He will learn more about how British troops are bolstering Nato's eastern flank, the palace said.

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At least the Oval Office meeting held by President Donald Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was held in front of the cameras. False friendliness in public by Trump and Vance, followed by behind-the-scenes treachery, would have been much more dangerous to the Ukrainian cause.

Instead, Trump and Vance have revealed to Americans and to America’s allies their alignment with Russia, and their animosity toward Ukraine in general and its president in particular. The truth is ugly, but it’s necessary to face it.

Today’s meeting gave the lie to any claim that this administration’s policy is driven by any strategic effort to advance the interests of the United States, however misguided. Trump and Vance displayed in the Oval Office a highly personal hatred. There was no effort here to make a case for American interests. Vance complained that Zelensky had traveled to Pennsylvania to thank U.S. ammunition workers, because, Vance charged, the appearance amounted to campaigning for the Democratic presidential ticket. “Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump angrily explained. “He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia.”

Both the president and vice president showed the U.S.-led alliance system something it needed urgently to know: The national-security system of the West is led by two men who cannot be trusted to defend America’s allies—and who deeply sympathize with the world’s most aggressive dictator.

Through the Cold War period, Americans were haunted by the fear that a person with clandestine loyalties to a hostile foreign power might somehow rise to high office. In the late 1940s, the Alger Hiss case convulsed the country. Hiss’s accusers charged—and it later proved true—that Hiss had betrayed U.S. secrets to Soviet spymasters in the 1930s, when Hiss served as a junior official in the Department of Agriculture. The secrets were not very important; they included designs for a new fire extinguisher for U.S. naval ships. But Hiss himself was a rising star. The possibility that a person with such secrets in his past might someday go on to head the Department of State or Central Intelligence Agency once tormented Americans.

But what if the loyalties were not clandestine, not secret? What if a leader just plain blurted out on national television that he despises our allies, rejects treaties, and regards a foreign adversary as a personal friend? What if he did it again and again? Human beings get used to anything. But this?

It’s not hard to imagine a president of Estonia or Moldova in that Oval Office chair, being berated by Trump and Vance. Or a president of Taiwan. Or, for that matter, the leaders of core U.S. partners such as Germany and Japan, which entrusted their nations’ security to the faith and patriotism of past American leaders, only to be confronted by the faithless men who hold the highest offices today.

We’re witnessing the self-sabotage of the United States. “America First” always meant America alone, a predatory America whose role in the world is no longer based on democratic belief. America voted at the United Nations earlier this week against Ukraine, siding with Russia and China against almost all of its fellow democracies. Is this who Americans want to be? For this is what America is being turned into.

The Trump administration’s elimination of PEPFAR, the American program to combat HIV infection in Africa, symbolizes the path ahead. President George W. Bush created the program because it would do immense good at low cost, and thereby demonstrate to the world the moral basis of American power. His successors continued it, and Congresses of both parties funded it, because they saw that the program advanced both U.S. values and U.S. interests. Trump and Vance don’t want the United States to be that kind of country anymore.

American allies urgently need a Plan B for collective security in a world where the U.S. administration prefers Vladimir Putin to Zelensky.

The American people need to reckon with the mess Trump and Vance are making of this country’s once-good name—and the services they are performing for dictators and aggressors. There may not be a deep cause here. Trump likes and admires bad people because he is himself a bad person. When Vance executed his personal pivot from Never Trump to Always Trump, he needed a way to prove that he had truly crossed over to the dark side beyond any possibility of reversion or redemption; perhaps his support for Russia allowed him to do that. But however shallow their motives, the consequences are profound.

In his first term, Trump sometimes seemed a rogue actor within his own administration. The president expressed strange and disquieting opinions, but his Cabinet secretaries were mostly normal and responsible people. The oddball appointees on the White House staff were contained by the many more-or-less normal appointees. This time, Trump is building a national-security system to follow his lead. He has intimidated or persuaded his caucus in the House to accept—and his caucus in the Senate not to oppose—his pro-authoritarian agenda.

The good and great America that once inspired global admiration—that good and great America still lives. But it no longer commands a consensus above party. The pro-Trump party exposed its face to the world in the Oval Office today. Nobody who saw that face will ever forget the grotesque sight.

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This week President Emmanuel Macron of France visited Washington and called Donald Trump “Dear Donald” four times. A photo of their meeting shows them smiling and clasping hands. We, of course, don’t know Macron’s true degree of affection for Dear Donald. But we do know that European leaders have noticed that the rules of diplomacy have changed and they are quickly adjusting.

