The 18th Kyiv Security Forum convened former heads of state, ministers, ambassadors, and civil and military officials from Ukraine, NATO, and the EU. The diagnosis was largely consistent. The optimism, on closer inspection, was not.
The findings on Ukraine were striking. Ukraine has evolved from aid recipient to security provider. Its battlefield experience is reshaping Western military thinking. Technological leadership in AI, drones, and air defense; adaptability and decentralization Western armed forces are now studying; deepening interoperability with NATO. Treated, by the Western high-ranking civil and military officials and renowned experts assembled in Kyiv, as crucial to future European security architecture.
Russia was assessed plainly. An imperial, persistent threat waging long-term hybrid and conventional war, with no sign of giving up. The conflict already encompasses all of Europe and will outlast any peace agreement.
To paraphrase Dutch intelligence: the war is part of a long-standing Russian effort to reshape Europe's security architecture. It is existential for the regime—Russia either achieves strategic parity with the US and China, or disintegrates. The war will not end before the West demonstrates strength: the will and ability to employ military power.
What the Forum did not discuss was how to defeat Russia—options like decolonization or military intervention. After 12 years of failure, sanctions remain the key tool to force Russia to end the war.
NATO was depicted as strengthened but stretched. Learning from Ukraine while supporting it. The need for greater burden-sharing and credibility was acknowledged.
America was the elephant nobody named. Speakers described the United States as we wish it to be, not as it is. The transatlantic link was still treated as essential to security and deterrence.
While KSF discussed the abstract meaning of "America First," it did not address its practical application:
- threats of land grabs and annexation;
- a National Security Strategy aimed at undermining EU unity; meddling in European politics in support of right-wing parties;
- "peace" negotiations over the heads of allies on terms that mirror the Kremlin's plan for Ukraine;
- the suspension of support for Ukraine;
- threats to leave NATO; a trade war against allies as Europe rearms; the dismantling of the rules-based order;
- a reset with Russia, a state seen as an existential threat to Europe; an administration dismantling democratic institutions at home—a country now nine of ten steps toward autocracy.
This is the country whose continued partnership the Forum's optimism quietly assumed. Strip the assumption away and the optimism goes with it.
The majority answered the Forum's framing question—"Darkness or Dawn: Is light ahead?"—with optimism. But by failing to address the elephant in the room, KSF in part failed to describe the world as it is, and so failed to offer guidance on how to meet present strategic challenges.
You cannot plan around the United States that exists by talking about the one that doesn't.
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