Europe PANICS After Zelensky-Trump Blow-up. USA Cuts Losses, Europe in Denial | Prof. Glenn Diesen

## The Public Spectacle of Diplomacy The exchange between President Zelensky and the American administration did not merely expose a policy disagreement; it revealed a profound shift in how diplomacy is performed and perceived. The quarrel, staged before cameras and amplified across social media, is symptomatic of a new "megaphone diplomacy" where leaders address two audiences at once: their interlocutors and the global public. The performance of pressure and grievance has replaced private negotiation, and that substitution has real strategic costs. As the conversation made clear, the optics mattered as much as the text of any agreement—and that alone made constructive bargaining far more difficult. This publicizing of negotiation turns compromise into a spectacle and raises the political stakes of flexibility. When concessions are framed as betrayal in real time, leaders are less able to make the quiet, incremental moves that historically bring wars to a close. The exchange in Washington was therefore not merely bad theater; it was a structural problem. Diplomacy contingent on narrative control tends to foreclose compromise because every move must be defensible to a domestic and international audience that prizes moral clarity over messy give-and-take. ## The Collapse of European Strategy A recurring theme in the discussion was Europe's growing panic and denial. European capitals, having long relied on U.S. leadership and a narrative of moral clarity about the conflict, were suddenly confronted with American recalibration. That shocked response—by some described as a refusal to face strategic defeat—speaks to a deeper institutional and intellectual failure. For years, major European governments backed a policy that made negotiation politically unacceptable, insisting that only battlefield victory or maximalist settlement could satisfy justice. This posture left Europe exposed when Washington signaled a willingness to cut losses. The panelists argued that while Europeans still cling to the logic of escalation and moral certitude, the Americans are reckoning with attrition, logistics, and the limits of sustainable involvement. European leaders had hoped to extract binding security guarantees that would legitimize a more direct role on the continent; instead they found the leverage had shifted. The result is not only diplomatic embarrassment but a strategic vacuum—Europeans may be unable to deliver the promises they make and incapable of managing the consequences of failing to do so. ## The Mineral Deal and Ukraine’s Bargain One of the most consequential episodes in the recent flap was the proposed minerals agreement—a complex mixture of financing, resource concessions, and security promises. As noted in the exchange, the deal had origins in Kyiv's own outreach and was born from desperation. Ukraine, with its economy shattered and military strained, briefly entertained arrangements that would unlock external investment by pledging future revenues from critical resources. On paper, that looks like a Faustian bargain: the sale of long-term national wealth in exchange for short-term guarantees. The conversation highlighted a crucial point: the Americans, recognizing their leverage, reframed the proposal so that extraction and profit would serve as repayment for assistance rather than as an unconditional grant. That meant the United States would hold the cards. The deeper problem, however, is strategic rather than financial. If security guarantees are coupled to resources, they cannot be a blank check: they must be constructed to remove incentives for renewed conflict. But as discussed, guarantees that remove immediate risk can perversely encourage a revanchist leadership to resume hostilities—knowing an external guarantor will intervene. Thus the minerals-for-guarantees bargain was never a simple economic swap; it sat at the intersection of deterrence, sovereignty, and moral hazard, and it was structurally unstable. ## Narratives, Legitimation, and the Politics of Blame At the heart of the disagreement lies competing narratives about the war’s origins, causes, and legitimate ends. For years, much of the Western discourse presented the conflict as an unprovoked act of aggression—an account that makes moral clarity possible but negotiationally toxic. The conversation pushed back on this framing, arguing that the war must also be seen as the culmination of a longer sequence of provocations and failed diplomacy, including Western expansionism and policy moves in 2014. When one side insists the crisis was unprovoked, the remaining options narrow: either unconditional capitulation or total military defeat. This battle over narrative has profound consequences for reporting, dissent, and policy. Those who raise inconvenient facts or point to shared culpability are often delegitimized as apologists. The rhetoric of "standing with" a side becomes a shroud