Did you know that President Trump is cancelling the New World Order the US proclaimed in the 1990s – starting with the last and most disastrous of its projects, the advance into the Ukraine?

President Trump and his revolutionary band (Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz, Steve Witkoff, General Kellogg and Pete Hegseth) have hit the ground running in this, much to the angst of the British, Europeans and Kyiv.

Back in 1997, as President Clinton was beginning NATO’s eastward expansion as part of the New World Order project, Ted Galen Carpenter described the problems that the US would inevitably face in Europe as a consequence. His words have stood the test of time much better than the oceans of lies told by its advocates in the Foreign Policy establishment and the compliant Western media.

Carpenter wrote: 

“NATO is first and foremost a military compact… If NATO moves eastward, the United States will be undertaking new and potentially far-reaching security obligations. No amount of “feel good” rhetoric should be allowed to obscure that reality.

There are numerous dangers associated with NATO enlargement… expanding the alliance to Russia’s borders threatens to poison Moscow’s relations with the West and lead to dangerous confrontations. Extending security commitments to nations in Russia’s geopolitical “back yard” virtually invites a challenge. The United States will then face the choice of failing to honour treaty obligations or risking war with a nuclear-armed great power…

 The desire of the East European states to be part of NATO creates difficult enough problems for NATO… since satisfying those countries would require a highly provocative alliance presence in Russia’s “near abroad” … 

Given Russia’s weakened condition, the United States and its allies may be able to force Moscow to accept NATO enlargement accompanied by such sops as statements that the alliance has no plans to station nuclear weapons or large numbers of conventional forces in the new members – plans that can easily be changed at a later date. But someday Russia will recover politically, economically, and militarily. And Russians will likely remember that the West exploited their country’s temporary weakness to establish hegemony throughout Central and Eastern Europe.

 NATO enlargement, therefore, could become the 1990s’ equivalent of the Treaty of Versailles, which sowed the seeds of revenge and an enormously destructive war… There are already ominous signs of a Moscow-Beijing axis. Russian and Chinese leaders now speak of a “strategic partnership” between the two countries…

An enlarged NATO is a dreadful, potentially catastrophic idea. Instead of healing the wounds of the Cold War, it threatens to create a new division of Europe and a set of dangerous security obligations for the United States.”

A hundred years before Otto Von Bismarck had advised Europeans:

“Do not expect that once you have taken advantage of Russia’s weakness, you will receive dividends forever. The Russians always came for their money. And when they come – do not rely on the treaties you have signed and which you hope will get you acquitted. They are not worth the paper they are written on. Therefore, it is always worth playing fair and straight with Russians or not playing at all.”

This was a warning that whatever international order was constructed and proclaimed in the chancelleries of Europe, if Russia was not treated as others and given fair treatment there would be payback.

In 1994 Carpenter, aware of the direction of Washington’s foreign policy, had forewarned America in a book entitled, Beyond NATO: Staying Out of Europe’s Wars, of the dangers in what it was doing.

He noted that the US foreign policy establishment had worked hard to build the mystique that NATO “was even more important in the post-Cold War era than it was during the Cold War and was essential to prevent the resurgence of the instability and national rivalries that spawned two world wars.” (p.2)

Beyond that, Carpenter noted that the alliance’s advocates were arguing that NATO was the only institutional vehicle enabling US influence to be maintained on European affairs in the aftermath of the Cold War, that protected its important political and economic hegemony in Europe.

George Kennan warned in 1997 that “expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-cold-war era.” But from 1999 NATO was advanced up to Russia’s borders in 3 waves – right up to the Ukraine.

Russia was down and out, and meanwhile a confident US took up other adventures – smashing up the Muslim world in a series of invasions and wanton acts of political vandalism that destroyed functional states and has now come back to haunt the West in its migrant crisis and the turn to the Right.

Washington, having taken its eye off the ball, Russia indeed found the time and space to rebuild itself, recovering politically, economically, and militarily under Vladimir Putin.