First, European leaders sat through a speech from Vice President J. D. Vance at a security conference in Munich in which he criticized them and made clear that they could not rely on the United States in the same way they had before. Then Trump repeated Russian talking points, claiming that Ukraine started the ongoing war. And now there are reports that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is flying to Washington to discuss a deal with Trump in which Zelensky would give up national resources in exchange for security protections from the United States, an offer that staff writer Anne Applebaum describes this way:

You know, it’s as if you went to your neighbor with whom you’d had cordial relations with a long time, who’d helped you fix your car and with whom you had good relations and said, Actually, in exchange for all that, you know, in exchange for the salt I lent you and the cookies I baked you, I’m demanding half of your wealth right now.

In this episode of Radio Atlantic, we talk with Applebaum about what she calls the “end of the post–World War II order.” We also talk with staff writer Shane Harris, who covers national security, about how intelligence agencies are responding to this new posture from the Trump administration, and what this means for a group of allies that have long routinely shared intel with the U.S.

The following is a transcript of the episode:

Hanna Rosin: When Donald Trump was running for his second term as president, last year, he gave plenty of hints that he didn’t care all that much about staying chummy with our European allies. For example, he once said if NATO countries didn’t pay their fair share, he would encourage Russia to, quote, “do whatever the hell they want.”

So maybe no one should be surprised a year later that he and members of his administration are spending their first few weeks in office offending their allies and shaking up the world order. But it is kind of surprising—at least, the speed of it and the dismissive tone: For example, Vice President J. D. Vance telling the EU leadership, some of whom he referred to as “commissars,” that their countries were suppressing free speech, or Donald Trump repeating Russian propaganda about the war in Ukraine.

Donald Trump: You should’ve never started it. You could’ve made a deal. I could’ve made a deal for Ukraine.

[Music]

Rosin: I’m Hanna Rosin. This is Radio Atlantic. Today, we talk about what this shift in the world order might mean. In the second half of the show, we’ll be talking to staff writer Shane Harris, who covers national security, about how intelligence agencies are reacting to the changes.

But first, we talk to Anne Applebaum, author of the book Autocracy Inc. and host of the podcast Autocracy in America. Anne started her career tracking autocracy around the globe, and, with the rise of Trump, she started noticing it creeping up in her own country.

Anne Applebaum: I went around Germany, like, five years ago and did Cassandra-like lamentations, and nobody believed me, you know. And now, like, every German newspaper wants me to say, How do you feel about being right? And I’m like, I feel like shit, you know. What do you mean, How do I feel about being right? I feel terrible. I don’t want to be right.

[Music]

Rosin: Anne, this new administration’s shift in tone has been so sudden and so stark that I want to understand it better and figure out what its implications might be.

Applebaum: So No. 1: The language and body language that have been coming out—not just from the White House but from the defense secretary, from many people affiliated with Trump over the last few days, last couple of weeks—has been strikingly negative. The vice president went to a security conference in Munich, where generals and secretaries of defense and security analysts were gathered to hear the administration’s view of what it felt about the Russian military threats to Europe, and to the United States and to the rest of the world. And instead, he made a supercilious speech mocking them. That was No. 1.

No 2: Donald Trump announced a restart of conversation with Russia that wasn’t an attempt to find a solution to the war that would keep Ukraine safe and sovereign. It seemed to be an attempt to create a U.S.-Russian relationship of a new kind that seemed very sinister. And then, finally, I think it was the real turning point—and this, for many people, was a stunner, I think—was a UN vote. Ukraine and its allies around the world proposed a motion condemning Russian aggression.

The U.S. not only did not back the motion; the U.S. voted against it, together with Russia, Belarus, Nicaragua, the Central African Republic, and a handful of other Russian allies around the world. And that package of things, put together, is an indication that the U.S. appears to be switching sides.

Rosin: Yeah. I guess that’s the way to put it: “The U.S. appears to be switching sides.” I mean, I’m trying to think of the right way to characterize this. You immediately said the end of the post–World War II order—you declared that right after these things happened. You feel strongly—you feel definitively about that?

Applebaum: I feel definitive about it. That doesn’t mean other things aren’t going to happen. It doesn’t mean it’s not reversible. It doesn’t mean that Trump won’t get pulled in other directions. The Russians are famous for lying about what their plans are and for promising things they don’t deliver. He may find himself disappointed with the relationship he’s trying to build with Putin.

