusal to give in to his annexationist designs on Greenland.
Arguably, Sánchez's clash with Trump has made him less isolated within the bloc.
At last March's summit of EU leaders in Brussels, heads of government from all political backgrounds sided with the Spaniard and adopted meeting conclusions rebuking Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's attacks on Iran. Coalescing around Sánchez, they pointedly called for "full respect of international law by all parties, including the principles of the United Nations Charter and international humanitarian law."
Still, the perception of being a lone progressive surrounded by an increasingly right-wing world could benefit Sánchez domestically ahead of Spain's next general election.
When voters last went to the polls, in the summer of 2023, the Socialist leader stoked fears of a coalition government made up of the center-right People's Party and the far-right Vox group. That scenario spooked electors into giving left-wing groups better than expected results, and Sánchez a path to remain in power.
This time around, he could repeat the strategy by focusing voters' attention on France, where the far-right National Rally party is projected to sweep next spring's elections. Many expect Sánchez to urge Spaniards to keep him in government by warning Madrid could go the way of Paris.
Political analyst Simón said betting domestic election results on international developments was an unorthodox move. "Developments in Syria rarely shape electoral outcomes in [the Spanish region of] Soria," he quipped.
But, he added, Sánchez is wise to continue making waves on the global stage. "Casting himself as the defender of multilateralism is working out for him personally, both in the outside world, and by consolidating him internally as the country's leading political progressive."
The political scientist said the prime minister's fight with Trump had also raised the country's profile across the globe, and reinforced its position as a player within Europe.
"Let's be honest," Simón said. "This is working out for Spain, too."
It's unclear if Sánchez's domestic troubles will eventually catch up with him, and his parliamentary position remains precarious. But for now, Spain's prime minister has turned a moment of political vulnerability into an opportunity for himself, his country — and perhaps the EU as a whole.
Sánchez, once a peripheral figure in continental affairs, has become one of Europe's most closely watched leaders. And as the jostling reporters at EU summits make clear, the world is now paying attention.
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烏克蘭：伊朗戰爭的意外贏家 - Katya Adler
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The Iran war has strengthened Ukraine in surprising ways. Could a ceasefire with Russia be closer?
Katya Adler, Europe editor, 05/03/26
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, serious-faced and clad in black, strolled down a lilac carpet in Saudi Arabia in March, it marked a moment in the US-Israeli war in Iran. A rather unexpected one.
In a post on X, he said his visit was to "strengthen the protection of lives".
Zelensky, who carries the weight of Ukraine's own war with Russia on his shoulders, has been seizing the moment, flying to the Gulf to publicly showcase the international value and marketability of Kyiv's learned-on-the-battlefield military nous in drone warfare.
Ukraine says it has now signed deals with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar - all hit by Iranian missiles and drones in recent weeks - to share drone expertise and technology, tightening alliances and benefitting from business - and it hopes defence deals - with wealthy US-allied countries.
"We want to help [Gulf states] defend themselves. And we will continue building such partnerships with other countries," Zelensky said.
Energy pressure
Initially, the impact of the Iran conflict seemed overwhelmingly negative for Ukraine. It threatened to divert Donald Trump's already wavering attention from orchestrating peace efforts between Moscow and Kyiv, while pouring money into Russia's fast-emptying war chest.
Moscow has been able to sell more of its oil to more countries, at higher prices as tankers carrying Middle Eastern oil are unable to reach global customers by crossing the Iran-bordering Strait of Hormuz. Trump has renewed a waiver allowing countries to buy sanctioned Russian oil because of spiralling costs worldwide.
The more money Russia has, the longer and in theory harder it can prosecute the war in Ukraine.
But Kyiv has consistently confounded international expectations since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
And now it's done so again: playing a deft hand at trying to turn the impact of the Iran war to its advantage, as Ukraine tries to get itself in the strongest position possible before eventual, hoped-for peace negotiations with Russia.
Ukraine has been showcasing its battlefield nous to the Gulf countries
On Wednesday, Trump said he was confident a "solution" over Ukraine could be reached "relatively quickly" following a "very good" conversation with Vladimir Putin. "I think 'some people' (have) made it difficult for him to make a deal," he added.
It's not the first time Trump's made similar positive comments about Putin, while implicitly or explicitly criticising Ukraine's leader for not signing up to a ceasefire.
A "solution" has yet to materialise.
In the meantime, Zelensky has focused on bolstering Ukraine where he can. Opportunism is arguably one of his most potent weapons.
