In this episode, RBI director John Torpey speaks with Estonian parliamentarian and defense expert Kalev Stoicescu about the recent tensions between the United States and Ukraine following a contentious meeting between Presidents Trump and Zelensky. Stoicescu critiques Trump’s transactional diplomacy, emphasizing the critical role of alliances such as NATO in maintaining international peace and stability. He stresses Europe’s need to strengthen its defense capabilities independently, warning that Europe’s security depends on sustained and unified support for Ukraine. Stoicescu proposes a structured peace agreement, underscoring the necessity of robust international guarantees for Ukraine’s security. The conversation further explores Europe’s shifting perspectives on military engagement in response to ongoing Russian aggression.

Below a slightly edited version of this interview’s transcript

Transcript

John Torpey 

A little more than a month into the new Trump Administration, the US president and Vice President had a shocking encounter with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which they accused him of being ungrateful for US assistance. The accusations came in the wake of President Trump calling Zelensky an unelected dictator and claiming that he, not Russia’s Vladimir Putin, had started the war. The episode seemed to foretell a fundamental break with the post war order. Trump was siding with the long standing enemy of the West and against his long standing Western allies. What’s happening and what are the consequences of all this? Welcome to International Horizons of podcast of the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies that brings scholarly and diplomatic expertise to bear on our understanding of a wide range of international issues. My name is John Torpey, and I’m director of the Ralph Bunche Institute at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. We’re fortunate to have with us today Kalev Stoicescu, who’s a parliamentarian in Estonia and Chairman of the National Defense Committee in Parliament. He’s also the former Estonian Ambassador to the United States, to Mexico and to Canada. So he’s well versed on their relations with the United States as well, which seems helpful for this conversation. So thanks for being with us today Kalev Stoicescu.

Kalev Stoicescu 

Thank you, John, and thank you, Claire, for your kind invitation.

John Torpey 

Great to have you with us. So I began the introduction by describing the ill fated meeting in the Oval Office between Presidents Trump and Zelensky, which just about everybody must have seen by now, Trump and Vance acted as if Zelensky had never thanked the US for its support, even though he was trying to get more of it from them or from Trump. Zelensky had has apparently written a conciliatory letter to Trump, but Trump has not lifted the pause on US shipments of arms in response. So was it a fundamental break, or is there a way to repair the breach?

Kalev Stoicescu 

Well, that was the worst that one would have expected to see, and what Europe is trying now to do is its tremendous relationship, and the way this peace process is going to continue so that we would not go down more on that path. So frankly speaking, I mean, I may be exaggerating now a bit, but I expected, with all my experience of 34 years in defense, security and foreign affairs, that this, and having seen Trump’s first term as president from 2017 to 2021 that this would happen in four years, not in four weeks, so to say. And the speed at which these things happen, this is what alarms more people, I mean. And speaking of this Black Friday, as I called it, the day when Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Washington and met with President Trump at the White House, it was televised so he was, they tried to humiliate him, to humiliate the brave Ukrainian people, to humiliate Europe in front of the whole world, in front of Putin, of Xi and other dictators, that axis of the evil who is actually, who are our opponents, our adversaries. So I understand President Trump wants to be a peacemaker, but let’s be frank, a peacemaker must make a very clear and proper distinction between the aggressor and the aggressed, between international law and law of the jungle, between allies and opponents, and he’s mixing all these things. So, I think we consider the United States to be our ally, and we want to preserve NATO and this relationship of alliance for the future, because precisely the existence of NATO-and that is why also Ukraine wants to join NATO-is what has averted war in Europe since 1945. It’s a very, very valuable Alliance, and not only for the Europeans, but also for the United States of America and for the American people. I understand Trump is,he’s a multi billionaire without much knowledge of history, culture of other peoples, and he s excessively transactional, including in these alliance relationships with Europe, perhaps also with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan. We’ll see how it goes and how, how much you can go the being transactional in these relationships. I mean, are we going to be asked to paymoney, protection money, in the future, so that this relationship will continue? Ukraine was asked to pay with half of its natural resources without actually being proposed protection further. So, and these are serious things. On the other hand, we have to not to allow our our mindsets, our judgments, to be hijacked by all these words, all these clashes, all these, whatever statements are made, and we have to make clear distinction, I think, between what is said and what is actually done. What has happened? You asked, what has happened? Well, not very much has happened. I mean, in the sense that NATO exists. We still continue to build our defense as we have planned. Now we are remaking our plans to speed up certain events. And you see, Europe is also making efforts as a whole, even yesterday in Brussels, at the European Council meeting, which means at the summit meeting of heads of state and government of the European Union member states, there were decisions adopted to start pumping hundreds and hundreds of billions of Europe’s into defense. Because there is no other way. I think, if Trump is right for one thing, he’s right for saying that Europe has done too little in the defense realm and on that, he has to take the credit, but not on much else, unfortunately. How he handles matters, and let’s see how it goes. But we have made our conclusion in Europe that, given the size of this continent and the economy, the population and so on, we are a great power too, besides the United States and China. And so we need to build some military muscle to be taken seriously by Trump, by Putin, by Xi, and that we, as allies, deserve to be treated as allies.