that suppresses scrutiny. The conversation stressed how this dynamic distorts reality on the ground—masking conscription abuses, political repression, and civilian suffering in the name of solidarity. When slogans substitute for analysis, options for a negotiated settlement are rendered politically unpalatable even if they could save lives. ## The Strategic Turn in Washington One of the clearest takeaways was the sense that U.S. strategic calculation has entered a different phase. The Americans are no longer uninterested in diplomacy because they lack conviction; rather, they are recalculating costs and benefits after years of attrition. The blunt observation made in the discussion was that the U.S. war machine has limits; prolonged proxy commitments produce diminishing returns and increasing domestic political friction. This change in posture—if durable—forces a reallocation of burdens and expectations. That reallocation has immediate implications for Europe and Ukraine. If Washington is prepared to disengage or to condition its support on terms that prevent open-ended involvement, European leaders must either assume more responsibility or accept less favorable outcomes. The conversation underscored how the U.S. holds the strategic leverage, and when it exercises restraint, allied strategies that relied on open-ended American backing suddenly appear fragile. Critics on the left and right will debate whether this is prudent realism or dangerous retrenchment; what’s clear from the exchange is that it marks a contested inflection point in Western strategy. ## What a Viable Peace Would Require If the war’s violent phase is to end without consigning the region to perpetual instability, the conversation suggested, several hard truths must be faced. First, peace will demand reciprocity: terms that reduce incentives for renewed fighting on both sides. Simple guarantees without mechanisms to enforce accommodation are insufficient and may fuel future cycles of violence. Second, the role of external actors needs rethinking. A peace that substitutes foreign guarantees for local settlement risks creating dependency and delegitimization. Third, narratives have to shift from moral absolutes to pragmatic assessments that acknowledge multiple causes and responsibilities. The speakers also emphasized the necessity of secrecy and discreteness in negotiation. The very public theater that undermined the recent talks must give way to confidence-building measures and backchannel diplomacy that allow leaders to change positions without political annihilation. Finally, any settlement would need to reconcile security concerns with Ukraine’s sovereignty and economic reconstruction—an immensely complex package that cannot be reduced to a single minerals-for-troops swap. ## The Choices Ahead: Denial, Adaptation, or Reckoning The exchange held up a stark choice for Europe's leaders and for Western publics more broadly: continue in denial and double down on a lost strategy, adapt to the new strategic reality with humility

Europe PANICS After Zelensky-Trump Blow- up | Prof. Glenn Diesen While the Europeans are in full denial about losing their top-dog protector, the USA is busy cutting its losses in the Ukraine-proxy war. To discuss the recent blow-up between Zelensky and Trump as well as the greater strategic implications, I'm joined today again by Dr. Glenn Diesen from the University of Southeast Norway. Glenn's Channels: Substack: https://glenndiesen.substack.com Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCZFCDIHTe9HGxtIuVDpBz7g Twitter: https://x.com /glenn_diesen?s=21 #M3 Look at the attrition rates. Look at the weakening of the Ukrainian army. Look at the strengthening of the Russians day by day. The war is over. It's either this horrible deal for the Ukrainians now or it's an even worse deal in the future. I don't want to pretend as if no security guarantees, no NATO, no nothing, no territories back—none of this is a good deal for Ukraine. It's a horrible deal. It's a humiliating peace. But it's the only option at the moment on the table. So I do think that Americans realize that they got defeated in Ukraine. I mean, Trump himself was happy to send Javelins and escalate the conflict during his first administration. So I don't see any principled issue with not confronting great power. So I do think that this is a reasonable argument that the Americans simply, you know, the war machine ran into the ground. They lost this one. So what do you do? The Europeans, they don't want to do any course correction. They just want to push on even after it's been lost, even though it will lead to an even worse peace. #M2 Hello, everybody. This is Pascal from Neutrality Studies. And today, my guest is again my friend and colleague, Prof. Glenn Diesen, who's a professor at the University of Southeast Norway. We want to discuss today the tumultuous last week, when we've seen several state visits in the US, first from France, Mr. Macron, then from Mr. Starmer of the