And when the third wave of NATO advancement was launched in 2008, starting with Georgia and proceeding to Ukraine in 2014, it was met with solid resistance from Moscow and the revived Russian world. Putin the rejuvenator of Russia had, of course, warned the West about NATO’s advance in 2007 at the Munich Security Conference. But deaf ears were presented to him.

The US had given Gorbachev security guarantees at the winding down of the Cold War relating to the non-expansion of NATO. But when NATO was advanced up to the borders of Russia, and capitalist Russia complained about being cheated, it was explained by NATO that these promises had been given to the Soviet Union and not to Russia. Russia was then forced to cast off the delusions it had developed about the West from the time of Gorbachev.

It is important to note that NATO expansion eastward was not done to contain an actual Russian threat. Washington saw little threat from Russia before 2007. NATO was maintained and enlarged largely to justify its own existence. Expansion was the expansion of Western liberal hegemony, done through the NATO/EU double act. Because NATO had to produce a reason for its existence after the Cold War ended and its demise had undermined its reason for existence, it inevitably regenerated “the Russian threat” to justify its existence and maintain the profits of the military/industrial complex and the salaries of the bloated and influential “Russia specialists” of the Foreign Policy establishment.

Carpenter, in 1994, got to the nub of the issue when he noted that NATO’s expansion would inevitably end in a future war about the Ukraine:

“It is on that issue that NATO expansionists of all types tend to be the most evasive. They insist that alliance security commitments would prevent a repetition of Russian expansionism and thereby enhance the stability of the region. Yet they also seek to minimize both the likelihood and the severity of the risks the United States and its alliance partners would be incurring if the alliance moved eastward. Such a position is inconsistent if not disingenuous. Either the alliance intends to afford the nations of Eastern Europe reliable protection against Russian expansion or it does not. If the former is true, the commitment involves very serious risks. If the latter is the case, NATO’s leaders are engaging in an appalling act of deceit that could prove fatal to any East European nation foolish enough to rely on the alliance.” (Beyond NATO: Staying Out of Europe’s Wars, p.62)

This is the essence of the problem which President Trump is trying to address now, in his attempt to cancel the New World Order and start America all over again with Russia.

It should be noted that the Europeans of the 1990s were initially opposed to the expansion of NATO eastward. However, they were drawn into it through the expansion of the European Union eastward, at the instigation of the UK, along with the US New World Order. It meant taking on the vengeful Eastern Europeans who were more disposed to Reaganite America and Thatcherite Britain. East European anti-Russian hostility, bolstered by the many Russia-hating Jews of East European origin within the influential Washington Foreign Policy establishment, has been the lever employed to stiffen the feint hearted Western Europeans.

It has been so successful that the Europeans are now more zealous than Washington about the New World Order and are horrified that a US President is about to cancel their world.

President Trump, realising that the New World Order has run its course and it is increasingly expensive and dangerous to maintain it within a developing multi-polar world, has a problem to clear up. Trump’s solution to the problem is to negotiate an armistice with Putin and turn the problem over to Europe. If it wants to continue the New World Order and the financial and military commitments involved in it, Europe is welcome to it. But America is out. It will, in future, plough its own furrow.

The Trump plan for an armistice, communicated by Pete Hegseth, US Defence Secretary, acknowledges modestly that a return to Ukraine’s 2014 borders would be “unrealistic”, and Russia would not likely give up anything it has captured after three years of war and the loss of considerable blood and treasure.

The implication is that there will be a freezing of the front line where it stands, when an armistice is eventually signed. This means the new line of contact would stretch from the mouth of the Dnipro river in the Black Sea, north-east to the border between Ukraine and Russia at Kharkiv. Ukraine would, therefore, lose about 20 per cent of its pre-war territory.

On top of this, Hegseth made it clear that Ukraine would not be joining NATO or be provided with NATO Article 5 guarantees. Instead, any guarantee against Russia would only be from a “non-NATO” force made up of others – but strictly no Americans.