Saudi Arabia, which he visited again in April, has faced the same type of ballistic missile and drone attacks from Iran that Russia barrages Ukraine with, he said.
One of Moscow's most powerful weapons has been the Iranian-designed low-cost, long-range Shahed-136 attack drone, plus its own updated version, the Geran.
While a Shahed can cost between $80,000 and $130,000 (£59,500 and £95,500), Zelensky says it can be intercepted with systems costing as little as $10,000 (£7,400). That's far cheaper than traditional air defence missiles which cost millions of dollars.
Threatened by Russian drone sightings in a number of European cities, Nato countries have been paying attention.
As attacks on Ukraine continue, Donald Trump has said he thinks he can achieve a ceasefire "relatively quickly"
Ukraine signed two substantial defence cooperation agreements with European allies in April. One was with Norway, for $8.6bn, as part of a $28bn package of support until 2030. The other was with Germany, including "various types of drones, missiles, software and modern defence systems," valued at $4.7bn.
As for the Gulf States, Zelensky said he hoped for their help defending Ukraine against Russia.
Particularly because at the moment, the US has less military hardware available to sell to Europeans to help Ukraine, as Washington burns through supplies in the Middle East. Trump's response when asked about redirecting weapons has been: "We do that all the time. Sometimes we take from one, and we use for another."
"We would like Middle Eastern states to also give us an opportunity to strengthen ourselves," Zelensky recently told French newspaper Le Monde. "They have certain air defence missiles of which we don't have enough. That's what we'd like to reach a deal on.
Targeting infrastructure
Ukraine has also learned a key lesson from the Iran conflict to use back home: the big bang impact of attacking an adversary's oil export facilities. Russia's energy infrastructure is now a priority target, using Ukraine-manufactured long-range drones.
According to Zelensky, Russia is suffering "critical" losses running to billions of dollars in its energy sector despite the recent surge in global oil prices.
Crude oil export data suggests the rise in prices, plus the easing of American sanctions on countries buying Russian oil, boosted Russian revenues to 2.3 times their December-February levels in the third week of the Iran war.
But in the fourth week, Ukrainian drone strikes on energy-producing infrastructure reduced Russia's earnings by $1bn, eradicating around two-thirds of the previous week's gains.
Another plus for Ukraine from the Iran war fallout has been finally getting the green light last week on a €90bn (£78bn), EU-backed loan that Kyiv said it urgently needed to purchase and produce military equipment over the coming year. The loan had been blocked for months by EU member Hungary's then pro-Kremlin prime minister. But Hungary now has a new, determinedly less Russia-friendly leader, after Viktor Orbán's resounding defeat in Hungary's election last month.
Orbán is a close friend and admirer of Donald Trump. That didn't help him at election time. Voters said they were angry about the Iran war, which has pushed up their energy costs. That aided Orbán's demise, allowing the EU's Ukraine loan to finally be released.
With those "wins" under Kyiv's belt, plus Ukraine's boast that it is consistently killing more enemy soldiers each month than the 30,000 Russia has reportedly been recruiting in that time, Zelensky no longer feels on the back foot and may be in a better position to pursue a peace deal with Russia.
The sense of urgency in Ukraine is longstanding. People are tired and suffering. Conscripting new soldiers has been a serious challenge for a while now, and those on the battlefield are desperate to go home.
A lack of respect?
So what of negotiations aimed at establishing a sustainable ceasefire? They had been talked up so loudly by the Trump administration before Christmas.
Before being re-elected president, Trump repeatedly said he would end the violence in Ukraine in 24 hours. Now he's in office, the reality has not lived up to the promise.
A big clue is to follow the movements of Trump's designated peace envoys, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the former real estate magnate Steve Witkoff. A trip to Kyiv has been repeatedly postponed. Instead, they're preoccupied with the Middle East.
Zelensky has said he considers the pair's absence "disrespectful". He says peace discussions are ongoing at a "technical" level but fears no progress will really be made until the Iran conflict has ended. Who knows when that will be?
It's worth noting that Kushner and Witkoff have never visited Kyiv in an official capacity. They visited the Russian capital late last year as ceasefire talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine gained pace, and again in January. Witkoff has been to Moscow eight times - he used to do a lot of business in Russia, in a private capacity. He's met Putin on a number of occasions.
The Trump administration has denied any bias towards Russia.
But Ukraine and other European countries were perturbed to read the US National Security Strategy (NSS), published towards the end of last year. It conspicuously does not label Russia a security threat. This is in direct contrast to how Moscow is viewed by Washington's European allies in Nato.
