# ESSAY: Transatlanticism as a Convenience Partnership — and Why That Is Enough, for Now

> A convenience partnership. The formula is honest and a little sad. NATO was founded on the principle that democracies sharing common values would defend each other. That principle is not dead — but it

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Essay
- Published: 2026-07-02
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/essai-le-transatlantisme-comme-partenariat-de-commodite-et-pourquoi-cela-suffit

## Introduction: an alliance that outlives its ideal

### Foreign Policy, June 29, 2026 — the thesis that unsettles

On **June 29, 2026**, **Foreign Policy** publishes an analysis that summarizes in one formula what many observers have been watching for two years without daring to name it: **"an equilibrium has emerged between Europe and Trump,"** and this equilibrium has produced something functional without being ideal — a **convenience partnership**. The transatlantic alliance, according to this reading, has degraded. It is no longer built on shared values proclaimed with conviction. It now rests on a calculation of mutual interests — **Europe** pays for defense, the **United States** sells the weapons and maintains its presence. It is not pretty. It works. And in the world of **2026**, working may be enough.

This finding deserves an essay, not a news dispatch. Because behind **Foreign Policy**'s formula lies a philosophical and strategic question that will determine the architecture of global security for decades to come: are alliances built on values more durable than alliances built on interests? And in the answer to that question lies the survival or collapse of collective Western defense against **Russia**, **China**, and the other actors watching for every crack.

### The context — Ankara approaching, Trump staying unpredictable

**Foreign Policy**'s analysis appears five days before the **NATO summit in Ankara** (**July 7-8, 2026**). That timing is not incidental — the publication positions its analysis as a reading frame for the summit. The allied leaders arriving in **Ankara** will bring with them an unresolved question: what is the real status of the transatlantic relationship under **Trump**, and how robust is it against Russian and Chinese pressure? **Foreign Policy**'s answer: it holds, but through interests, not ideology. This is not a celebration — it is a diagnosis.

**Rutte**'s visit to **Washington**, the "Trump trillion" — the European commitment to a trillion dollars of defense spending that the **NATO** Secretary-General presented as supporting **195,000 American jobs** and **$300 billion in orders** placed with American industry — all of this sketches the contours of a transatlantic partnership reframed in a language **Trump** understands and values: economic benefits for the **United States**. This translation of geopolitical solidarity into dollars and jobs is pragmatic. And that translation, however pragmatic, works.

## Trump and the reversal — from neutral mediator to conditional partner

### Abandoning mediation — Zelensky held firm and Trump stepped back

One of the most significant developments of **2025-2026** is **Trump**'s gradual reversal on the Ukrainian dossier. In the early weeks of his return to power, **Trump** pushed for a quick peace deal that implied Ukrainian territorial concessions. **Zelensky** refused to cede the already occupied **Donbas** territories. Faced with this refusal — and confronted with a Russian position demanding maximalist objectives incompatible with any acceptable deal — **Trump** progressively abandoned his equidistant mediator posture.

**Macron** publicly welcomed this shift, noting that **Trump** is no longer behaving as a **"neutral mediator."** This diplomatic formula masks a blunter reality: neutrality between an aggressor and its victim was morally untenable, and even **Trump** — whose relationship to international morality is instrumental — ultimately found the posture unsellable. The image of a **Trump** forcing **Ukraine** to capitulate before **Putin** is not an image that serves his narrative of strength. He preferred the reversal.

### Russia failing to play Trump's game

It is also necessary to name **Russia**'s role in this reversal. **Moscow** refused to play the role **Trump** expected: accepting a quick deal that gave it symbolic victories (de facto recognized occupied territory, Ukrainian neutrality) in exchange for ending hostilities. **Russia** wanted more — much more. It wanted permanent Ukrainian neutrality, a definitive halt to any **NATO** alignment, and additional concessions that neither **Kyiv** nor **Washington** could accept without losing all credibility.

Russia's refusal to play the expected moderate forced **Trump** into a difficult position: either force **Ukraine** into even more unacceptable concessions to satisfy **Putin**, or acknowledge that **Putin** was not the rational partner he believed he could manage. **Trump**'s transactional logic — where everyone makes reasonable compromises to close a deal — collided with a **Russia** not seeking a reasonable deal but a total victory. This collision of logics partly explains **Trump**'s drift toward a less equidistant posture.

