Lots of discussion on here and elsewhere about the Kushner/Kremlin ideas for a "new European security architecture", but the idea this is the moment to rethink European security is profoundly unrealistic (and un-Realist, for what that's worth). A few points:

Helpful of Trump to make my point for me so fast and so emphatically. He seems to be proposing to decide Europe's security with Putin and without Europe. Any European policymakers who think the next two years will be an improvement on the last two *really* needs to think again.

People still talk about the foreign policy of the Trump administration as if (a) it's designed to advance US national interests, rather than private ones and (b) there's a reasonable expectation of competence and coherence. Neither of these things is correct.

Trump: "Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine. They haven't been doing much." Russia being fine on Ukraine and not doing much, 19 October 2026:

In the week's least surprising news, the Graham Russia sanctions act is functioning exactly as it was designed to do.

A couple of days after the 2024 US elections I posted a thread on Twitter on what a Trump administration policy on Ukraine and Russia was likely to be. What they're doing now is appalling, but it shouldn't be a surprise.