Russia is likely to oppose any European troops from NATO countries. It does not want NATO in disguise along its borders after putting in the hard effort of defeating NATO’s Ukrainian army.

Trumps plan represents a clearing up of the fatal piece of ambiguity connected with NATO expansion that Carpenter noted back in 1994.

The US President has also made it clear that he does not intend to commit to providing Ukraine with any guaranteed future protection against Russia. Hegseth told the NATO defence ministers, on behalf of the President, that the United States would no longer be “primarily focused on the security of Europe”. An earlier draft of his speech is reported to have suggested Trump wanted to go further and say that America would no longer be the “primary security guarantor of Europe”.

According to the Vice President of the United States there is “a new Sheriff in town” and Europe had better get used to it.

With Europe, rather than the US, being invited to provide the rump Ukraine with its security guarantees from now on, the Europeans will no longer be able to shelter under the petticoats of the US and will have to deal with Russia as the substance she is – with the military experience of a major war behind her – rather than act in the irresponsible way the British and Europeans have been doing for the last decade or so.

Both Macron and Starmer are attempting to retain a “back stop” role for Washington in European security, but it is unlikely Trump would be gullible enough to accept a position for the US which could easily lead it being drawn into another conflict upon the whim of bitter Ukrainians, or mischievous Europeans, wishing to free ride again on American protection.

That would surely undo all the hard work now being done to free America of the foreign entanglement its New World Order got it into.

Sir Ben Wallace, former UK Minister for War, has accused Trump of Nazi appeasement: “The stench of appeasement is once again returning to Munich” said Wallace, the little boy soldier, conqueror of the “Lower Wack” (Lower Falls Road, Belfast). And the EU’s top diplomat also accused Trump of the appeasement of Putin.

But Trump knows that this kind of talk is cheap and meant for people of a sheep like character.

Why has Trump acted as he has?

Precisely to shock Europe into a state of reality by giving it a very cold shower. What has been happening on its doorstep is something that Europe has been in denial about for the last three years, while it has been hiding comfortably behind a false narrative presented to its public and US power.

It is very apparent that the European elite are terrified at their US protector deserting them and having to exist in a new, big bad world. But Europe was a big and very bad world before the coming of the Americans. Two World Wars were started there during the last century, millions died, before the continent was pacified and developed into a coherent unit by the US in the Cold War interest.

Europe believed it had unlimited liability from the war in Ukraine. It was being fought by Ukrainians who were bearing all the losses. Europe comfortably presumed that it was immune from the consequences of its Drang nach Osten.  Russia could be antagonised as much as it liked since Europe had the Ukrainian bulwark at its front and the US had its back.

But now the chickens are coming home to roost for Europe. War involves paying a price, despite any attempt to retain a free hand, and Europe has been defeated and must now pay for its unwise adventure.

European misadventure will now carry a high price. By inciting Russia and declaring it to be a great threat to Europe Trump is able to call the European’s bluff. European nations will now have to fund their own militaries, using up to 5% of its GDP, instead of free riding on the benevolence of the US taxpayer. That is likely to deal a substantial blow to EU and UK economic growth, standards of living and social provision. The UK cannot even afford 2.5% at the moment, seeing it as breaking the Bank. Will the British working class give up its standard of living, health services, education of its children, welfare state and pensions to defend Europe? Good luck to Sir Keir in the next election, with Reform snapping at Labour’s heels.

The popularity of liberal governments across Europe depends very much on prosperity and rising standards of living. This is now in question if citizens will have to fund their own military forces to the tune of 5% GDP. Perhaps Europe will now have to curb its expansionary aims, which are made effective by promising peoples to the east a higher standard of living in order to agitate them and take them away from the Russian “sphere of influence.”

Trump is aware of the shifting sands in the world and this is what is behind America First. He knows the US has fouled up since the 1980s with de-industrialisation, forever wars and the increasing realisation among the 80 per cent of Americans that their children will be worse off. The New World Order is a luxury the US can no longer afford. The US cannot look after the West anymore and it is going to take care of itself – with the Europeans having to look after themselves and pay their way in the world.

