Ukraine’s Zelensky Nails the E.U.

On a day when “(a)pproximately 4,000 building in Kyiv lacked heating . . . as temperatures plunged to -20C amid Ukraine’s coldest winter in years, almost four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “delivered a scathing critique of European inaction at the World Economic Forum . . . , declaring that the continent ‘looks lost’ and remains trapped in endless repetition of failing to defend itself or decisively support Ukraine.”  Zelensky lamented, “Repeating the same thing for weeks, months, and of course, years. And yet that is exactly how we live now.”  In particular, he was referring to the fact that just as the U.S. had been sinking drug boats, the E.U. could have been sinking Russian oil tankers even near Greenland. “We will solve this problem with Russian ships,” he said. “They can sink near Greenland just like they sink near Crimea.”  Why was Europe repeating the same “day” over and over again, as in the film starring Bill Murry, Groundhog’s Day? Zelensky had the presence of mind to identify the root problem though his wording was antiquated.

Contrasting the U.S. with the E.U., Zelensky lamented, “The fact remains, Maduro is on trial in New York. Sorry, but Putin is not on trial. . . . The man who started it is not only free, he’s still fighting for his frozen money in Europe.”  Questioning “why Trump could seize shadow fleet tankers and oil while Europe could not, noting that oil funds the war against Ukraine,” Zelensky said, “If Putin has no money, there’s no war for Europe.”  The point is that the E.U. could have acted to thwart Putin’s military might by cutting off oil revenue. Such action even years earlier seems like a no-brainer, given Zelensky’s logic: “Today they target Ukraine. Tomorrow it could be any NATO country,” he said. “Wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to cut Russia off from components making missiles, or destroy factories making them?”  That could be done directly by bombing the factories and boycotting Russia, and indirectly by bombing Russian oil in tankers, whether Russian or not. It was, in other words, in the interest of the Europeans in the E.U. to cut off the Russian war-machine rather than appease it with inaction. 

As for the E.U.’s reliance on a few of its states to defend Greenland amid U.S. President Trump’s intention to invade or purchase the island, Zelensky noted the significance of the weak response by saying, ‘If you send 14 or 40 soldiers to Greenland, what is that for? What message does it send? What is the message to Putin, to China? And even more importantly, what message does it send to Denmark, your close ally? Forty soldiers will not protect anything.”  Even as Zelensky was insightful in drawing out these wider implications, he made a political category mistake in mischaracterizing one E.U. state, Denmark, as an ally in the E.U., for a state in a federal union is neither an ally (i.e., equivalent) to the union itself nor an ally to other such states. Unlike allies, E.U. states have delegated a portion of their respective governmental sovereignty to a federal level (e.g., exclusive competencies, as well as qualified-majority voting).  In fact, Zelensky was undercutting his own argument in so doing.

In particular, and here we get to the main point, “Zelenskyy criticized Europe’s fragmented response to global challenges, declaring the continent ‘still feels more like geography, history, tradition, not a great political power’ and ‘remains a fragmented kaleidoscope of small and middle powers.’”  Even in sending a few thousand troops from a few E.U. states rather than a federal response going beyond loose cooperation, the E.U. showed itself in relief as having succumbed to its parts (i.e., states). Zelensky actually fed the undergirding Euroskeptic, anti-federalist European ideology by referring not to states or even member-states, but to small and middle powers as if the E.U. did not even exist. If he was referring to small and large E.U. states as “small and middle powers,” Zelensky was missing the point that whether large or small, an E.U. state is an E.U. state. Mischaracterizing E.U. states as small and middle powers, and the E.U. as the unnamed large power not only ignores the E.U.’s immense weakness, especially with regard to its own states, but also ignores that in a federation, there are only two levels: the state level and the federal level. 

In short, if Zelensky wanted a stronger, more perfect Union in Europe, a “great power,” he should have said so, explicitly: the E.U. needs more competencies, or enumerated powers, in foreign policy and defense, subject to qualified-majority voting rather than unanimity in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. Instead, the way he described “small and middle” powers in his speech at Davos undermined his own goal. He claimed that Europe needed to learn at least how to defend itself, but since his last address at Davos a year earlier, “nothing has changed.”  He lamented that in Europe, everyone “turned attention to Greenland and its clear most leaders [in Europe] are not sure what to do about it.”  Meanwhile, Europe’s “small and middle” powers were reluctant to provide Ukraine with advanced weapons systems. Relying on the U.S. had become foolish, and yet the E.U. was still not stepping up to the plate (an expression from baseball) to bat in foreign policy and defense. 