## What "convenience partnership" really means

### The alliance reduced to its common-interest denominator — a systemic risk

**Foreign Policy**'s formula — **"the transatlantic alliance has degraded into a convenience partnership, but it is still a partnership"** — deserves to be dissected. Saying it is still a partnership is a consolation. Saying it has "degraded" is a warning. The degradation in question is the erosion of the shared values base — democracy, rule of law, press freedom, peaceful resolution of disputes — in favor of a mutual interest calculation that can, in theory, be renegotiated or abandoned whenever interests diverge.

This reduction of the alliance to its interest components is a systemic risk. Alliances based on values have a cohesion that is harder to erode because values do not fluctuate with markets, elections, or changes of government. An alliance based on economic interest is, by definition, only as solid as the shared interest itself. If that common interest disappears — if **Europe** stops buying from **America**, if the **United States** finds more profitable commercial partners elsewhere — the defense solidarity has no foundation.

### Allies learning to manage Trump — a new and fragile competence

**Foreign Policy**'s analysis notes that European allies have **"learned to manage Trump."** This phrasing reveals something essential about the nature of the current relationship: America's partners are no longer managing the alliance — they are managing the American president. These are not the same thing. Managing the alliance involves institutions, processes, shared rules. Managing a president involves understanding his psychology, his personal incentives, his fears of losing face.

This new competence is real and useful in the short term. Less so over the longer run, for two reasons. First: if the transatlantic relationship depends on the ability to manage the personality of a single individual, it is as fragile as that individual. Second: "learning to manage Trump" comes at a cost. European partners accept diplomatic humiliations, hard-fought negotiations, unfavorable commercial terms in order to maintain a vital security relationship. These costs accumulate and eventually produce domestic political reactions — as the rise across **Europe** of parties questioning the security dependence on Washington illustrates.

## The Putin question — is he genuinely ready to negotiate, or only seeking a pause?

### The Foreign Policy analysis — Putin as Iran's Kim Jong-un

One of the most complex questions that **Foreign Policy**'s analysis poses ahead of the **Ankara** summit is this: is **Putin** genuinely ready for real negotiations, or is he seeking to declare a symbolic victory and freeze the conflict the way **Iran** did after the 2015 nuclear deal? This analogy is revealing. **Iran** accepted nuclear restrictions without abandoning its program — it declared a symbolic victory while preserving its strategic trajectory. The question is whether **Putin** is looking for the same thing: a deal that allows him to present a victory to his population while retaining the capacity to resume hostilities when conditions permit.

If this reading is correct — and the available evidence does not contradict it — then any peace deal not accompanied by solid security guarantees for **Ukraine** is a pause, not an end. **Ukraine** would remain vulnerable to a resumption of hostilities in five or ten years, after **Russia** has reconstituted its forces, retooled its defense industry, and waited for Western support to drop again. This prospect is the deep reason behind Ukraine's refusal to cede territory without firm guarantees.

### The lessons of Minsk — agreements that do not end wars

**Ukraine** has direct experience with peace agreements that are not peace. The **Minsk I and II agreements**, signed in **2014-2015** after the first Russian offensives in the **Donbas**, produced a superficial ceasefire. **Russia** used that period to consolidate its positions in occupied territories, reinforce its forces in the **Donbas**, and prepare the full-scale invasion of **2022**. **Ukraine** drew the lesson: an agreement without guarantees is a deferred defeat.

This lesson explains **Zelensky**'s resistance to pressure for a quick deal — including **Trump**'s pressure. This is not stubbornness. It is institutional memory. Any agreement that does not guarantee **Ukraine**'s future security — either through **NATO** membership or equivalent bilateral security guarantees — reproduces the structure of the **Minsk** agreements. And the **Minsk** agreements led to **2022**.

## European strategic autonomy — from rhetoric to industrial reality

### The European trillion and American jobs — the dependence that persists

The European commitment to massive defense spending — the "Trump trillion" whose American economic benefits **Rutte** presented — raises a structural question: is **Europe** building its strategic autonomy or reinforcing its dependence on the American defense industry? When **Rutte** presents European defense spending as producing **195,000 American jobs** and **$300 billion in orders** for American manufacturers, he is not talking about European autonomy — he is talking about European purchases from **America**.

**European strategic autonomy** — a concept born under **Macron** and debated for years in **EU** circles — requires a European defense industry capable of producing the systems **Europe** needs without depending on a single supplier. That is not what orders to **Raytheon, Lockheed Martin**, and **Boeing** build. They build European defense on an American technological and industrial foundation — reasonable in the short term but problematic in the long term if the transatlantic relationship deteriorates further.