We said before that Trump intends to manage the defeat of NATO and the West in Ukraine. He will manage it by making it primarily a Ukrainian and European defeat and he will distance the US from it. Trump’s envoy, General Kellogg, as well as telling the Europeans that they will have no role in initial peace talks, has insisted that the US is not an ally of Kyiv, it is an intermediary in the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Despite being an intermediary in the war the US is also taking sole responsibility for negotiating the terms of defeat for Kyiv and Europe! Marco Rubio has announced the return of the great powers and great power politics and has recognised “hard power realities on the ground.” So, any agreement will reflect military and geopolitical realities and not ideology.

Putin has been always consistent in describing the character of the war as fundamentally a conflict between the US and Russia which would be resolved through an agreement by these two parties alone. Putin has therefore been validated by Trump. And this really grates on the British and Europeans.

The Biden administration maintained the fiction that the conflict was between Ukraine and Russia and Washington would only act on behalf of Ukraine. The West was merely a support for Ukrainian self-determination and whatever Kyiv determined Washington would support. That, of course, was bullshit. The US maintained limits to the war and curtailed Ukraine, so it didn’t start a world war or overt NATO/Russia war. But this position still encouraged a maximalist approach in Kyiv and kept the war ticking over.

The US has, of course, gained a number of things from the war. It has drained the Russians of much blood and treasure, through Ukraine, at a relatively small expense to itself.

Perhaps, more importantly it has brought Europe to heel after it had become prosperous through cheap and reliable Russian energy, which drove its productive economy. Having cut off that supply the US has essentially made Europe a vassal again.

While Russian gas may return to the European market it will be a minor element and US energy will predominate in future. The US has captured the European market in energy and therefore has Europe by the throat.

The US has to maintain the oil price at above $70 a barrel to ensure the financial viability of its energy sector and to do this – in the face of a future of reducing Chinese demand – it has to regain control of the world market in energy by having a tight grip on Europe. It has achieved that.

The antagonism generated by the war has achieved Washington’s purpose of breaking the link between Germany and Russia – a major geopolitical interest of the Anglosphere for more than a century.

Trump and his men are going to negotiate with Russia on behalf of the United States not on behalf of Ukraine or Europe. If Trump makes concessions to Russia, he will want concessions for the United States in return. He will, more than likely, seek to nullify the Russian/Chinese alliance by drawing Moscow away and providing the Russians with their sphere of interest (the old Soviet sphere minus the first two waves of NATO expansion), in return for a recognition of America’s. This will, hopefully, also keep China at a safe distance from Europe.

Was Riyadh really about Ukraine or was it about removing Ukraine as an obstacle to future business between America and Russia?

The statement issued by the US State Department, following the meeting in Riyadh between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, committed the US and Russia to “Lay the groundwork for future cooperation on matters of mutual geopolitical interest and historic economic and investment opportunities which will emerge from a successful end to the conflict in Ukraine.”

It is clear from this statement that much more than the ending of the conflict in Ukraine is on the agenda. The wider and more important objective is the restoration of friendly and mutually beneficial relations between Washington and Moscow along with the end of US economic sanctions on Russia, and an ignoring of Kyiv’s and Europe’s wish list. Neither Europe or Ukraine are important in relation to the objectives of the wider objective and they will not be allowed to be impediments to progress. They are, thus, excluded from proceedings.

And to think, Europe actually thought it was progress.

The UK and Europe find the hostile rhetoric directed by Trump’s men at Europe and Ukraine as extraordinarily unnecessary and shocking. But this is because it is only just sinking in with London, Paris, Berlin and Kyiv what Riyadh is actually about. It is not primarily about Ukraine but rather about putting Ukraine to bed as a precursor for more important business to be done in the world.

