If ever there was a conversation that revealed the fraying seams of the transatlantic alliance, it came in a candid roundtable discussion published by The New York Times this morning.
Three former European diplomats — Germany’s Wolfgang Ischinger, Britain’s Judith Gough, and Lithuania’s Gabrielius Landsbergis — spoke with veteran journalist Serge Schmemann about a United States that, in their view, no longer lives up to the ideals it once embodied.
The talk — equal parts lamentation, warning, and sober reflection — painted a picture of a Europe forced to confront the possibility that the United States, once the steadfast guarantor of Western security and liberal values, may be drifting irrevocably from its post-war role.
Wolfgang Ischinger, the seasoned German diplomat and former ambassador to Washington, gave voice to what many in Berlin whisper behind closed doors: “The German relationship with the United States until now has been something that created tremendous joy and satisfaction for Germans,” he said, adding, “What has happened in the West between the United States and her European allies has created more pain, more convulsion, more crisis in the mind of German elites than in the minds of most other European elites.”
His comments speak to a profound sense of betrayal felt by many on the continent, particularly in Germany — a country that built its post-war identity and security architecture around transatlanticism.
This erosion of trust is no sudden squall. Rather, it has grown over the last decade, crystallised in Donald Trump’s first term and now deepened with the spectre of his possible return. Though U.S. troops remain stationed across the continent and NATO’s structures still function, the psychological cornerstone of the alliance — unwavering American commitment — appears increasingly brittle.
Landsbergis, Lithuania’s former foreign minister, delivered perhaps the most poignant reminder of what is at stake. Recalling the moment in 2002 when President George W. Bush stood in Vilnius and declared, “Whoever would choose Lithuania as their enemy has also made an enemy of the United States,” he noted, “A kid in school could probably quote these words.” That moment, once etched into Lithuania’s national confidence, now seems a relic of a vanished era. “It’s like something in your body being torn,” Landsbergis added, “because we grew up with this, we lived with this, we believed in this.”
Now, doubt creeps in. Landsbergis did not mince words about the implications of a U.S. retreat: “What sort of U.S. involvement will we be seeing in Europe? No more troops? No more NATO? No more Article 5? No more nuclear umbrella? How far does it go?”
These are not abstract fears. For countries bordering Russia, such as Lithuania, the memory of occupation is fresh, and the threat posed by a revanchist Kremlin is real and pressing. Landsbergis warned: “If Putin is given a respite in Ukraine, he might decide that maybe this is a time he could test whether NATO is still alive.”
For Judith Gough, Britain’s former ambassador to Ukraine and Georgia, the anxiety is no less acute. Having spent years engaged in promoting democratic reform in post-Soviet states, Gough stressed the symbolic importance of America’s past leadership: “The values that the United States stood for were extremely clear… You could see a new world opening up.” But today, she admitted, “The challenge now is trying to understand what values the United States stands for.”
Her fear is that Europe, in its strategic disorientation, might accept a “short-term peace deal” in Ukraine that ultimately plays into Moscow’s hands. “We have to be really clear,” she warned. “Russia is actually not interested in a bit of Ukraine. It is interested in ensuring that Ukraine is not a sovereign nation able to make its own choices.”
Europe, all three diplomats agreed, must now wrestle with an unprecedented question: can it protect itself?
Ischinger was blunt. “We are now facing a very different situation, where America is now suggesting to us that maybe you guys should take your security into your own hands. That is something totally revolutionary.” He added, “It requires the European project… to add a totally new dimension — a Europe which can protect itself by itself.”
Such strategic autonomy has long been discussed in Brussels, Paris and Berlin, but always with the assumption that U.S. support would endure. The idea that Europe might soon have to shoulder its defence alone, in a hostile geopolitical climate, is no longer academic.
And yet, there are glimmers of hope — or at least resilience. “When the chips are down, Europe will do that,” Gough insisted, citing the swift European response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Landsbergis pointed to the “enormous decision” by Germany to invest billions of euros into defence, saying it sends a “signal to Putin” that Europe is waking up to the new reality.
But he tempered his optimism with a cautionary note: “The shock is healthy, unless it kills the patient.”
The diplomats’ words make clear that this is not merely about Trump or a single administration. As Gough noted, “We are at something new in terms of how the United States is conducting its business.” The shift is structural, not cyclical. European capitals, she said, must stop “hand-wringing” and instead ask, “What are we going to do? How are we going to engage?”
This new realism does not mean abandoning the United States — far from it. All three panellists agreed that transatlantic ties remain vital. As Landsbergis put it: “Leave the door open. I think there are enough people in the United States who hold the same values we do… But we cannot just wait.”
Ischinger echoed the sentiment: “Engage, engage, engage. That would be my final word.” He urged Europeans not to despair, recalling the many Americans who still understand the value of soft power and international alliances. But he also warned that rebuilding trust, once lost, “is very complicated.”
The message from these diplomats is both sobering and urgent. Europe can no longer afford illusions. The old world order — anchored in American moral leadership and military might — is faltering. The United States, riven by internal division and strategic ambivalence, may no longer be willing or able to play the global role it once did.
This leaves Europe with a stark choice. It can lament the shifting winds from Washington, or it can seize this moment to remake itself as a credible power — militarily capable, economically assertive, and ideologically confident.
For years, Europe leaned on America as the guarantor of peace, prosperity and democratic norms. Now, it must lean on itself. As Landsbergis put it with unmistakable clarity: “This is the European hour, our make-it-or-break-it moment.”
The clock is ticking.
