The dangers of revising Europe's security architecture

European leaders have so far found compromises in response to many of US President Donald Trump's demands. But they were surprised to hear Trump say that he raised Europe's security framework with Russian officials. "It's going to be a big agreement and it's going to involve more than Ukraine," Trump said after meeting Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev at the White House last week. He said that deal might include all of Europe. But what he meant by "all of Europe" was not clear. US envoy Jared Kushner also wrote that Europe and Russia had struggled to establish a sustainable security framework for more than 30 years. Kushner said he was looking at a "broader" European architecture before he flew to meet with Russian and Ukrainian representatives in Abu Dhabi. European diplomats immediately pushed back on Washington's approach to secure a peace deal in Ukraine because they feared that a peace settlement could restore Russia's sphere of influence and undermine NATO. "We ​already have European security ​architecture in place. NATO and the European Union both have their ​respective roles. We ​must make sure Ukraine is integrated ‌into ⁠this architecture," said Kaja Kallas, the European Union's foreign policy chief. The issue with revising Europe's postwar security framework Russia made clear during talks in Abu Dhabi earlier this week that they were keen to discuss a broader European security framework before tackling the specifics of the war."Phrases about the European security architecture are certainly Russian talking points and not only talking points but, to a degree, part of a media propaganda effort that Russia makes to frame the war as it wishes to frame the war," said Michael Kimmage, a historian of the Cold War. Russian leaders, including Vladimir Putin, have long alleged that the US and NATO repeatedly violated pledges they made in the early 1990s not to expand the alliance into the former Soviet bloc. They have seen NATO's enlargement during this period as having put them in a humiliating position in which they could do very little. At the same time, in the 1990s, the European project saw the birth of the European Union, the single market that ensured the free movement of goods and people across member states, the Schengen agreement for border-free travel, and the euro. The core idea was to extend peace across the continent. "Europe can mean so many things, but the European project was not designed for war. It was designed for peace," said Kimmage. During this period, there were even suggestions of Russia becoming a NATO member. But that relative period of stability changed after Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, annexed Crimea in 2014 and launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. "Russia wants to redraw all of this by force. And I think that that's fundamentally unacceptable to Europe with all the diversity and variations that you get within the European landscape on what's acceptable and not acceptable. I think the large-scale redrawing of borders by force is just not the European project," said Kimmage. "So to the extent that the redrawing of borders by force is the lifeblood of Russian foreign policy, and I think that's a pretty easy case to make, Russia and Europe are at an impasse," he said. What was to happen to Ukraine's security? The Trump administration very quickly turned to making sure that "existing European security institutions" would be intact, with Jared Kushner having said late Thursday that the next round of negotiations would include "our European partners." Kushner, along with Steve Witkoff, flew to Moscow to talk to Putin after talks in Abu Dhabi. Then they flew to Dublin, Ireland, to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Kushner had earlier Thursday signaled some "really incredible" postwar plans for Ukraine, saying that it could not be concluded without Europeans at the table. "We should not allow a diktat from Russia that would result in some kind of neutralization or significant reduction in the military forces of Ukraine going forward, because that would make Ukraine very, very vulnerable to future aggression and pressure coming from Russia," said Hiski Haukkala, the director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. That would mean that Ukraine would also be completely dependent on the security guarantees that the US or Europeans are able and willing to provide. "We are supporting Ukraine because we are supporting international law and the basic norms of decency and international security when it comes to European security architecture. And this is the vantage point from which we are operating," he said. The European Union has repeatedly pointed to some of the basic treaties that Russia broke, including: The UN Charter The Helsinki Act of 1975, which established the ten core principles of European security, including the non-use of force or threat against territorial integrity. The Charter of Paris for a New Europe that built on Helsinki commitments The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which was one of the few multilateral security forums where the West and Russia engaged. The Budapest Memorandum of 1994 in which Russia, the US and the UK provided security assurances to Ukraine and others in exchange for them giving up their nuclear weapons. "Russia walked away from these principles and smashed them to pieces in the process. And they are not interested in reinstating the previous security architecture order. They want something different in its stead. And as long as this is not on the table, the Russian form of negotiation is to wage war. War is a form of bargaining," Haukkala said. "And they are signaling strategic intent to change the makeup of European security, to subdue Ukraine and to change the very essence of European security," he added. US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met with Volodymyr Zelenskyy after having met Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Image: Peter Morrison/AP Photo/dpa/picture alliance What is the way forward? Daniel Fried, a former assistant secretary of state for European Affairs in the George W. Bush administration, said Russia is very good at sticking to its demands. He said Russians know how to negotiate and "right now, they are not negotiating," referring to talks in Abu Dhabi. Some experts said there was no possibility of having a new security architecture with the Russians at this point because there was no trust or common vision to align with Russia at the moment. Others like Balazs Jarabik, an expert on post-Soviet politics, said that Russia was part of the European security architecture whether Europeans liked it or not. "And the question is whether it's included as our enemy. Obviously, Russia is not going to be a partner, right? We have to find a modus operandi to reduce the risk of a horizontal escalation and potentially a bigger European war, even a bigger one than what we have now." A host of European leaders on Friday rejected the Russian demands to discuss Europe's security framework as well, with a spokesperson for the German government saying that Berlin was looking to host a meeting of the "Coalition of the Willing" to secure funding for Ukraine's defense and reach a unified position regarding future peace talks. Can Germany make Europe pay more for Ukraine?To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video