European leaders act like Trump almighty. Putin just sees him as an egg Rafael Behr

one Hungry doves often provide food at irregular intervals and develop strange rituals – twitching, dancing, head asshole unstable – hoping to summon another clutter. BF Skinner, The psychologist who first proved this effect In 1947, birds adopted “a superstition… as if there was a causal relationship between their behavior and the presentation of food, although this relationship was lacking.”

Comparing that kind of bird brain pain with trying to understand Donald Trump’s behavior towards the unstable distribution of favors would be unfriendly. Their diplomatic exercises are more reasonable. They get results. But there are elements of superstition. Visiting politicians made luxurious gestures, unusual postures, fostering White House connections, looking for a series of steps that would release a stable U.S.-friendly supply. There is no shortage of causality, but it is unreliable.

In February, Keir Starmer invited Trump to visit the UK As a guest under the King Je. Under the White House’s punitive tariff regime, the Prime Minister received a relatively generous reward. Finnish President Alexander Stubb and his American impression in March Technical strength of golf courses. Between the camera, he uses warnings to distrust Vladimir Putin’s conversation. What followed was Trump’s patience tendency with the Russian president.

At a summit in June, NATO leaders proposed hiking in their defense budget in honor of the U.S. president’s superior Justice Craft. Alliance Secretary-General Mark Rutte Praise “Dad” TrumpThanks to him for making Europe pay more for its defense. The orchestrated mucodextrin seems to work. Trump talked about the warmth of NATO. His tone to Russia became colder.

It didn’t last. Putin opposes His own flattery movement. Trump emerged from a bilateral summit in Alaska last week, Ukraine’s roadmap of peace follows the Kremlin’s instructions – no impending ceasefire and unconquered land to Russia.

So the ritual dance began. A flock of European doves running towards Washington, gulps and slaps in support of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyyhope to generate new transatlantic unity.

The results may be worse. The infamous ritual humiliation Trump caused to Zelenskyy in February did not repeat. In place of bullying, there is Bonhomi. Regarding the essence of a peaceful solution, there are topics about security assurance Ukraine Similar but not copying Article 5 – Mutual Help clauses of NATO’s Charter. What this really means, how it is implemented, whether it will be covered by the US military, so how Russia will be threatened from any new Terge train is all the questions.

The next phase is a proposed face-to-face meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin, followed by Trump’s Trilateral Summit. The Russian president reportedly opens to the idea of direct negotiations with his Ukrainian enemy, but there is no such enthusiasm for encounters in the Kremlin.

To justify the full-scale invasion, Putin plays Zelenskyy, the despised boss, a drug-addicted neo-Nazi government, preventing Ukraine’s desire to reintegrate into the Great Slavic homeland. When the novel proved difficult to maintain, the focus turned to Ukrainian leaders as pawns in a long-running Western movement to reduce and humiliate Russia. The purpose of this story is to end with Zelenskyy’s death or surrender. Moscow propagandists’ conversation with the Ukrainian president and Putin is not easy as his undefeated companion.

Avoiding this is one of two major achievements the Russian president has made in Alaska. First, by insisting on holding a bilateral meeting, Putin was able to rebound the Trump-approved peace template that contained no hint of condemning or reparing for blatant territorial aggression.

Second, by recreating the optics of the Cold War Drive (to address the fate of fewer countries, a summit of a superpower), Putin sent a signal to his domestic audience that the Soviet-style equality with the United States has been restored. For European democracies, he hopes to prove that their efforts to isolate Russia into a thuggish few untouchable state will make no sense.

Russia’s concept of equality as the United States in any power (except the size of the nuclear arsenal) was a delusion, even before the Soviet Union was disbanded, but Trump was happy to indulge. This is his inference to the obsession that made America great again and took authoritarian measures. This led him to tend to belittle the achievements of American democracy in the 20th century and project the great achievements on the regime that demonstrated authoritarianism under the worship of personality.

Putin is good at manipulating this attraction. Although European leaders lobbied Trump in the style of a pleader in the King’s Court, the modern tsar of Russia trained him as something more like a protein, recruits from the exclusive club of world historical figures who determined the fate of millions. They are the kind of people who re-deline and encase the land between each other, rather than complaining when the territory is unfairly distributed. It is a geopolitical concept that despises international law and devalues multilateral alliances as a cunning game, which Minnow countries play to trap big fish.

This illustrates Trump’s narcissistic character and disgust towards any institutional limits of his own power. This means that the Russian president is communicating with the White House at a higher frequency with his own special channels.

The European countersignal was not blocked. Evidence shows that there has been real success in moving Trump away from the unthinking pro-Kremlin alliance. But the influence is unbalanced. Just when leaders of America’s oldest and most loyal allies believed they had mastered Trump’s art, they found his ears had been completely bent by Russian disinformation.

In the short term, there is no obvious choice, but continue to use the power of numbers and repetition to convince Trump that his great path through lasting Ukrainian independence and provides guarantees of muscle safety.

Of course, European diplomatic dances can push the president’s status in a more equitable direction on the road to peace agreements. However, they will not make any modifications to the world between his powerful force participants and vassal states who do not apply the rules.

The challenge at the time was to develop European capabilities and become a coherent and autonomous player in power – to confidently develop and coordinate the economic and military weight of the continent and to direct respect in the only language understood by the President of the United States.

The current method does not completely fail. But Trump’s ecstasy is at best an unstable and natural instantaneous approach. In the worst case, it begins to look like a superstitious belief that the ritual of the old alliance would bring it back together. The right pigeon steps can win important offers from the President of the United States. He might be a true friend in Europe the idea that he wants him to be is for birds.