By Leon Vermeulen, Substack, 5/13/26
For more than three years, Europe has demonstrated remarkable unity in supporting Ukraine. Financial aid, sanctions, weapons deliveries, refugee support, diplomatic coordination, and political messaging have all reinforced the image of a continent determined to resist Russian aggression and defend the post-Cold War European order.
But beneath this unity lies a growing strategic vacuum.
Europe has invested enormous political capital in sustaining the war effort, yet it remains strikingly unprepared for the negotiations that must eventually follow it.
This reality surfaced again in the immediate rejection by Kaja Kallas of any suggestion that former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder could play a role in future discussions with Russia.
From Kallas’ perspective, the rejection is entirely logical.
For the Baltic states, Russia is not merely a geopolitical competitor. It is a historic and existential threat. Their strategic memory is shaped not by abstract theories of diplomacy, but by Soviet occupation, deportations, coercion, and decades of domination. In Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius, the old German tradition of accommodation with Moscow is not remembered as realism. It is remembered as strategic blindness.
Schröder himself is politically toxic across much of Europe because of his long-standing relationship with Vladimir Putin and his association with Russian energy interests after leaving office.
Yet dismissing Schröder outright also exposes a deeper European contradiction.
For all the moral clarity and military coordination Europe has demonstrated, the EU still lacks a coherent framework for how this war might actually end.
That is not a small omission. It is becoming the central strategic weakness of Europe itself.
Europe Has Prepared for War Management — Not Peace Negotiation
The uncomfortable truth is that Europe remains far more prepared to prolong the conflict than to negotiate its conclusion.
Three years into the war, the EU still has no clear consensus on several foundational questions.
What exactly constitutes an acceptable settlement?
Would Europe support:
territorial compromise?
frozen front lines?
neutrality arrangements?
phased sanctions relief?
demilitarised buffer zones?
security guarantees?
postwar economic normalisation?
or eventual reintegration of Russia into parts of the European system?
There is no unified answer.
Who would negotiate on Europe’s behalf?
Would negotiations be led by:
the European Union institutions?
major states such as France or Germany?
a NATO-led framework?
the United Nations?
or an international grouping involving non-Western powers such as China or Türkiye?
Again, Europe has no settled answer.
Most critically: what is the larger European security architecture meant to look like after the war?
This is the question Europe still avoids confronting directly.
Because Russia does not view the war simply as a dispute over Ukraine.
Moscow consistently frames the conflict as part of a much broader confrontation over the post-Cold War security order in Europe itself:
NATO expansion,
missile deployments,
military infrastructure,
sanctions regimes,
energy corridors,
and strategic encirclement.
Whether one agrees with Russia’s interpretation is beside the point. Effective diplomacy requires understanding how the other side defines the conflict.
And here lies the uncomfortable reason why someone like Schröder could theoretically still matter.
Why Schröder Would Be Taken Seriously in Moscow
Schröder’s value would not lie in moral authority. It would lie in strategic credibility.
Unlike many current European leaders, he belongs to the older tradition of German Ostpolitik associated with figures such as Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt — the belief that long-term European stability ultimately requires some form of accommodation between Western Europe and Russia.
More importantly, Moscow would regard Schröder as someone capable of serious strategic dialogue rather than ideological posturing.
This matters because negotiations of this magnitude are never purely legalistic exercises. They depend heavily on trust channels, historical understanding, and the ability to interpret strategic red lines.
At present, many Russian officials view much of the current EU leadership not as potential negotiators, but as openly hostile actors committed to Russia’s strategic defeat.
That makes meaningful diplomacy extraordinarily difficult.
This does not mean Schröder should lead negotiations. Nor does it erase legitimate criticism of his Russia ties.
But the instinctive European rejection of any figure perceived as capable of engaging Moscow also reflects Europe’s broader political discomfort with the idea that coexistence with Russia may eventually become unavoidable.
The War Is No Longer Only About Ukraine
One of Europe’s greatest strategic mistakes has been treating the war primarily as a regional conflict rather than as the collapse of an entire continental security framework.
Any durable settlement would inevitably need to address:
NATO force posture,
missile deployments,
sanctions,
arms control,
cyber conflict,
undersea infrastructure protection,
energy transit systems,
maritime access,
and long-term military confidence-building mechanisms.