I’m not saying that there’s a straight line from here in a predictable direction. But I think I can safely say that no American administration—Democrat or Republican, since the 1940s—has talked the way the Trump administration talks. In other words, not just doubting its allies or criticizing its allies—I mean, that’s happened lots of times—but actually criticizing the fundamental premise of the alliance.

The impression Europeans have now is that that’s not true anymore. And because they were still pretty sure it was true three weeks ago, this is a very sudden and rapid change.

Rosin: Right. And this is not a good thing. I hear the alarm in your voice. Why is the post–World War II order important?

Applebaum: The post–World War II order—and, I mean, even calling it an order is too highfalutin. I mean, it’s really just a set of alliances that the U.S. built in Europe, and I should keep saying in Asia, as well, and Japan, South Korea, Australia are also part of the same world. It was a world the U.S. built in which a group of the world’s wealthiest countries agreed to work together to share their security, to develop similar and compatible economies.

The U.S., together with the Europeans and their Asian allies, created these real zones of prosperity and peace. And the U.S. was a beneficiary of that same prosperity. The U.S. was the major investor in these countries. The U.S. was allowed to lead in all kinds of ways. U.S. ideas about trade or about economics were genuflected to. I mean, although maybe that sounds too subservient. But, I mean, the people wanted U.S. leadership, the U.S. benefited from leadership, and the U. S. had those allies when it wanted to do other things.

When the U.S. went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, American allies also went. When the U.S. wanted to fight terrorism in the Middle East or around the world, U.S. allies cooperated. They cooperated with intelligence. They sometimes cooperated militarily. They sent soldiers when they were asked to send them. So the U.S. had an unusual kind of power in the world.

So other countries, of course, have military power and economic influence, but the U.S. had a form of economic and military influence that persuaded other countries to join it. This has been true over many years, in many different ways. It means that when European countries are considering big investments, big power plants, they will sometimes choose U.S. companies over their own or over those of their neighbors because they want to maintain those good relations with America.

Rosin: I mean, I guess what’s rattling about this moment is: There isn’t a precipitating event. There isn’t a ratcheting up of hostilities, the way there has been, historically. It’s just Trump. It’s just, you know—he changed his mind, so there’s really no warning. However, he did signal during his campaign, you know, Russia should be able to do whatever the hell it wanted. Is what’s rattling, especially about this moment, the speed? Like, it all unraveled in a few weeks?

Applebaum: So I would go farther. I mean, Trump has been talking about his disdain for allies and alliances since the 1980s. In 1987, notoriously, he took out these huge newspaper ads, after a trip to Moscow, I should say, saying that alliances were a waste of money, and we shouldn’t, you know—at that time, Japan, people were particularly worried about. During his first term, he repeatedly looked uncomfortable with allies, attacked them, disparaged them, famously wanted to leave NATO. He told John Bolton that he wanted to leave NATO, on the way to a NATO summit. And he was talked down by Bolton and by Jim Mattis and by others. So in that sense, it’s nothing new.

Nevertheless, since the election, Trump mostly was talking in a normal way to allies. He had phone conversations with European leaders and Asian leaders. Just a few weeks ago, he was saying, Putin’s a loser. We need to put pressure on him, you know, to end the war. And then, suddenly, as you say, it was the speed—about 10 days ago, about two weeks ago, maybe. Suddenly, the tone shifted and switched.

Rosin: The whole thing brings up the forever question about Trump: Is he chaotic or intentional? Which I think is important here because intentional would imply that he is actively remaking the world order. Like, actively aligning the U.S. with Russia. Do you sense that’s the case?

Applebaum: I think it’s a possibility, yeah.

Rosin: You do?

Applebaum: I do.

Rosin: And why? What are the best guesses about why? To what end?

Applebaum: The best guesses include: He’s been convinced of wealth and riches to be had for the United States or, perhaps, for people in his entourage by a better relationship with Russia. He’s been convinced that putting pressure on Ukraine, rather than on Russia, will end the war quickly. He’s bored of the war; he doesn’t really know how to end it, and he’s looking for a shortcut. Those are the guesses that we have. I mean, whether there’s been a specific conversation or a specific offer, I don’t know.

I should have included this in my list: I mean, the fact that he has been repeating Russian propaganda—so saying things that aren’t true but that are the kind of thing that you hear from the Russian media and from the pro-Russian media in the United States—means that he’s hearing that from somebody. And so the best guess is that he’s been speaking to someone who has changed his mind or has convinced him that Russia is a better and more predictable ally than France or Britain or Germany or Japan.