The NSS does underline the importance of ending the war in Ukraine, but the focus is not on establishing a durable peace for Kyiv. Instead, the stated aim is to ensure "strategic stability" and potential partnership with Russia to free up resources for other US priorities.
These attitudes of the Trump administration delight the Kremlin. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov crowed at the time of publication that the NSS was "largely consistent" with Moscow's vision.
Under Trump, there's been a failure to introduce or maintain hard-hitting economic sanctions against Russia that could truly move the dial and force the Kremlin to approach the negotiating table without a list of demands impossible for Kyiv (or its European backers) to accept.
On top of this, US military and economic assistance for Ukraine has all but dried up. Europeans have instead been buying military hardware from the US to send to Kyiv. But even that supply is now in danger, thanks to the Iran conflict.
Peace prospects
When it comes to persuading Russia to talk peace, conventional wisdom says the US is the only power able to make Moscow budge.
Putin shows no sign of ending hostilities of his own volition any time soon.
Quite the opposite. With the world distracted by the war on Iran, Moscow has been stepping up attacks on Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure. Opinion is divided over whether this is a last lashing out before Russia's president comes to the negotiating table or an indication of ongoing grim determination. At EU HQ in Brussels, most suspect the latter.
Russia's economy may be struggling under international sanctions but it's not decimated and is now firmly on a war footing. Winding that down won't be easy, leading European countries to fret that even if peace is secured in Ukraine, Russia will swiftly seek to destabilise somewhere else in Europe, including targeting a Nato nation. The Netherlands, Germany and Nato itself have described that as possible, even likely.
And then there's Putin's pride and ambition. Will he - can he - really hold up his hands and admit defeat in Ukraine?
"If Russia had a rational government, it would end the war," said Luke Cooper, an Associate Professorial Research Fellow in International Relations at the London School of Economics. He is also the Director of the Ukraine programme at PeaceRep, a pro-peace consortium of organisations.
"The economy is stagnant or in recession. Russia is sending enormous numbers of men to die who could be in work, the private commercial civilian economy is suffering by the imposition of the war economy… and what has Russia achieved? A sliver of Ukrainian territory. Surely, a ceasefire would be advantageous, if it included sanctions relief? But Putin isn't thinking in those terms. This is all about the decisions of one person, with imperial ambitions, running an autocratic system."
Ukraine's scepticism
While Kyiv still waits for US engagement, privately many Ukrainian officials are sceptical the US under Donald Trump will ever take the action they want to ensure peace, or, even in the case of a ceasefire, would stump up the desired cast-iron security guarantees, ensuring that Russia doesn't just come back again another day.
Mark Cancian, senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told me: "It's hard to envisage a set of security guarantees the Ukrainians will find reliable enough to sign a peace deal, and that Russia, the US and Europeans will all agree to."
But "there is no time to lose" for Europe's leaders who largely believe it would be dangerous for wider continental security if Russia ultimately felt it won a victory in Ukraine, according to Tom Keatinge, Director of the Finance & Security Centre at the Royal United Services Institute.
Despite the war in the Middle East, Keatinge says Trump, with his reputation for impatience, might pivot away at any moment from focusing on Iran if finding a deal with Tehran remains complicated.
He could then swiftly turn back to the Russia-Ukraine question. That, insists Keatinge, is why Europeans must take far more decisive action in Ukraine now than they have to date.
With their repeated use of the phrase "as long as it takes" when it comes to helping Ukraine, critics have long accused European leaders of "managing" the war, rather than aggressively pursuing peace for Ukraine.
Despite all the speeches, all the visits to Kyiv and the money spent on weapons for Ukraine, when it comes to getting really, really tough in terms of what could be truly biting economic sanctions "Europeans stand around waiting for the Americans, says Keatinge. "They act so timid yet the EU is a massive trading bloc."
Brussels is now working on its twenty-first sanctions package against Russia. But what of the €210bn frozen Russian central bank assets the EU has sitting in its jurisdiction, mainly in Belgium? Balking at using that money to help Ukraine (citing legal and reputational considerations), EU leaders came up with the €90bn loan, underwritten by European taxpayers. Europe's leaders could act against Russia with a lot more impact, argues Keatinge. "They're just not willing - or united enough to go vollgas (foot on the gas pedal) on ending the war."
Europe's leaders are sincere in wanting the suffering to end in Ukraine and for there to be a just and durable peace on their borders, but it is also true that a ceasefire in Ukraine would push uncomfortable decisions to the fore. Fewer countries are in favour of fast-tracking Ukraine's membership to the EU than they would like to admit. As for the so-called "Coalition of the Willing", headed by France and the UK, that has pledged to act as a "reassurance force" in Ukraine if and when hostilities end - which countries would really stump up boots on the ground and for how long? Especially if forces weren't supported by the US from the air.