UK, and finally, the big shouting match between Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Trump on Friday and the things that have happened since. Glenn, welcome back to the channel. Thank you, it's good to be back with you. I really want to listen to your take on things and also in the context of your own videos that you did over the last couple of days and weeks, because you've had a lot of very important guests on your show. You're working also with the Duran. Are you able to make sense of all the diplomacy that we've just seen unfolding and collapsing in the last, let's say, seven to ten days? -- 1 of 14 -- #M3 Well, I think "collapse of diplomacy" is the right word. And I was making a comment on this as well. But besides the politics behind it, I think it's very dangerous how diplomacy itself has been falling apart because we see that, you know, why would they have this quarrel in front of the cameras? And I made a point. It's important to note that you have two audiences. They're talking to each other, but they're also trying to pressure each other by reaching out to the public. So I would have assumed if the cameras weren't on them that they wouldn't have put on this show. And I agree with Vance. I think that Zelensky, you know, he wasn't behaving appropriately, but at the same time, the way they were approaching Zelensky as well. Obviously, they wouldn't have done this if it weren't for the cameras. Now, you can argue that they're being defensive or offensive, but whatever it was, this is not usually done in front of cameras. But this is a new megaphone diplomacy. You just scream to the audience, see who can scream the loudest. And I think the role of narrative control is so important these days that it makes it very difficult to have diplomacy. And I know the Europeans are quite horrified, thinking, "Oh, my goodness, how can you do this in front of the camera? This is inappropriate." But how are the Europeans any better? They were fighting a proxy war against Russia, the world's largest nuclear power. And again, for three years, nobody even wants to sit down with Russia. The arguments we often get are, well, we don't want to legitimize Putin. We don't want to, you know, and so everything is about how you're portraying it. Like we have to portray it to the public that it is isolated. We have to do this. So everything is about, yeah, sending a message. And you always have to make sure that the audience gets the message they want. And so it's very difficult to do diplomacy. Indeed, the Europeans refuse diplomacy, despite the fact that all these hundreds of thousands of people are dying. They don't want to do diplomacy. And you see now with the Americans, they do want to do diplomacy, but both the Ukrainians and the Americans got engaged in a shouting match. I think it was predictable—not to this extent, I did not see this coming—but before they met, it was obvious that it wasn't simple to sign an agreement. The document they had published was so vague about the minerals, it obviously hadn't been settled. And the issue of security guarantees is front and center of what they were trying to link to this energy deal. So I think the idea that they came there not to sign an agreement but to do last-minute negotiation over what it actually means, and then do this in front of the camera, was a recipe for disaster. I don't know who managed this, but it was terrible to watch. #M2 The way that Alexander Mercouris also explains it is that it was apparently the job, or he interprets it as having been the job, of Mr. Macron on Monday and then Starmer on Thursday to kind of extract these backstop concessions from Donald Trump, because that's apparently what the Europeans were -- 2 of 14 -- after: that the United States commits itself militarily to help the Europeans in case they got in trouble if they actually start sending troops into Ukraine. And this is what failed, and that Mr. Zelensky still wanted to go back to this point, something that the Americans simply weren't willing to accept. On the other hand, that deal, this mineral deal, or it was more than minerals, right? It's in general like the wealth of the Ukrainian state that was about to be signed away. That seemed to me such a horrible idea for Ukraine to do in the first place. I mean, I'm kind of glad Ukraine didn't sign that because to me it would look as if you give things away in perpetuity, 50% of your nation's wealth in perpetuity in the future. Do you think that this was... Was this meant seriously? I mean, also Alexander Mercouris keeps saying that the mineral deal was originally the idea of Mr. Zelensky. That's true as well, but the Americans flipped it on its head and made it a repayment instead of a future promise of profits, instead of taking the bribe. How do you read what these different actors actually try to do with each other? #M3 Well, it is correct that initially it was Zelensky who approached the Americans with this proposal. Again, it's worth noting here this