Rosin: Yeah. I mean, that’s the moment where I sat up and took notice, is the way he was talking about Ukraine, repeating such obvious lies about the origins of that war, and then, also, that document that the treasury secretary offered Ukraine. Can you describe that document? That one, for me, was a shocker.

Applebaum: Okay, so this is a document of a kind that I can’t think of a precedent for. It was given to President Zelensky of Ukraine, first by the treasury secretary, who went to Kyiv to do this. And, essentially, the document says Ukraine is supposed to sign away 50 percent of its natural resources, both rare earth minerals and other minerals and other resources and income from ports and infrastructure, to the United States indefinitely.

So the Ukrainians are meant to hand over half of their national wealth for the foreseeable future to Americans, and in an unclear way. It’s not clear to whom they would give this wealth and how the wealth would be extracted and how it would be measured and who would decide what 50 percent was—none of that is clear at all. And they would do that out of some kind of gratitude to Americans, or some kind of fealty to Donald Trump, perhaps. And they would not receive any clear security guarantees or anything else in exchange.

Rosin: And what’s unprecedented about that? That it’s unfolding like a real-estate negotiation? Or what is, you know, unusual about it?

Applebaum: An open-ended demand from a sovereign country that it hand over its wealth to another country—I mean, this is a kind of 18th-century, colonial way of dealing with a country. And this is, of course, a country that’s been an ally to the United States, that’s worked closely with U.S. intelligence, that’s been a part of an American security structure. You know, it’s as if you went to your neighbor, with whom you’d had cordial relations a long time, who’d helped you fix your car, and with whom you had good relations and said, Actually, in exchange for all that—you know, in exchange for the salt I lent you and the cookies I baked you—I’m demanding half of your wealth right now.

Rosin: By the way, a few hours after recording this, there were reports that the proposed deal was updated. The new version apparently now includes a vague mention of security guarantees for Ukraine. And Zelensky is supposedly flying to Washington later this week to meet with Trump about it. We don’t have many more details, but Anne’s neighbor analogy still holds.

Okay. Back to the conversation.

So the obvious thing to read into this betrayal of Ukraine is: There is no sanction for autocrats who want to invade other countries. Do you think that is the intended message?

Applebaum: I don’t know whether Trump understands that as the message and also, because I still don’t understand what the endgame is, how exactly he thinks the war will end. I don’t want to say something terrible has happened before it’s happened, right? But yes, if the war ends in such a way that Ukraine loses its sovereignty or is forced into some kind of humiliating situation or is unable to defend itself in the future against a rebuilt Russian army two years from now, then yes—the conclusion will be that might makes right.

Big countries are allowed to invade small ones and get away with it. And not only will the U.S. not help you if you’re a democracy being invaded by your dictatorial neighbor; the U.S. might side with the invader. That would be the lesson. And that, too, I mean—there are cascading consequences.

Rosin: Yeah. And, you know, during the Ukraine war, you’ve talked about the importance of us standing up for Ukraine, because there are consequences for Estonia. I mean, there are consequences for lots of countries.

Applebaum: There are consequences for Germany. There are consequences for Britain. You know, maybe there are even consequences for the United States. I mean, if we won’t, you know—what are we prepared to defend?

Rosin: Yeah. As things are realigning quickly, I mean, French President Emmanuel Macron seemed to indicate in his visit to Washington this week that, in fact, Europe should be less dependent on the U.S. and more in charge of its own defense. That’s what Trump says he wants. Could that be a neutral shift? Like, is that necessarily a terrible shift? How should we think of that kind of shift, where Europe is more in charge of contributing to security for its own region?

Applebaum: I think it’s a fine shift and one that I’ve been arguing for, for a long time. But it’s not a shift that you can do in two weeks, and so there is a very dangerous moment coming.

Rosin: What do you mean?

Applebaum: Well, when, you know—if the U.S. is serious about withdrawing from Europe, or if that’s the way that Trump wants to go, then there will be a moment when Europe is not yet prepared for that scenario.

Rosin: I see. So it just can’t happen this quickly. Like, the same as DOGE—it’s just sort of “come and burn everything down,” but it’s not, like, an intelligent or useful way—

Applebaum: No, it’s not an intelligent solution.

Rosin: Yeah.