It was long since time for structural change be made in the division of competencies between the federal and state systems of government in the E.U., especially with the U.S. eyeing Greenland and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine having been going on for nearly four years by early 2026 when Zelensky delivered his speech to the world’s economic and political elite in Davos. It was time, in other words, for the governors of the states to “step up to the plate” and agree to federalize more authority in foreign affairs and defense. After all, those state governments had enough direct power at the federal level in the European Council and the Council of Ministers to act as a check, even under qualified-majority vote, on federalized foreign policy and defense. The U.S. could take a lesson in this respect and replace elected U.S. senators with governors in that union’s higher legislative chamber to step federal encroachment on the retained and residual governmental sovereignty of the member-states there.  

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1. Aleksandar Brezar, “Zelenskyy Says Europe ‘Looks Lost’ and Living in ‘Groundhog Day’ in Scathing Davos Address,” Euronews.com, January 22, 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

On the Global Order: Experts Missing the Big Picture

Although the reasoning of government officials in foreign policy can be impeccable, they are susceptible to being so oriented to the intricacies of the “chess” playing that they may actually be rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, a ship that sank in the icy Atlantic in 1912. At a talk by American foreign-policy experts at Yale’s School of Global Affairs in March, 2025, Ely Ratner, who served as an assistant secretary of defense, and Celeste Wallander, who was also an assistant secretary, joined Andrea Kendall-Taylor of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) to speak mainly on U.S. foreign policy in regard to Russia and China; only scant mention was made of the situation in Gaza even though a holocaustic genocide was well underway there. What the speakers said about the post-World War II world order was most telling; what they did not say, however, spoke volumes.

The talk was incredibly timely. On the very same day, Oscar-winning filmmaker, Hamdan Ballal, who had won for the film, “No Other Land,” was allegedly beaten by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, after which he—not the Israeli thugs—was arrested and detained by the Israeli military, ostensibly so he could get medical attention.[1] Were he in Gaza, where the Israeli military had recently bombed two hospitals, he might well have died getting medical treatment. On the very next day, Euronews reported that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had told U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, “I fully share your loathing of European free-loading. It’s pathetic.”[2] Hegseth was doubtlessly referring to Europe’s reliance on the U.S. militarily since the end of World War II. With Russia invading Ukraine, the Trump Administration was urging the E.U., including its state governments, to increase their defense-spending. Hegseth said nothing about Israel’s crimes against humanity in the occupied Gaza territory.

I contend that the impunity that both aggressive Russia and Israel were enjoying are but symptoms of the slow demise of the post-World War II global order. Although Ratner agreed with this conclusion, and the other two speakers at Yale agreed, they all pointed out that elements of the existing order were still working and should be retained. However, such elements were no match for the obvious impunity that by 2025 came with military invasion and none of the speakers proffered an alternative to the existing world order, even though Ratner warned that President Trump’s “spheres of influence” basis for international relations was dangerous, for it could mean that the U.S. could take Greenland and Russia could subjugate Ukraine with impunity.

That none of the speakers mentioned the United Nations at all is significant because that international organization’s utter failure to enforce its own resolutions and even kick out countries that had willfully and repeatedly violated resolutions (e.g., Russia and Israel) attests to dire need for a new international order. That the UN had allowed certain members of the Security Council to shamelessly exploit a conflict of interest in wielding the veto on their own behalf or to protect their allies strongly suggests that a new global organization was urgently needed by 2025. Nevertheless, none of the three speakers at Yale even mentioned the UN. Instead, they were essentially rearranging deck-chairs on the Titanic.

People who work too closely within a given institutional order can easily succumb to missing the forest for the trees—focusing minutely on even the design of a leaf and thus missing the forest-fire going on even nearby. Meanwhile, radicals with no vested vocational and monetary interest in the existing order can easily become so utopian that their proposals simply cannot be taken seriously.  In the rise and fall of world orders, people at credible vantage-points issuing realistic proposals that go beyond tweaking existing institutions are needed. A former undersecretary of the UN who spoke at Harvard in 2025 agreed with me that the UN could not be adequately reformed because none of the five veto-powers on the Security Council would agree to give up their power even though doing so would enable the UN to pass resolutions against even governments committing crimes against humanity. Even extirpating the vetoes from the Security Council would not be sufficient; the UN would need military power of its own with which to enforce its resolutions on recalcitrant national governments. Fears of a world government coming from populist fringes, which would likely include religion over-reaching, could shout over realistic explanations that a semi-sovereign federation would not be a world government in the sense of dominating national governments. At the regional level, both the E.U. and U.S. demonstrate that governmental sovereignty can indeed by divided between federal and state governmental systems within a federal system.

Given the human-caused breach of the climate by excessive carbon-pollution, the existence of nuclear bombs many times over, and both the scale and severity made possible by modern technology of crimes against humanity—as perpetrated for instance by Nazi Germany and then Israel—continuing to rely on a global system based on an absolutist version of national sovereignty absent any global-level accountability is nothing short of reckless. In my experience at both Harvard and Yale, I heard nothing said either by the faculty or visiting officials on how humanity could realistically move on from the antiquated world order. Meanwhile, Israel and Russia continued with their toxic military activities unabated.