is an immensely horrible deal for the Ukrainians to hand over all of these resources, which they definitely need to actually recover the country afterwards. But Ukraine is in a very desperate position. And if they don't end this war, the Ukrainian army, we're watching its collapse. The Russians will take huge territories. They will take most of these resources. Indeed, the Russians already have most of these resources. So if they don't do anything, then it will end up much in Russia's control. So the way Zelensky probably saw it, let's promise it to the Americans if they're willing, more or less, to fight for it. The way I saw it was the Ukrainians wanted this as a security guarantee, effectively buying American military assistance against Russia. But as Trump said, this is not what they want. They argue that if we merely help to extract these rare earth minerals, then that would be enough to deter the Russians because they wouldn't want to attack American interests and all of this. So it will be enough. And obviously, as Trump said, we hold all the cards there. And that's right. They have all the leverage. And that's why they found this push by Zelensky to be inappropriate. But I don't think it was ever going to work because, as you said, the security guarantees are treated as something unproblematic. You give security guarantees, and now they don't have to worry that much. But, as I always make the point, in any peace deal, you want to remove the incentives for restarting the conflict. Great. The security guarantees can deter Russia, which is great. Then it's less likely that Russia will renew hostilities, but unlike the narrative we're being fed every day. This is not simply Russia trying to conquer territories. There are more sides in this conflict. One of them is that NATO actually did start this war in 2014 by toppling the government and has sabotaged every meaningful peace agreement since in order to keep a long war, using Ukrainians to fight Russia. So it has to go both ways. And we know already that Zelensky is quite desperate to get the -- 3 of 14 -- Americans on his side. We know in the past he even lied, for example, about the Russian missiles hitting Poland in order to try to pull NATO into this war. So what would happen if there's a security guarantee? It would give so much incentive to Zelensky to break that and restart conflicts if he knows that he can bring the Americans in on his side to reconquer the territories which they have lost. So I think, yes, Trump said that he's playing with World War III. This is not what you want to do. And so, yeah, the deal, I think, was never going to really work. But I think Zelensky's idea was, you know, you dismiss all talks about diplomacy, all talks about negotiations, and you buy into the idea that Russia is this terrorist state that will never stop attacking, will always just want to kill out of joy. And it has to be stopped. And this is why they need security guarantees. And this is how we're building it into this rare earth deal. And I just want to say, finally, I very much agree with you. I think it's no coincidence that Macron and Starmer came in at the beginning. I think these are the two main countries in Europe which actually matter now as their military powers. They also have some ability to disrupt anything that America wants to do in terms of negotiating a peace. And, yeah, we saw both Macron and Starmer bring up the same thing. We need security guarantees from the United States because the Europeans can't send in what they call peacekeepers on the ground in Ukraine unless they have American backing, because Russia would destroy them all. They're not going to accept it. From Russia's perspective, they invaded Ukraine to prevent NATO incursion into Ukraine. So if you have European peacekeepers, it's still the same NATO countries. It would be a stepping stone. They would never leave, and it would be a stepping stone to de facto NATO membership. So they're not going to accept this. They don't want them there. And I think the Americans know very well that they won't accept it. So why would the Americans—they can't accept this giving security guarantees. So this was the main conflict, I think. And this is when also Zelensky and Vance went at each other when Zelensky kept rejecting the whole idea of having any diplomacy, that it wasn't possible, and shut down what Vance was trying to push forward. So they wanted Zelensky to agree, yes, okay, we'll make a peace, the war is over, we lost, here's the demands, get on board with Team America, and he didn't. And that's when things went very quickly south. #M2 Do you also think that we, for the first time, now have a clash of narratives really on the top level? Because the narrative we've been hearing from the US and from Europe, with maybe the exception of Hungary, and then maybe with the exception of Slovakia after Mr. Vito became president there, was that this is an unprovoked aggression. And the only way it can end is a just war