Applebaum: As I said, I don’t know whether Trump or people around him have thought this through. I mean, the U.S. gains a lot of advantages by being the leading security power in Europe. And will European countries still want to buy U.S. weapons? Will they want to buy U.S. security products? There would be consequences for the U.S. too. I mean, it’s not like the U.S. just withdraws, and Europe takes over, and everything’s fine. No. There would be, as I said, this kind of cascading series of economic and political consequences that might turn out to be quite dramatic.

Rosin: Yeah. Last thing: I know you were in Munich with defense and security officials, people who help with Ukrainian defense. I’m curious what the mood is of people who have to think on the ground about strategy and defense, and how quickly they’ve been able to adjust.

Applebaum: People are adjusting very fast. The new chancellor of Germany, who was elected on Sunday—Friedrich Merz—one of the first things that he said: We have to prepare for a new world in which we are independent of the United States. And I can’t tell you how dramatic that is. He’s been pro-America. He’s been an advocate for close relations between Germany and America, and Europe and America. And to have him say that means that people are thinking fast.

So it will take a long time, of course, for military production cycles and strategic planning to change, but the beginning of the mental change has already started.

Rosin: Well, Anne, thank you so much for joining us and for naming everything that’s happening so clearly. It’s so helpful.

Applebaum: Thanks.

[Music]

Rosin: After the break: spies. We talk to Atlantic staff writer Shane Harris about how these shifting alliances are affecting the intelligence community, and what that might mean for American security down the road.

[Break]

Rosin: So in the first half of the show, we talked about the shifting world order and the political issues it causes. And now I kind of want to talk to you about operational issues, like sharing of intelligence, spycraft, you know—the things that happen between nations that make the world run. So from your reporting, are you finding that any agencies, governments are wondering how much they can trust the U.S.?

Shane Harris: I think that has been a question that has been simmering for a lot of the country’s allies since even before the election, when they looked to the possibility that Donald Trump might come back to office. How much could they trust the United States to be a reliable partner in protecting secrets, protecting intelligence that they might share? I should say it wasn’t, like, a “five-alarm fire” kind of worry. But people are really starting to ask this because Donald Trump had a history of disclosing other countries’ information, disclosing the United States’ own secrets, in some cases, and notably was criminally charged for mishandling classified information.

So I think with his election, those anxieties rose, and now what we’re seeing is kind of compounding that is this even more, I might even say, kind of existential question of not just, Can we count on the United States to protect our information and be a good security partner at the kind of tactical level? but, Can we count on them to be a good partner strategically at all anymore?

And I think all of these questions are kind of colliding right now and really undermining what had been decades of confidence that European allies, in particular, had had in the United States, regardless of whether a Republican or a Democrat was sitting in the Oval Office.

Rosin: Right. Can you actually explain how intelligence sharing works? Like, who are our critical partners? Who provides intelligence? Who provides the most intelligence? Just so that we understand what could change.

Harris: Yes. So the most important intelligence-sharing arrangement that the United States has is something that is referred to as the “Five Eyes.” And that refers to five countries—the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand—that have this long-standing kind of pact, where they share highly sensitive intelligence and information on a routine basis with one another that’s of interest to their mutual security.

And really, sort of the big, big, big players in this often are the United States and the United Kingdom. I’m just going to give you an example of how closely we share information with the U.K. When it comes to signals intelligence—which is like electronic eavesdropping, intercepting emails and other digital communication—the physical infrastructure, you know, literally the technology, the kit that these two countries rely on, is intertwined in some locations. It is that closely enmeshed.

On the level of human intelligence, so information that an agency gets from spies in the field or from assets that it has, the U.S. and the U.K. routinely share the fruits of that kind of intelligence with each other as well. And all the other partners do that on a pretty regular basis too.

And then the United States does share, maybe on a less exclusive, maybe a bit more restricted basis, but certainly shares with other NATO allies—you know, France, Germany. The United States, you know, for decades has depended extensively on German intelligence to tell us information about terrorist organizations and particular threats that are brewing in Europe that might be of interest or a threat to the United States.

So this is the kind of on-the-ground, if you like, level of sharing that goes on just routinely. And it happens, importantly, via channels and via career employees that are in place, regardless of who the heads of government, the heads of state are in the various member countries.

Rosin: By the way, the term Five Eyes. It’s so good. Like, it’s a little on the nose, but it’s so good. I’m surprised that there hasn’t been a movie, or no one’s written a novel called The Five Eyes, in which one of them betrays each other or something like that happens.

