The Monroe Doctrine seems to have stepped back out of the history books into the world of the living — now reborn as the Donroe Doctrine. But has a new Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact already been concluded as well — and are we already living with its consequences? History has a habit of repeating itself.
The United States has now used hard power on its own continent, abducting the president of Venezuela. Based on some of Trump’s statements, it is easy to get the impression that the U.S. is prepared to exercise its power in Venezuela in a way that resembles the old unholy alliance of imperialism and predatory capitalism — even though the official justification is criminal law and national security.
And that’s not all. Representatives of the Trump administration have openly spoken about taking back the Panama Canal, warned Cuba that it may share Venezuela’s fate, and even floated the idea of seizing Greenland from NATO ally Denmark.
At the same time, Europe is being told by the Trump administration to take care of itself and its own problems. Ukraine is still waiting for help as the victim of Russia’s war of aggression. U.S. support has become slow, reluctant, and conditional. American attention has shifted to Central and South America. Washington’s old backyard is once again, Monroe-style, the center of attention.
Meanwhile, Putin’s Russia continues its own imperial war in Europe with cold indifference. When war, defeat, and death drag on long enough, they fade into background noise — especially for those who are not themselves under fire. And when the United States goes quiet and turns its gaze away from the Old Continent, Russia hears the same message it always has: this region is now fair game — part of our sphere of influence.
Which leads to the inevitable question: could some kind of unspoken understanding be developing between Moscow and Washington — not necessarily a deliberate pact, but a practical acceptance of each other’s claims to spheres of influence? Trump would be free to flex power in the Americas, while Putin reshapes Europe — and this time Europe might be left to fend for itself. The logic is chillingly familiar from history: the smaller nations are not consulted. They are simply assigned to someone’s sphere of control.
How could the United States even credibly condemn Russia’s actions in Ukraine under these circumstances? How can Washington defend international law in Europe while blatantly violating it in its own neighborhood — claiming territory for its own purposes, abducting a head of state, signaling readiness to colonize a sovereign nation and its oil reserves, and dictating the fate of smaller countries?
Great powers speak of sovereignty when it serves their interests, and forget it when it does not. Suddenly the war in Ukraine is no longer a struggle between right and wrong — but a struggle between those who can afford to do wrong without consequences, and those who cannot. Once again, smaller nations are pieces on a chessboard, moved about by governments with imperial ambitions.
Europe’s great illusion has been the belief that the United States will always come to our aid — and will always remain on the right side of history. If U.S. foreign policy drifts further away from Europe’s rules-based security thinking and toward raw power politics, then Europe must draw its own conclusions. The United States can no longer be taken for granted as Europe’s moral backbone or emergency support.
Europe is facing a change it cannot dismiss as a temporary Trump-era aberration. If the U.S. continues to act on openly realist, sphere-of-influence logic, Europe’s security architecture will inevitably change.
NATO’s security guarantees still exist, but recent developments raise the question of how automatic and strong they would really be if U.S. commitment becomes increasingly selective. NATO — built on American military might — remains a shield only as long as it rests on shared values. If those values crumble, all that remains is raw power — and Washington and Moscow both possess more of it than us Europeans would like to admit.
When we speak of a “new Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact,” it is above all a metaphor: not a formal treaty, but a mindset in which great powers begin acting as if the world is again divided into spheres of influence. It is enough that two powers begin behaving in ways that sidestep the binding nature of international law — or apply it only when convenient.
If Trump’s America focuses on its own territorial demands and operations, the message to Moscow is simple: the logic of spheres of influence is no longer an exception — it is acceptable practice. In that sense, it becomes at least logically possible to speak of a silent division of the world — even if no formal treaty exists — because the division has already taken shape before anyone had time to react.
The most frightening thing about the present moment is not aggression itself. It is the growing double standard. That double standard can destroy the last remnants of faith in the world order that has protected Europe from war for several generations. In the worst-case scenario, Europe’s position may again resemble the past — where smaller states must adapt to decisions made by great powers, whether they want to or not.
Molotov–Ribbentrop was not just another treaty. It was a way of thinking — a world divided by spheres of control. And if that mindset returns on both sides of the Atlantic, Europe will ultimately be left to ask only one question: who will defend us, if not ourselves?
Throughout history, smaller states have been forced to test the real strength of international law — and have learned that it holds only as long as great powers find it useful. That is why Europe can no longer assume that the United States will automatically act as a normative counterweight to Russia or China. It now appears that they all may be prepared to break the rules — while condemning each other for doing so elsewhere.
We cannot know for certain whether this is where we are headed — but the trend looks disturbingly similar. Europe seems to face two choices: significantly strengthen its own defenses, or accept that its fate will be determined by decisions made elsewhere.