John Torpey 

So let me ask you, you know, follow up on something you just said, and that has to do with kind of the manner in which he does things. So you’ve given him credit for pushing the Europeans to pay more for their own defense, which is hardly, you know, his sole demand or his demand solely. Others have been asking for this for decades in the United States, but he does this more forcefully. So to say, yeah, right. I mean, you could say this about many of the things that he’s doing in the United States, the way he’s throwing out lots of people from various government agencies. And then they realize, well, those are the people who keep track of our nuclear security and the security of the nuclear weapons. And they said, well, maybe we should keep those people on the job. Or, you know, well, we have this H5N1 bird flu threat, that seems to be growing, well, maybe we should keep those people. So, you know, there’s a sort of issue about the way that he does what he does. It lacks a certain politesse, a certain, you know, even elegance, if you like, you know that, but that’s just not his way of operating. And I think the more bluster there is, the more you know, big booms there are going off, the more he thinks he’s, you know, impressing the population. And you know, I think sending a message of intimidation, you know, may not be so bad in the longer run, but or the medium run, but in the meantime, he’s got people you know, running scared. So I wonder, you know how much of that is at issue here. I mean, as you say, the European heads of state just had a summit meeting yesterday. You know he’s gotten their attention, and maybe you know diplomatic discussions haven’t had that success.

Kalev Stoicescu 

We’ll see how this thing, I mean, coming back for to this Black Friday with with Zelensky, keeping all his calm and decency in that, in those circumstances, I imagine, what if Putin was there instead of him? Would have President Trump asked Putin in front of the cameras, in front of the whole world, well, dictator, Putin-without calling him perhaps dictator, because he has never called him dictator-but to ask him, what are the concessions you are going to make to achieve peace? Is there anything you would do? You say you want peace, so what are you going to do for peace? I mean, and then the whole world would have seen how much this Putin wants peace. He wants a peace of Ukrainian territory, not peace. And then talking about lasting peace and these things, I mean, these become less and less and just peace. A peace must be just too and not just for Putin, but just for the country that was aggressed and is destroyed, and just about the international law. So, now I think the most important thing we have to focus on is how to achieve this peace. What does it mean, actually, and how is it going to be formalized? What are these security guarantees to Ukraine? Without security guarantees, there is the next aggression and war, a much bigger war, is pre programmed. And it’s not Zelensky’s fault, as it was said, but it’s somebody else’s fault. And I mean, I want to say one more thought, is that, that why Ukraine has not achieved victory in these three years, since February 2022, when it was full scale, precisely because there was no common Western approach in Europe, with the United States: how to define this? What is this victory we want to achieve, and how to achieve it? Because then it was, would have been very clear, very obvious, what needs to be done. And that is why this assistance to Ukraine was never timely, never sufficient for Ukraine prevailing in this war, and if we come to this peace process, is there really a plan? I don’t believe there is a plan. There are just certain moves to have some deals, but this is not going to be either just or durable peace. So we have to very clearly define what this means and how this can be achieved. I have proposed, personally from here, from Estonia, that this should be a three plus one peace agreement, three meaning US, Europe and Russia plus Ukraine, actually. Well, with the unification of German and so on, it was four plus two. Now it would be three plus one, whatever, something like that, with something to be accompanied by international peacekeeping forces under the leadership of Europe, if the US does not want to participate, and all this must be approved by the Security Council of the United Nations, so it would be legally binding, not just a political piece of paper agreement like the Budapest Memorandum was, or the Minsk agreements were, something serious, something to be accepted, not only by Russia, but by China also, and by the whole international community, to feel bound by this agreement. This is the strongest agreement possible, and it will strengthen the UN that is in a coma now. And it will strengthen also the international law that recedes day by day in front of policy of force.