Harris: I’ve always loved it because, you know, it’s: They’re all watching. And importantly, I should say, and interesting to follow on that: In the Five Eyes, in that agreement, what’s important, too, is they do not spy on each other, right? That is something that’s also very special to the relationship in those five countries.

Rosin: I mean, I’m reading in the lines of what you’re saying. So we don’t know the degree of mistrust yet. It’s probably brewing, but it sounds like, from what you’re saying, it makes everybody less safe. Like, it makes us less safe, too, because these are how, you know, terrorist threats are detected, and these networks are very intertwined, so it feels a little precarious, dangerous.

Harris: I think that’s right. And you’re right to say that it makes everyone less safe, because if any country is holding back on information, arguably, that is potentially making everybody less informed and less aware, which could have real-world implications. And I should stress that no one has said to me, Well, we’re just going to stop sharing information with the United States, because we don’t trust you.

The real concern now is that (A) the United States might just start cutting off information flows to other countries. We did see, this week, the Financial Times had a very interesting report that Peter Navarro, who is sort of an aide to Donald Trump—who is known for saying some pretty outlandish things, I should say—was raising the idea that Canada should be kicked out of the Five Eyes arrangement. And presumably, this is some kind of coercive measure that would be used to try and get more-favorable trading terms from Canada. Now, Navarro came out and said there was nothing to this; it was a made-up story.

But we have heard rumors of this. I’ve heard chatter about it before, about whether or not Trump was considering doing that. The mere idea that the United States would be using Five Eyes membership and access to national-security intelligence to protect the country’s citizens as a coercive measure to try and get more favorable trading terms, you know, strikes people I’ve talked to as appalling, but totally in keeping with what they would expect Donald Trump to do, which tells you just how far we’ve deviated from the norm.

Rosin: So what else are people bringing up that makes them nervous? You mentioned, you know, Trump has leaked secrets before. Like, I think he famously tweeted a top-secret image of an Iranian rocket-launch site. I mean, he’s known for being a little lax with other people’s intelligence. So that’s one thing. Is that on people’s minds?

Harris: That’s definitely on people’s minds. You know, there was a famous incident in the first year of his first term where he seemed to disclose a top-secret source of information we were getting from Israeli intelligence during a meeting he had with two Russian officials, which didn’t go over great. So there is that kind of general concern about Trump himself and the people around him being very leaky and using intelligence in a way that is to their own benefit and interest. That’s been a worry.

You know, another, I think, less-appreciated concern has been: This intelligence-sharing relationship, while it is ostensibly a two-way street, really, it’s the other four Five Eyes that are depending on the United States for most of the information. I mean, the British security service, while very capable, is much smaller than the United States, and they really depend on the information they’re getting from the Americans, and it’s less about how much the Brits are giving to us.

And several people I’ve talked to in the Five Eyes community worry that as agencies—particularly, like, the FBI, which routinely shares information with the Five Eyes partners—as they’re going through this sort of chaotic period where they’re being taken over by political loyalists, like Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, the new deputy director, and Trump has gone through and fired these sort of upper echelons of the career establishment, or is trying to, those are the people, the individuals with whom these different allied countries interact with on a regular basis.

And some of them have said to me, Look. You know, while you guys, basically, can’t get your stuff together, and you’re kind of in chaos, we worry that that’s going to have a downstream negative effect on us, because you’re so distracted by politics and internal witch hunts and, you know, personnel matters that maybe you’re taking the eye off the ball, and we’re not getting the usual high quality of intelligence that we depend on.

Rosin: Right. You know, some leaders in Europe have talked about—like, Emmanuel Macron hinted at this in his meeting with Trump—that actually, being less dependent on the U.S. for their security might be a good thing for Europe. I wonder if there’s a version of that for intelligence. Like, We don’t want to be as dependent on the U.S. There’s some advantage to switching up the way that we’ve been doing things.

Harris: I think that there is. And certainly, intelligence officials I speak to aren’t quite there yet in proposing it, but everyone is aware that the nature of the alliance is shifting—and perhaps not irrevocably, but at least for the foreseeable future.

You know, if you take some intelligence agencies in Europe right now—you know, take the British intelligence service and the security service right now, for instance. They have been very aggressive and far more kind of at the front line of the action in Ukraine than the United States has. They’ve developed certain capabilities and networks and sources of information that are very useful to them.