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1. Elise Morton, “Oscar Winning Palestinian Director Hamdan Ballal Allegedly Attacked by Israeli Settlers,” Euronews.com, March 25, 2025.
2. Tamsin Paternoster, “’Pathetic European Free-Loading’: US Officials Slam Europe in Leaked Chat,” Euronews.com, March 25, 2025.

Mixing Trade and Defense Policy: The E.U.-U.S. Bilateral Relationship

Trade and war have historically been related, as, for example, money from recurring surplus balances of trade—an alternative to debt—has facilitated military build-ups prior to going to war in the Europe. In threatening to take Greenland by military force if the E.U. state of Denmark continued to refuse to sell the island and then issuing 10% tariffs against Denmark and other E.U. states, as well as two sovereign European states for having sent troops to defend Greenland in case the U.S. were to invade, President Trump closely wielded trade and military policy. The E.U.’s response was unbalanced, being oriented only to the trade element of the E.U.-U.S. bilateral relationship, due to weaknesses in the E.U.’s federal system.

In January, 2026, President Trump’s announced that “a 10% tariff on all products coming from eight European countries”—the E.U. states of Denmark, Sweden, Finland, France, and Germany plus Britain, which had seceded from the E.U., and stand-alone Norway—would begin on February 1^st and increase substantially months later “until a deal is reached for the ‘complete and total purchase of Greenland’.”[1] Those states had just sent troops to Greenland as doing so would prevent Trump from using military force to invade the island. The E.U. itself was inactive on this military front even though the independent coordination between a few states in sending troops lacked not only the united action, but also the political leverage that the E.U. could have provided in pushing back against Trump’s threats. That the E.U. is more than the sum of its parts (i.e., states) seems perpetually to be lost on Europeans, whose primary political instinct would be called “states’ rights” in American terms. In fact, the Euroskeptic ideology has gone so far as to misconceive of the E.U. itself as merely a trading “bloc,” such that adding competencies, or enumerated powers, in foreign policy and defense would by implication seem taboo.

Accordingly, rather than the European Commission, the Parliament, and the Council coordinating legislative and even “basic law” action to bolster the E.U.’s military reaction to Trump’s threats, calls were instead for the E.U. to “deploy its ultimate anti-coercion tool against the US . . .”[2] That instrument had been adopted by the E.U. in 2023 “to combat political blackmail through trade” and “would allow the E.U. to restrict third countries from participating in public procurement tenders. Limit trade licenses and shut off access to the single market.”[3] The use of the instrument would be in accord with the mistaken, ideologically convenient view that the E.U. is primarily a trade organization. Besides misconstruing the E.U.’s three pillars as exclusively economic in nature, the “geopolitical ramifications” of using the legislative instrument to “severely impact U.S. services and products” would be extrinsic. Furthermore, if those ramifications would cause the U.S. to militarily invade Greenland, the E.U. would have to rely on its states to respond militarily. I submit that such a military response would be suboptimal relative to a federal response.

President Trump’s geopolitical close linkage of trade policy and military strategy with respect to Greenland demonstrates just how deficient and costly the anti-federalist, Euroskeptic ideology has been with respect to the E.U. being thought of as primarily economic in nature. That the states sending troops to Greenland “reiterated their ‘full solidarity’” with the E.U. state of Denmark is not the same as a foreign-policy statement coming from the E.U.’s foreign minister. Even concerning the E.U.’s anti-coercion law, that the E.U. states of Germany and France were planning on pushing “their European partners to use all tools at their disposal” rather than work through the E.U.’s Council, which represents the states, demonstrates the anti-federalist, states’ rights ideology at work at the expense of federal action.[4] To be sure, it is difficult for governors of states to give up power to a federal level. The question is perhaps how deficient the E.U. must become in a changing world in which trade is increasingly intertwined with geopolitical and even military interests and activity before the E.U.’s state governments are willing to delegate enough competencies, or enumerated powers, to the Union in foreign policy and defense so the benefits of collective action can be realized. It is significant that, “across the pond” from the E.U., U.S. President Trump was happy to pit E.U. states against each other without any pushback with teeth from President Von der Leyen.

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1. Maria Tadeo, “Pressure Grows on the E.U. to Deploy Trade Bazooka against Trump’s Greenland Tariff Threat,” Euronews.com, 18 January 2026.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Eleonora Vasques and Mared Gwyn Jones, “France and Germany Push to Use EU Anti-Coercion Tools If Trump’s New Tariffs Become Reality,” Euronews.com, 19 January, 2026.