John Torpey 

Yeah, I wanted to ask you about the UN. You’ve just made a rather sharp statement about its current status. And I wonder, you know, how you see the UN getting involved and making a difference in securing this piece?

Kalev Stoicescu 

Well, this is a way that… I don’t know if Trump doesn’t take, as it looks to me, seriously international organizations and bodies, he doesn’t take seriously the European Union. He doesn’t take seriously, even in a way, NATO. He doesn’t take seriously the World Trade Organization, and neither the UN. And at the UN, I was shocked to see the voting at the last… Yes, it was just the US, Israel and Hungary, and then Russia and North Korea and Belarus and a bunch of pariah countries from, from Africa and so on. I mean. And then, if you looked all even Russia’s allies in the bricks, China, India, South Africa, Brazil, they abstained. Even Iran abstained. So, this is interesting. We live in interesting times. What we have to again, see how things go, and we don’t want to burn by any means, ever any bridges between Europe and North America. We want to keep the alliance strong. And what we want to demonstrate from the part of Europe is that we take this commitment seriously to build up a serious military muscle in Europe. I already see very sharp and very worrisome reactions from Moscow, even when President Macron made allusions to what about the future of nuclear deterrence in Europe. France could enlarge its nuclear deterrence if necessary. Well, Britain has it too. Some other countries may acquire it. But speaking about security guarantees to Ukraine, the only security guarantee, to have a lasting peace after this war is over, is to have Ukraine under a nuclear umbrella, and not Russia’s, but Western nuclear umbrella. This could have been provided through NATO membership. If it’s not going to be NATO membership, at least until Trump is president, then we have to have a temporary solution, but that would be not a lasting solution. Would we like to see Ukraine arming itself with nuclear weapons? Maybe not, but if that would be their only way to survive as a nation, as an independent country, they may go for it. So I mean, these are serious, tough questions. And look, I mean, there is a border between Russia’s sphere of influence, which includes Belarus and the West, which is Europe, which is EU and NATO, and that was the gray zone. And that is the gray zone, Ukraine and Moldova. And it’s about it, and they cannot live in that gray zone forever. Either they are with us or they are with them. There is no other way, so, and we don’t want to let them be under Russia if they are occupied and subjugated by the Russians, ultimately, they would use the full potential of Ukraine against us, the West, instead of us having Ukraine as as a member of the European community that they deserve to be, as they want and as they have fought for so, these are serious considerations. They are not Russia’s pet or something, the idea that Putin does, and the putinists in Russia, there are tens of millions of them, they do not consider Ukrainian to be even a nation or to have a language or a culture or anything. Our understanding of Ukraine and the Ukrainians in their culture and their statehood is totally different. We want to support them. This is a vital issue for Europe. I think the way it is now handled this issue, it is far too simplistic, as if this is just a transactional thing. It is a much, much deeper thing.

John Torpey 

Right. But as you’ve pointed out, Trump sees these things in transactional terms, and usually in a kind of bilateral way, right? It doesn’t really look at things like alliances and doesn’t seem to understand the idea of soft power, which has been, I think, so much at the heart of America.

Kalev Stoicescu 

Soft power is what brought down the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union. There was no war for, for those evil empires to collapse. It was purely soft power. And Putin, yeah, he also underestimates the power soft power, and that is a huge mistake. And Putin has made mistakes, including in February 2022 by full scale attacking Ukraine, overestimating Russia’s own potential, underestimating Ukraine’s willingness and ability to defend itself. Underestimating the Western reaction in support of Ukraine and all that, So, and if Russia has learned a lesson from all this, then we are on the safe side, and they would not repeat such a stupid thing and such a catastrophic thing. But if not, then they would repeat it, of course, especially if they are motivated even to do it again.

