At the end of the Cold War, President George H.W. Bush managed the fall of the Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe — sometimes overruling regional leaders in the wider interests of the West and their own security. There’s no sign that Trump feels any such affinity for Europe or its future.

European capitals reacted with shock to Donald Trump’s abrupt turn against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, seeking simultaneously to reassure Kyiv that it has the continent’s backing while trying to appease Washington.