Europe must now provide a lot of money

It was a showdown for the television cameras , staged and carried out by US President Donald Trump and his Vice President JD Vance on Friday in the White House, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived to sign a raw materials agreement. Trump and Vance probably had it differently in mind: They certainly wanted to degrade and humiliate Zelenskyy and make it clear to him publicly that he has no demands at all.

Zelensky was supposed to crawl in the dust and gratefully sign an agreement that would have given Ukraine nothing except the vague hope of somehow keeping the USA, which was on the verge of abandoning the country, on its side. What was not taken into account was that the Ukrainian president would fight back in the face of the accusations and false allegations. That does not happen in Trump's MAGA world - and there was a prompt scandal, Zelensky was thrown out of the White House. And a drastic and visually effective confirmation of the realization that had grown over the past two weeks that there could no longer be any talk of an alliance with the USA.

In addition, making one's own defense capabilities independent of the USA in the medium term, including nuclear protection, seems impossible. This is especially true as the Trump- and Putin-friendly parties have significant shares of the vote in almost all European countries and are just waiting to exploit the resulting imbalances between defense and other spending for propaganda purposes.

But there is hardly any other option. Much more quickly and radically than expected, Europe finds itself in the grip of two powerful authoritarian, anti-liberal governments - and a third, China, is already preparing to step in wherever Trump's cuts to the US development budget leave gaps. If Europe's liberal democracies want to remain that way, they must make themselves strong now. The military is definitely only one part of this - but unfortunately one that is now indispensable.