Onboard the M/S Stella Australis, near Cape Horn
At a time like this, when alliances are falling apart and everything is turning into zero-sum games, one can do worse than sail on the waters off the southern tip of South America – closer to empty Antarctica than to Washington and Moscow, crowded as these capitals are with gangsters, psychopaths and other terrible, presumably human, beings.
Onboard the M/S Ventus Australis, a small, but handsome ship, there is no access to electronic or other news sources. In fact, while writing off Cape Horn in a great storm, nearing the force of a hurricane, I have no idea what is happening in the world in general and in Europe in particular. Am I unhappy about my distance to the political, so-called civilized world? Not at all. Not for a moment. I enjoy the silence, I enjoy the movements, often wild, often noisy, of the ship in waves, rising to five or more meters. It suits me well, mentally, to be at the end of a world, which recently has disappointed me greatly, no disappointment being greater than the US betrayal of Ukraine.
Before I boarded the Ventus in Punta Arenas, Chile’s southernmost town, sitting nicely and weather-eaten on its rocks over the Strait of Magellan, I read up on the latest developments, including the visits by US Vice President Vance and US defence minister Hegseth to Europe.
I have seen and heard a lot in my more than 50 years as a foreign reporter. To learn from these two gentlemen that the United States is leaving Europe and wants to negotiate a so-called peace in Ukraine with Vladimir Putin’s fascist, belligerent Russia without the involvement of Ukraine and the rest of Europe, and that Ukraine will be forced to cede significant territory and be excluded from long-promised NATO membership, was a shock, but not – one of the many absurdities of the current situation – a surprise. My Danish, very liberal daily newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, on February 14 ran a lead article under the headline: Maybe it’s time for Europe to tell Trump: “You’re fired!”). Unthinkable only a few weeks ago. Now quite right. What a tragedy!
I cannot think of a more critical time for our post-World War II democracy than these months. The Berlin Crisis of 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of the following year were played out between the capitalist-democratic West and the communist-totalitarian East. There were checks and balances. There were systems, codes, and generally accepted doctrines. After Donald Trump came to power in Washington, everything turned into chaos. Not just chaos, but chaos with a view to create chaos. Why? On that behalf?
I don’t know where the president and his cronies, including the insignificant Vance and Trump’s unelected, but significant co-president Elon Musk, are headed. I only know this: The North Atlantic Alliance, led by the superpower United States, no longer exists. In 2025, almost 80 years after NATO’s creation, the United States poses a threat to Europe, initially in the shape of Ukraine and Denmark as administrators of Greenland, as well as Canada and Panama. Later on it will get worse. Be sure of this.
Before his trip to Europe, Vance remarked that Denmark was a bad ally. Readers will have to forgive me, but what the hell is this man thinking? Does he know what he’s talking about? With its naturally modest forces, Denmark has been helping the United States in the Balkans, North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Denmark has a long-term, strategically flexible agreement with the United States on the security function of Greenland, and the Danish parliament is about to ratify a far-reaching deal with the United States on the presence of American troops in Denmark. Denmark is one of the largest per capita contributors to Ukraine. Denmark is not a poor ally. Far from it. The poor ally, if an ally at all, is the US of Mr Trump and Vance and Hegseth
After the recent visits of Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to Munich and Brussels, I believe that in practice – despite all the rhetoric – that the United States must be considered an enemy of Europe, a repeat of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Will there be further collusion between Trump’s America and Putin’s Russia to divide and destroy Europe? Maybe. Who will exclude (I for sure will not) a secret agreement between Trumpist Washington and Putin’s Moscow, sharing Europe between them?
Europe, including Ukraine, which has chosen to become European and democratic, need not to fall under the ax of such a bastardly conspiracy, but actions must be taken now, and they must be concrete. I hope that the forthcoming German elections will result in a coalition government led by the conservative Merz as chancellor, the social democrat Pistorius as defense minister, and the green Annalena Baerbock as foreign minister. A European Security and Defense Union led by the “Big Four” – Germany, France, Britain, and Poland – must be created already this year, independent of the Trump administration, which can reasonably be suspected of working in tandem with Russia.
Europe has access to enormous potential, both economic and military, which, even as the European ship of state is rocked by the wild waves of big politics, can overcome the consequences of American-Russian treachery. A democratic Europe should not seek war with the new Washington-Moscow axis, aided by Beijing and Pyongyang, of course not. But Europe can and must enable itself to keep such an axis – with its European supporters, ranging from Viktor Orban in Hungary to Morten Messerschmidt in Denmark – as far away from Europe as the good captain of the Stella Australis is keeping his ship and his passengers away from the rocks of Cape Horn. I know the captain, his name is Rodrigo Rojas Román. As we met for a talk on the bridge, just before the storm broke, he emphasized the need for order and calm, for sensing the underwater currents and the approaching weather, for having a solid team.
This is exactly what Europe needs now. Europe, consisting of two nuclear powers and having at its disposal large conventional armies, must now take on the difficult but not insurmountable task of creating an integrated, powerful and reliable defense, a new NATO without the United States but with Ukraine, Canada, and other stakeholders. The political will given, such a defense can be created before the end of the decade, well within the time frame needed by Russia to rebuild its armed forces after its colossal losses in Ukraine. A politically and militarily united Europe can inflict so much damage on the emerging new Evil Empire that it will not dare to do what Russia did in 2014 and did again, three years ago to this date: attacking the old cultural lands of Europe.
The Ventus Australis is dancing wildly on the waves off Tierra del Fuego. It is a temperamental tango, not a dreaming Walz. It’s time for Europe to find its own course, to sail in the American-Russian storm, carefully and calmly, and with a steady hand.
By Per Nyholm
*These opinions are solely those of the author. The Ukrainian Review takes no, position and is not responsible for the author’s words.
Per Nyholm has been a Danish journalist since 1960. He is based in Austria and is a columnist and foreign correspondent at the Jyllands-Posten, a liberal Danish daily newspaper.
Tetiana Stelmakh adapted this text for The Ukrainian Review.