Last week, Trump blasted what he called the hatred between Putin and Zelensky as "ridiculous". Washington has seemed dismissive of Ukraine's selling of drone tech in the Gulf. It hasn't taken up Zelensky on his public offer to share Kyiv's drone know-how with the US administration either. At least not publicly.
But Ukraine's black-clad leader seemed unfazed by those details. As long as he's making headlines, he hopes Ukraine isn't forgotten and that Washington might turn its attention back to his part of the world that much sooner.
Top image credit: AFP via Getty Images / Reuters
BBC InDepth is the home on the website and app for the best analysis, with fresh perspectives that challenge assumptions and deep reporting on the biggest issues of the day. Emma Barnett and John Simpson bring their pick of the most thought-provoking deep reads and analysis, every Saturday. Sign up for the newsletter here
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US to cut troop levels in Germany by 5,000 amid Trump spat with Merz
Germany says US troop withdrawal 'foreseeable' as Nato seeks clarification
Jaroslav Lukiv, 05/02/26
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has said the US decision to withdraw 5,000 troops from his country was "foreseeable", as the Nato military alliance says it is seeking clarification from Washington.
Speaking to the DPA news agency, Pistorius also stressed that "the presence of American soldiers in Europe, and particularly in Germany, is in our interest and in the interest of the US".
Meanwhile Nato spokeswoman Allison Hart said the alliance was "working with the US to understand the details of their decision".
Washington's move comes after President Donald Trump criticised German Chancellor Friedrich Merz for saying the US had been "humiliated" by Iranian negotiators in the ongoing war.
The US military deployment in Germany - currently at more than 36,000 active duty troops - is by far its biggest in Europe, compared with about 12,000 in Italy and 10,000 in the UK.
Trump has also suggested pulling US troops from Italy and Spain.
Last year, Washington decided to reduce its troop presence in Romania, as part of Trump's plan to shift the focus of US military commitment from Europe to the Indo-Pacific region.
There are now growing concerns within the 32-member Nato alliance that the US latest decision could weaken the organisation.
"The greatest threat to the transatlantic community are not its external enemies, but the ongoing disintegration of our alliance," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned on Saturday.
"We must all do what it takes to reverse this disastrous trend," he added.
And two senior US lawmakers from Trump's Republican party said that they were "very concerned by the decision to withdraw a US brigade from Germany".
"Rather than withdrawing forces from the continent altogether, it is in the US interest to maintain a strong deterrent in Europe," said Senator Roger Wicker and Representative Mike Rogers, who chair the Senate and House armed services committees respectively.
In Saturday's interview with DPA, Pistorius also said Europe must take greater responsibility for its security, and that Berlin would now be working more closely with allies on the continent.
"Germany is on the right track," he said, pointing out that his country has significantly boosted its military spending in recent years.
Trump had previously accused Germany of being "delinquent" because its military spending was well below Nato's target of 2% of economic output (GDP).
But that has changed radically under the Merz government, with Germany now projected to spend €105.8bn (£91bn) on defence in 2027.
Overall, Germany's defence expenditure is set to reach 3.1% of GDP, taking into account other defence funds, including Berlin's continuing aid to Ukraine as its continues to fight against invading Russian troops.
In her post on X on Saturday, Nato's Allison Hart said the US decision to pull troops out of Germany "underscores the need for Europe to continue to invest more in defence and take on a greater share of the responsibility for our shared security.
"We're already seeing progress since allies agreed to invest 5% of GDP at the Nato summit in The Hague last year."
The latest spat between Trump and Merz was triggered by comments by the German chancellor on Monday.
Merz told university students that "the Americans clearly have no strategy".
"The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skilful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result," he said.
He added that the "entire nation" was being "humiliated" by Iran.
In response, Trump took to his platform Truth Social, saying Merz thought it was "OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon" and "doesn't know what he's talking about".
This was soon followed by the US troop withdrawal announcement.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the order had come from Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth.
"We expect the withdrawal to be completed over the next six to twelve months," the spokesman added.
Trump, a longtime critic of the Nato alliance, has been lashing out at allies over their refusal to participate in operations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping route.
Iran has severely limited traffic through the waterway, responding to US and Israeli strikes that began on 28 February.
The US has also enforced a naval blockade on Iranian ports in the Gulf.
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What is Nato and which countries are in it?
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