And crucially, this extends far beyond Ukraine itself.
The Black Sea
The Black Sea has become central to energy transit, grain exports, naval access, and Russian power projection. Control over maritime routes and security arrangements there will be essential to any settlement.
The Baltic
The Baltic Sea region is rapidly evolving into NATO’s most militarized frontier.
With Finland and Sweden joining NATO, Russia increasingly perceives strategic encirclement in the north. Simultaneously, the Baltic states see any easing toward Moscow as potentially existentially dangerous.
The risks of accidental escalation through naval incidents, cyberattacks, infrastructure sabotage, or military exercises are steadily increasing.
The Arctic
The Arctic is emerging as one of the most consequential geopolitical theatres of the coming decades.
Shipping lanes, undersea cables, strategic nuclear positioning, rare minerals, energy reserves, and military access routes are turning the Arctic into a major arena of great-power competition.
Russia sees Arctic dominance as central to its future strategic position. NATO expansion and increased Western military activity in the region are therefore interpreted in Moscow as part of a larger encirclement strategy.
Any serious long-term European settlement will eventually need to include Arctic security arrangements as well.
Yet Europe still lacks a coherent framework even to begin these discussions.
The Dangerous Cost of Delay
The longer Europe postpones defining a realistic strategic end-state, the greater the cumulative internal damage becomes.
This delay is no longer merely diplomatic. It is increasingly economic, political, social, and institutional.
Europe’s Energy Model Is Under Strain
Europe succeeded in rapidly reducing dependence on Russian energy. But the cost has been substantial.
Higher industrial energy prices, expensive LNG imports, and long-term competitiveness pressures now weigh heavily on European manufacturing. Compared with the United States and China, Europe increasingly faces structurally higher operating costs.
Over time, this weakens industrial confidence and accelerates de-industrialisation risks.
Economic Fragmentation Is Growing
The war has widened internal European divergences:
northern versus southern fiscal priorities,
eastern versus western security perspectives,
industrial versus service economies,
and national versus EU-level strategic interests.
Investment uncertainty remains elevated because Europe still lacks clarity about the continent’s long-term geopolitical direction.
The result is weakening confidence in Europe’s economic trajectory itself.
Social Consensus Is Eroding
Public support for Ukraine remains significant, but the political landscape is becoming more fragmented.
Across Europe, voters increasingly question:
inflation,
migration pressures,
military spending,
sanctions durability,
welfare trade-offs,
and the absence of a visible diplomatic horizon.
Populist and anti-establishment parties are capitalizing on this uncertainty by portraying European leadership as reactive, moralistic, and strategically incoherent.
This is becoming a legitimacy problem.
Europe Still Lacks a Post-American Strategy
For decades, European security ultimately depended on American strategic leadership.
But Europe now faces growing uncertainty about long-term US political continuity, strategic focus, and willingness to indefinitely underwrite European security at current levels.
This means the EU can no longer postpone defining its own geopolitical doctrine toward Russia and Eurasian security.
And yet that doctrine still barely exists.
The Core Problem Europe Does Not Want to Admit
The EU’s central strategic dilemma is becoming increasingly obvious:
Europe knows how to support Ukraine.
Europe does not yet know how to negotiate the peace that follows.
This is why the debate over Schröder matters far beyond Schröder himself.
He represents an older European assumption that stability on the continent ultimately requires some form of accommodation with Moscow. Today’s European leadership, particularly in Eastern Europe, often sees that assumption as naïve or even dangerous.
But refusing to discuss future coexistence does not eliminate the underlying geopolitical reality.
At some point, Europe will likely need to confront questions it still avoids:
How should Russia fit into the future European order?
What balance between deterrence and accommodation is sustainable?
How can escalation risks be permanently reduced?
And what kind of continental security structure can survive after the collapse of the old one?
The danger for Europe is not merely that these questions are difficult.
It is that the continent continues delaying them while economic strain, political fragmentation, social fatigue, and geopolitical uncertainty steadily deepen.
If that continues too long, Europe may eventually find itself entering negotiations not from strategic strength and careful preparation, but from exhaustion.
And history suggests that settlements reached through exhaustion are rarely stable for very long.