The European countries, the U.K. included, really do see the threat from Russia, I think, differently than Americans do. They see it as something that is very much kind of in their backyard. And because of that, I think that they have been devoting more resources to beefing up their own intelligence on Russia. And could that push them, you know, in a direction where maybe they say, Look—we’ve got to start being less dependent on the United States and beef up our own capabilities and share with each other? I think that’s quite possible.

What the United States has to offer is, you know, technical reach. I mean, we’re talking about electronic information. We’re talking about just a constellation of satellites that can capture imagery and all kinds of other information. So the United States still has that bulk and has those numbers, but that does not mean that these other countries can’t develop even more specific and tailored ways of collecting information that suit their own interests and make them less dependent on the United States. I think that could happen.

Rosin: Yeah. And that’s, I suppose, value neutral? Like, we don’t know if that’s good or a bad thing.

Harris: Well, look—count me on the side of people who believe that the alliances have been very much in the interest of the various members, and that this information sharing is just a culture that now pervades among these countries. There’s a belief that more sharing, you know, and a kind of mutual—not dependence but, you know—feeling of we’re all in it together is generally good for the collective whole.

I don’t want to overstate this. The United States is the dominant intelligence force in the West. Could it go off on its own and probably be okay? Yeah, it probably could be for the near term. But you never want to be missing that one key piece of information that tells you about, you know, a bigger threat. And I just don’t see any reason, particularly, other than Trump being Trump, why we need to blow up those alliances. But, you know, this is where we are right now, isn’t it?

Rosin: A last thing: I’m thinking about Trump signaling his closeness with Vladimir Putin, you know, how he recently repeated some Russian talking points. I wonder how those kinds of signals get received among the people you talk to—intelligence officials, the people who are guarding these alliances. What’s the result of those kinds of actions?

Harris: I think that they hear that, and, honestly, they think, We’ve heard this before. Everyone talks a lot about J. D. Vance’s speech in Munich, and some of the statements that Donald Trump has made about Zelensky being a dictator, and this affection for Putin. And all of this has been happening in the past month.

My mind goes back to 2018, when Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin met in Helsinki—and listeners may remember—the question of Russia’s interference in our elections in 2016 came up. And Trump—in front of the audience, in front of the world—said that he believed Vladimir Putin over his own intelligence agencies when Putin said that Russia didn’t interfere in the election. And I think that was as stunning of a single, jaw-dropping moment as I can remember in my career covering intelligence—that the president of the United States was standing there next to an ex-KGB officer and saying, I believe him and not the U.S. intelligence community.

Our allies heard that. And really, ever since then, when I talk to people, you get a range of opinions, from, Donald Trump is just a businessman, and he likes Putin’s tough-guy attitude, all the way toward people thinking, I can’t prove it, but I’ve always suspected the Russians are either blackmailing him, or somehow, he’s secretly an agent. Like, you get the range of opinions from people.

So I think that they have just always, generally—the security services in these ally countries—have always seen that relationship that he has with Putin as a significant problem. And it’s one that they have to manage. So what they’re hearing from him now, with this affection for Putin, is not new. The difference is that now Trump is actually breaking these alliances with the West. And he is talking about a settlement in Ukraine that does not necessarily appear to be either in the interests of Ukraine or other European countries. And that has intelligence officials in Europe extremely nervous.

Rosin: I see. So this erosion of trust is long and slow. And what’s been shocking to the rest of us, the intelligence community has been monitoring for a while, those who are keeping close tabs.

Harris: I think that’s right.

Rosin: Well, Shane, thank you so much for joining us today. You always teach us so much about worlds that we don’t know a lot about.

Harris: It’s great to be with you. Thanks, Hanna.

[Music]

Rosin: This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Jinae West and edited by Claudine Ebeid. It was engineered by Rob Smierciak and fact-checked by Yvonne Kim. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.

I’m Hanna Rosin. Thanks for listening.

The Baltic states connected to electricity supplied via Finland, Sweden and Poland after disconnecting from Russia, which had supplied them electricity for decades.

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania have officially joined the EU grid in response to Russia's war on Ukraine.

More than 30 years after leaving the Soviet Union, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania will join the EU's grid.

For the past three years, Russia has used missiles and drones to locate and destroy vital infrastructure in Ukraine—power plants, dams, electrical-transmission lines. Everyone understands that these attacks are acts of war, no matter how steadfastly President Vladimir Putin describes them as part of a “special military operation.” When Russia targets other European neighbors, though, the West resorts to its own euphemisms to avoid directly acknowledging what Putin is doing.    