John Torpey 

So I want to move back to the question of the summit yesterday, and what it means and what it foretells for the future. I mean, you know, I think I started by asking you, was this break that was suggested in the Oval Office meeting, was that irreparable or can it be repaired? And I know you said, you know, nobody wants to burn any bridges, but the meeting yesterday suggests that no, the European leaders do believe that the break is fundamental, if not irreparable.  We

Kalev Stoicescu 

We do what we have to do. So, I mean, this is not an illusion or an invitation to the US to leave Europe and abandon Europe and to create an abyss between Europe and North America. By no means this is precisely what the United States want, and what we need, to have a strong Europe. We don’t want to create a separate NATO, to have two NATOs, one with the US and the other one without the US. Nobody needs such a thing right now. We want to be able to put more, and if someone across the ocean from America would say: But what is Europe’s contribution? What? How do we profit from this relationship? It’s not just by money. It’s by, I mean, in case of a global confrontation, or something in East Asia, in the Pacific and so on, Europe can also offer its support, and not only politically, but also materially, and also if we have a strong defense industry as well, also by producing stuff, also by providing, perhaps navies or anything you know. So Europe should also not be underestimated in that sense. And this is a mutually beneficial relationship. I understand for that for many years, the United States has spent more than it should have from the overall size of the NATO expenditures on defense. So to say, although the US’s GDP is bigger than, than Europe’s and so on and and we understand the US is also an Indo-Pacific dimension that it has to keep up from, from that defense budget, not just the Atlantic and the European theater. So it’s more global from that sense. So, we want to be more helpful, both to us and to the alliance. This is the meaning of what we are doing, and to deter Russia. That is the purpose. And now Russia is nervous. They already, as this is the typical Russian reaction to ridicule, you know, and so on: Oh, this is the “militarization of Europe” and so on. But this is yet another result that runs absolutely counter to what Russia wanted to achieve. Russia wanted to achieve a Europe that is left alone, that is weak, unable to defend itself, and now they see how, under their own eyes, it’s totally the opposite. Exactly the same lesson, like with attacking Ukraine, after which there was before no presence of NATO in the eastern flank. After that, the Allied troops are here. The Russians didn’t want them to be here, but they are here because of their own aggression. So I don’t know how long Russia would continue to follow this pattern of every time achieving adverse results to what they actually want to achieve, and still continuing on the same way.

John Torpey 

This is going to take a major transformation, though, of European economic life, of its outlook on the world, it seems to me, of Germans. Germans are not particularly prone towards, you know, engagement with militaries.

Kalev Stoicescu 

Oh, they are more and more, believe me.

John Torpey 

Well, they may be changing their minds. That was the idea of that Zeitenwende. But historically, in recent years, anyway, they haven’t been all that inclined to embrace, you know, military action. So do you think the European people are ready for this kind of transformation?

Kalev Stoicescu 

I think, of course, I mean, Europe is not absolutely homogeneous and uniform in this sense. And you know, the closer you are to the North Pole, the colder it is, right, and further away the warmer it is. So the closer you are to Russia, the more you feel the urgency of investing in defense and all that. So if Estonia would be where Luxembourg is, perhaps we would also spend 1.5% of the GDP on defense instead of 3.5 and soon to be five. I mean, so and then again, about a half a Europe or so has the experience of the Second World War, and even before a very long experience, historic one, of being invaded by Russia, being subjugated and so on, and what that all means. So whereas some other countries don’t have that experience, to them Russia associates. They mix Putin with Pushkin, and it associates with Bulgakov and The Master and Margarita, and all that, you know. And they have no idea about what atrocities these guys commit and how barbaric they are, and how actually dangerous they are, and how this is a criminal regime of Putin’s and all that. So, and we try to find a common language in Europe, and I think we have to be thankful for what it is actually we have achieved much more understanding and better decisions that we have ever hoped for considering this discrepancy of historic experience and views and all that. So it’s not easy, with that many countries to to achieve consensus on these things, but now, in the face of this threat, we’re more united than ever, and I see this process started, as Gorbachev put it for the Perestroika,”protsess poshyol,” so the process has started.

John Torpey 

I see. Well, and I know you’re very busy, so I think we’ll bring this to an end, and in the hope that you know, some new accommodation can be found that brings a lasting peace to the region and to all Europe. But I want to thank Kalev Stoicescu of Estonia for sharing his thoughts about the transatlantic relationship and the situation in eastern Europe in the aftermath of the Oval Office meeting between Presidents Trump and Zelensky, Look for International Horizons on the New Books Network and remember to subscribe and rate International Horizons on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. I want to thank Claire Centofanti for her technical assistance, as well as to acknowledge Duncan McKay for sharing his song International Horizons as the theme music for the show. This is John Torpey saying thanks for joining us, and we look forward to have you with us for the next episode of International Horizons.