### What Europe is actually building — between ambition and reality

An honest analysis of the situation shows a mixed picture. On one side, **Europe** has genuinely increased its defense spending to levels unprecedented since the **Cold War**. Most **NATO** members now meet the **2% of GDP** target and several exceed it. The European defense industry — **Rheinmetall, KNDS, Saab, Leonardo, Thales** — has accelerated production rates. Joint European armament projects — the **MGCS** tank, the future **SCAF** air combat system — are advancing, slowly.

On the other side, timelines remain too long, volumes insufficient, and coordination between member states still difficult. Procurement decisions are still largely made at national rather than European level, producing duplication and inefficiency. **Ukraine** — waiting for anti-drone systems, missiles, armored vehicles — is the real-world test of Europe's capacity to produce at volume and with urgency. That test reveals persistent shortcomings that political goodwill does not yet compensate.

## China in the equation — the absent presence that structures everything

### Foreign Policy and the implicit pivot toward Asia

**Foreign Policy**'s analysis of transatlanticism focuses on Europe and Ukraine, but it cannot ignore the structural backdrop: the primary concern of American foreign policy in the long run is not **Russia** in **Ukraine** — it is **China** in **Asia**. This geostrategic reality creates a permanent tension in the transatlantic relationship: **Europe** wants **America** to remain fully engaged in **Europe**; **America** wants **Europe** to free up resources for it to focus on **China**.

The European "Trump trillion" is, in this reading, also an American response to this tension: if **Europe** invests massively in its own defense, the **United States** can progressively redirect its military attention and resources toward the Indo-Pacific competition. This arrangement may appear balanced but assumes that **Europe** is capable of defending its eastern flank without decisive American intervention — a hypothesis that remains to be demonstrated in the event of an escalation with **Russia** beyond the Ukrainian theater.

### Beijing watches and waits — the Ukraine test as a signal for Taiwan

**China** is watching the war in **Ukraine** and the Western response with extreme attention. What it sees will partly determine its calculus on **Taiwan**. If the **West** demonstrates firm and lasting solidarity — sustained deliveries, effective sanctions, unwavering support despite the costs — **Beijing** receives the signal that the **Asia-Pacific** would also be defended. If the **West** shows fatigue, hesitation, internal fractures — **Beijing** receives the opposite signal.

This is why the response to the Ukrainian dossier is not only a European question — it is a question of global deterrence. **China** is watching whether the transatlantic partnership is truly "one of convenience" or whether, when what matters is at stake, allies hold. What they do at **Ankara** will be read in **Beijing** as carefully as in **Moscow**. The stakes extend beyond **Ukraine** — they structure the world order for the decade ahead.

## Ankara as a test — what does a successful summit look like?

### The criteria for a substantive outcome versus minimal expectations

The **NATO summit in Ankara on July 7-8, 2026** will be judged against precise criteria. A substantive summit would produce: concrete, dated commitments for additional air defense system deliveries to **Ukraine**; a clarification on the security guarantees offered to **Ukraine** pending formal membership; coordinated sanctions against entities supplying the Russian defense industry; and a defense spending commitment that goes beyond the already achieved **2% of GDP** target.

A minimal summit would produce a communiqué reaffirming solidarity with **Ukraine**, expressing concern about **Russia**, noting progress on spending, and scheduling the next follow-up meetings. This type of outcome is better than open failure — but it will not satisfy **Kyiv**, which has clearly expressed that words are no longer enough. What **Sybiha** said on the morning of **July 2** — **"do not delay decisions"** — defines precisely the difference between a substantive summit and a symbolic one.

### The host's role — Erdogan between NATO and calculated neutrality

**Erdogan**'s **Turkey** is hosting the summit. This geographical choice is not incidental. **Turkey** is a **NATO** member that has maintained economic and diplomatic relations with **Russia** throughout the war in **Ukraine** — Russian energy imports, tourism, facilitation of transactions circumventing sanctions. **Erdogan** plays the mediator between opposing camps, a position that gives him diplomatic influence disproportionate to his country's economic power.

His role as host in **Ankara** will give him a platform and influence over the summit agenda. He will be tempted to use this role to promote a resolution of the Ukrainian conflict that includes territorial compromises — a position closer to Russian than Ukrainian preferences. **NATO** partners will need to navigate between keeping **Turkey** in the alliance (essential for its geography and military capabilities) and resisting pressure for concessions that **Ukraine** regards as unacceptable.

## The transatlantic alliance after Trump — what will remain and what will have permanently changed

### The structural damage that would not repair itself automatically

One of the least discussed questions in analyses of post-**Trump** transatlanticism is structural damage that would not repair itself automatically with a change of administration. Trust between allies builds over decades and is destroyed in months. The doubt **Trump** has installed in European capitals about the reliability of the American security guarantee will not disappear with a new president. It persists in defense plans, in procurement decisions, in the strategic calculations of every member state that must now factor a margin of uncertainty about **Article 5** into its threat assessments.