It is looking remarkably like Trump and his revolutionaries are not only attempting to shut down the war in Ukraine, they are looking to end the alliance with Kyiv and begin to form one with Russia. Let us say that Archangel Zelensky is to be expelled from Heaven in favour of a deal with the Devil to divide Eternity in the mutual interest.

There is a 3-stage peace plan proposed involving: first, armistice/ceasefire; second, elections in Ukraine; third, signing of an agreement. 

Trump will then attempt to railroad the Ukrainians into a deal. He has enormous leverage for this since the US is Kyiv’s main backer and its only hope of salvaging anything from the war. The Ukrainians realise that the Europeans matter little, but they will still try to use them as substitutes for the Americans, with the forlorn hope that if the Europeans are drawn into a war, Washington, perhaps without Trump in the future, could be re-entangled.

But Trump is making a trap for Kyiv. A ceasefire will enable Russia to refresh and rearm and push forward for greater victory if Kyiv refuses to concede to a Washington/Moscow agreement. Meanwhile, any elections forced on Kyiv will surely divide Ukraine to the Russian advantage. Trump has been provoking Zelensky by saying unspeakable things about him and Kyiv’s responsibility for the war, its failure, and absence of peace.

Trump is, in effect, treating Ukraine as a defeated nation in war – which it is.

The US President is demanding from it reparations, in the form of its mineral wealth, so that it pays its bills to the US Treasury for all the assistance it received for the war it lost.

The Telegraph published a leaked document showing what Trump demanded. It commented:

“If this draft were accepted, Trump’s demands would take a larger share of Ukraine’s GDP than the reparations imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles—later reduced at the 1921 London Conference and the 1924 Dawes Plan. Meanwhile, he appears willing to let Russia off the hook entirely.”

In a proposed economic agreement on “compensation” from Washington to Kiev, the terms go far beyond control over Ukraine’s critical minerals. The deal extends to everything from ports and infrastructure to oil, gas, and the broader resource base of the country. Under the agreement, the U.S. and Ukraine would establish a joint investment fund to ensure that “hostile parties to the conflict do not benefit from Ukraine’s reconstruction.”

As part of the terms, the U.S. would take 50% of Ukraine’s current resource extraction revenues and 50% of the financial value of all new licenses issued to third parties for future resource monetisation. A lien on these revenues would also be placed in favour of the U.S. One source familiar with the negotiations remarked, “This provision essentially means, ‘Pay us first, then feed your children’.”

Trump has said to Zelensky: Pay your debts or deal with Russia in the way you wish, but alone – without the US helping to manage your surrender!

This is a reversal of the Boris Johnson/President Biden deal 3 years ago when Zelensky was offered a deal of generous NATO support if Kyiv fought on – instead of accepting a very good deal from Russia – or taking his chances alone with Putin.

The mineral wealth of Ukraine would be quite inconsequential to the US, and, of course, nearly half of it lies in the Russian conquered regions anyway. But it would be very useful for Europe, which has little supplies of the minerals needed for the new battery economy where the machines of the industrial revolution will be powered by electricity rather than fossil fuels. Since the automotive economy is Germany’s jewel and Germany is the engine of Europe this creates big problems.

Simon Webb has speculated that the rare earths is what really interests Starmer in Ukraine and has fuelled European support for Kyiv all along, behind the public nonsense of Slava Ukraini and the blue and yellow flags.

Perhaps.

The former BBC big-wig Andrew Marr recently noted that Kyiv had three hopes in the war, in descending order: Firstly, a complete recovery of its national territory including Crimea; secondly, membership of NATO; and thirdly a rump Ukraine protected by American power.

Marr ruefully noted that Kyiv has gained none of these and has, instead, suffered a complete and catastrophic defeat.

But it should be made clear that Ukraine was led on the path of destruction by the US, UK and Europe, and encouraged to sacrifice its blood and land long before Donald Trump. The President has come along to ruthlessly clear up the mess and write finis against the New World Order that in its last fateful act did for Ukraine.

Published in Irish Political Review, March 2025.