Last month, the undersea power cable Estlink 2, which connects Estonia with fellow European Union and NATO member Finland, was suddenly cut. The EU’s top foreign-policy official described the incident somewhat dryly and without explicitly blaming Russian agents: It was, she said, merely “part of a pattern of deliberate and coordinated actions to damage our digital and energy infrastructure.” Obviously, cutting a power line is a less overt form of aggression than the full-scale invasion that Putin launched in Ukraine. The common thread, though, is that Russia is using force to undermine a recognized country’s independence and its ability to fight back.

Undersea cables have been vital to the sovereignty of Estonia, a former Soviet republic that borders Russia and desperately needs to maintain power and communications channels that are free from Moscow’s control. Soon after Estlink 2 was sabotaged, Finnish authorities seized the oil tanker Eagle S, which was en route from St. Petersburg, Russia, to Egypt. Registered in the Cook Islands in the Pacific Ocean, the ship is likely part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet—a collection of foreign-flagged tankers that Putin’s regime uses to sell Russian oil and skirt international economic sanctions imposed after his invasion of Ukraine.

[Read: What Europe fears]

The Eagle S, however, apparently had a covert military purpose as well: Investigators discovered that the vessel was crammed full of advanced surveillance equipment, which used so much power that the ship suffered from periodic blackouts. Finnish authorities concluded that the Eagle S had dragged its anchor across the Baltic Sea bed for “dozens of kilometers” in an attempt to break the Estlink 2 line.

Still, in this and other cases across the continent, European officials seem terrified of admitting what is happening. Authorities in multiple countries are investigating parcels that spontaneously caught fire or exploded in the custody of cargo airlines, perhaps in preparation for a broader operation that would threaten many large aircraft. Saboteurs have targeted a number of other strategically significant assets in Europe—munitions factories, crucial rail lines—along with civilian infrastructure such as warehouses and malls.

Investigators believe that Russia is behind the attacks. In December, the EU imposed sanctions on certain Russian individuals and entities in response to recent sabotage. Still, the official announcement declined to use the word war to characterize Moscow’s activities outside Ukraine. Instead, the EU condemned Russians’ “destabilising” and “malicious actions.”

The inability to describe acts of war as acts of war is part of a culture of distortion and denial regarding the subject of state-sponsored violence. Over generations, policy makers have created many subclasses of conflict: cold wars, police actions, hybrid wars, cyber wars. Different euphemisms serve different purposes. Putin prefers special military operation because he doesn’t want to publicly admit that he is waging a brutal war on Ukrainians. Many in Europe avoid describing Russia’s sabotage campaign outside Ukraine as war because they’d rather not have to do anything in response.

European officials would be better off honestly admitting the reality of what they are confronting. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is only the most conspicuous part of what looks like an ever more globalized war. Late last month, an Azerbaijani passenger jet was shot from the sky over Russia and forced to land in Kazakhstan. North Korean troops have been transported thousands of miles to fight and die on European soil. European governments have dithered over how much to help Ukraine resist Russia’s invasion, and they have no clear strategy for deterring or limiting the sabotage campaign now happening on their own soil. Acknowledging that Russia is engaging in acts of war would not oblige the EU or individual countries to immediately retaliate with military force. But the term war has a way of concentrating the mind—and using it might make European leaders think much harder about defending themselves when they cannot rely on the United States.

[Read: The most consequential act of sabotage in modern times]

Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and arguably since the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, democratic Europe has been predisposed to think about war as an issue for Washington to handle, not as a problem requiring their own leadership. European states might provide some soldiers and equipment but do not have the burden of any serious planning or strategizing. That lax attitude is no longer tenable. Every leader on the continent needs to understand that Putin wishes to upend the entire European order—and that the United States is no longer trustworthy as a long-term ally. President-Elect Donald Trump is openly disdainful of many governments in Europe and seems willing to walk away from America’s role as the continent’s protector.  

Although European leaders have largely refused to think about war, the EU’s member nations and other democracies on the continent still have all the prerequisites for military power. Although the economies of the United States, China, and many developing countries are growing much faster, the EU, Britain, and other European democracies together have a population of about half a billion people and account for about one-fifth of world GDP. EU member nations maintain military forces with some of the most advanced equipment in the world. The combination of Putin’s aggression and Trump’s indifference should be an opportunity for Europe to take charge of its own defense. The first vital step in this realization is to acknowledge what’s already happening: Call a war a war.

Estonia's Jaan Roose completes stunning Dubai skyscrapers walk at over 200 metres height