This instilled doubt may be one of the most lasting effects of Trumpian foreign policy. A **Europe** that plans its defense accounting for a possible American disengagement is a **Europe** investing in its autonomy — healthy in the long term — but also a **Europe** dividing its resources between buying American now and building European for tomorrow. This division of resources hurts in terms of immediate efficiency. It may prove wise in the long run if European strategic autonomy becomes an operational reality.

### The elements of the alliance that held — despite everything

There is also a more optimistic reading. Several elements of the transatlantic alliance held better than anticipated under **Trump**'s pressure. Intelligence service cooperation — the **Five Eyes group**, intelligence sharing with **Ukraine** — continued to function. The **NATO** command infrastructure remained operational. Weapons deliveries to **Ukraine** continued, with interruptions and difficult negotiations, but they continued. Sanctions against **Russia** remained broadly in place.

These elements of institutional resilience deserve recognition. They suggest that transatlantic institutions — **NATO**, intelligence-sharing mechanisms, common sanctions frameworks — have their own inertia that protects them against short-term political will. That is not a guarantee — institutions can be dismantled by determined leaders. But it is a buffer. And that buffer has held.

## Conclusion: the convenience partnership is imperfect — and it is all we have

### Accepting the reality without idealizing it — and without letting it degrade further

**Foreign Policy**'s essay of **June 29, 2026** establishes a diagnosis that this essay seeks to complete: transatlanticism is a convenience partnership. It survives because interests converge sufficiently — **Europe** needs American protection, the **United States** needs European markets and the legitimacy its democratic allies confer. This convergence of interests is more fragile than the convergence of values it has replaced — but it is real.

Accepting this diagnosis is not a call to resignation. It is an honest starting point for a policy that seeks to preserve what works while working to rebuild what has degraded. Common values do not disappear when an American president treats them with cynicism — they are dormant in the electorate and in the institutions. They can re-emerge, as they did after **Trump 1**. But the war in **Ukraine** cannot wait for that re-emergence. It is being paid for now, with the tools available now.

### What this essay does not resolve — the real open questions

This essay does not know whether **Ankara** will produce decisions commensurate with the urgency. It does not know whether **Trump** will stay in this conditional partner posture or tip back toward equidistance or withdrawal. It does not know whether **Russia** genuinely seeks an agreement or only a pause. And it does not know whether the convenience partnership will hold against the growing pressure of **China** pushing for yet another reorganization of global alliances.

What this essay knows with certainty: **Ukraine** is fighting for its survival. The **West** has decided, imperfectly and too slowly, to support it. This support, even imperfect, even grounded in interest calculations rather than value convictions, is currently the only thing standing between a **Ukraine** defending its borders and a **Russia** seeking to erase them. A convenience partnership that produces this result is not a disgrace. It is a functional minimum that deserves to be preserved, improved, and if possible elevated once again toward something greater.

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Foreign Policy — NATO before Ankara: Trump, Erdogan, Europe defense — June 29, 2026](https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/29/nato-trump-erdogan-ankara-summit-europe-defense-russia/)

- [Foreign Policy — Europe, NATO, war: transatlantic deterrence — June 29, 2026](https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/06/29/europe-nato-war-russia-ukraine-security-defense-trump-alliance-deterrence/)

- [Euromaidanpress — Rutte tells Trump: Europe's arms spending supports 195,000 US jobs — July 1, 2026](https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/07/01/nato-chief-rutte-tells-trump-europes-arms-spending-supports-195000-us-jobs-300bn-in-orders/)

### Secondary sources

- [Foreign Policy — NATO summit: transatlantic alliance dead or alive? — July 1, 2026](https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/01/nato-summit-transatlantic-alliance-dead-alive-trump-russia-defense-geopolitics/)

- [The Guardian — NATO leaders fear they can no longer rely on US help — June 27, 2026](https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2026/jun/27/nato-leaders-fear-they-can-no-longer-rely-on-us-help-if-russia-attacks-trump-eastern-europe)

- [Kyiv Independent — If Europe wants real peace, it must make frozen war unattractive — 2026](https://kyivindependent.com/if-europe-wants-a-real-peace-it-must-make-a-frozen-war-unattractive/)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/essai-le-transatlantisme-comme-partenariat-de-commodite-et-pourquoi-cela-suffit