Four years into Russia’s war in Ukraine, the principal actors have been radically transformed. For its part, Russia has morphed into an openly militaristic, anti-Western country. A society that after 1945 embraced the saying “anything but war” has now reconciled itself to the role of aggressor.

Western hopes that the full-scale invasion of Ukraine would catalyze resistance to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime proved misplaced. Russians merely adapted. Aside from Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted mutiny in June 2023, Putin’s grip on power has not been challenged. Dissidents have left, died, or fallen silent. Whether through propaganda, fear, or conviction, the public has acquiesced.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has reforged its identity as a nation fighting for survival. By sustaining a defensive war against a much larger adversary, it has reaffirmed its sovereignty and its place in the European house. But this has come at a staggering cost: the loss of roughly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, hundreds of thousands of people dead or wounded, millions displaced, and profound damage to its infrastructure and economy.

Yet the most consequential transformation has taken place within the Western coalition. The decades-old alliance of liberal democracies was widely seen as the world’s dominant military and economic force, capable of upholding a rules-based order. Certain features were axiomatic: U.S. leadership, NATO’s unity, and a commitment to collective deterrence.

During the Cold War, that order was sustained not only by shared values but also by the power balance between two competing systems: the capitalist West and the communist Soviet Union. NATO’s military strength and U.S. security guarantees created clear expectations about how aggression would be met. When the Cold War ended, the institutions remained but the discipline that sustained those expectations softened, and enforced realities became assumptions.

One such assumption was that the Western coalition would not tolerate disorder in its house. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine stress-tested that premise—and found it wanting. What began as a united front against Russian aggression in 2022 has given way to a fractured alliance with a de facto leader, the United States, now seeking a peace agreement on terms unfavorable to both Ukraine and its European allies. This transformation severely undermines long-held beliefs about the West’s unity, resolve, and credible deterrence.

Russia’s invasion did not destroy the rules-based order but, rather, revealed how uncertain the West had become about enforcing it. In its hesitant support for Ukraine, the Western coalition showed that the stable post-World War II order may have turned out to be an illusion. The longer the war in Ukraine goes on, the further it erodes Western credibility and influence—and the harder it becomes to restore the authority that the West once took for granted.

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At the war’s outset in 2022, the West cast itself as a concerned bystander—as it had in 2014, when Putin launched his opening salvo in Crimea. For years, some leaders misread Russia’s revanchism as the convulsions of a declining empire or mistook Ukraine for a Russian client state, while others feared escalation. A full-scale ground war in Europe left little room for equivocation.

Most Western leaders condemned Russian aggression, promised aid, and imposed sanctions on Putin’s inner circle. But when it came to military muscle, the coalition wavered: Ukraine’s plea to close the sky went unanswered, and long-range missiles were supplied only gradually and with restrictions. The ultimate enforcement—sending NATO troops to Ukraine—was never seriously considered.

Rather than exploit Russian overreach—when an ill-equipped Moscow boasted it would take Kyiv “in three days,” and later, when Ukrainian forces shattered Russian lines near Kharkiv—the Western coalition chose to merely manage the conflict. That gave Putin time to recalibrate: He announced partial mobilization, stabilized the front, and adapted Russia’s war footing. Ukraine, meanwhile, received just enough support to continue fighting but not to force a decisive shift.

Washington’s cautious approach to escalating military aid, shaped by concerns about a direct confrontation with Moscow, set a “wait and see” tone for the Western coalition at a moment when Russia’s battlefield position was visibly unraveling. Governments argued over which weapons to supply, how quickly to deliver them, and how much risk they were willing to accept. The Baltic states, Poland, and the United Kingdom aggressively pushed for sending tanks, while Germany hesitated for months.

These divisions were minor compared to what came next. During his 2024 campaign, now-U.S. President Donald Trump cast support for Ukraine as wasteful. But once he took office, Trump did not fulfill his promise to end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. Instead, he upended the U.S. place within the Western coalition—disparaging and sidelining Ukrainian and other European leaders, questioning NATO’s relevance, and suggesting that allies failing to meet defense spending targets might be left to fend for themselves. He even threatened to encourage Putin to “do whatever the hell” he wanted.

For Europe, the meaning was difficult to miss: The Western coalition’s center of gravity was shifting, with its historical architect backing away. In European capitals, shock soon gave way to realism, and governments began preparing for a new order in which U.S. leadership could no longer be assumed. Trump codified this retreat in the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy, which emphasizes “core national interests,” urges allies to assume primary responsibility for their regions, and revives a hemispheric doctrine centered on Washington’s own sphere of influence.

This new approach came into focus on Jan. 3, when U.S. special forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and then again on Feb. 28, when Israeli forces killed Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during a joint operation with the United States. When Washington adopts the language of force, it matters: It sends a message that power, not diplomacy or rules, ultimately decides outcomes. For Putin, who has long justified his war in Ukraine as a historical correction, this shift from the United States reinforces the belief that sovereignty is discretionary.

It didn’t have to be this way. As the cost of the Russia-Ukraine war grew, any U.S. president would have been confronted with mounting economic and security pressure. But the United States could have recalibrated its security arrangements and burden-sharing without splintering the coalition. It could have pushed Europe to assume a larger role, clarified the strategic goals of the war, and increased pressure on Russia to shorten the conflict as costs were mounting.

The United States has rejected its role as the guarantor of the postwar order, and instead of a global village at the end of history, the West finds itself in the jungle. Gone is the aspiration to attract allies and partners through legitimacy, institutions, and cultural pull; Washington’s new language is one of dominance.

The notion that the West can return to where it stood in 2022, or even in 2025, is no longer plausible. But the jungle has its own rules. One of them is that predators rarely back down without being forced. As Western unity falters, so does the leverage needed to end Russia’s war on terms acceptable to Ukraine and its European allies. The range of outcomes that once seemed possible narrows, and what’s left becomes harder to achieve.

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Trump says he wants the war in Ukraine to end. But Putin, who also sees himself at the top of the food chain, does not. The conflict has given the Russian leader what he sought since he came to power a quarter century ago: a unifying purpose for his subjects. By recasting aggression as defense through a relentless propaganda machine, he has secured enough domestic support to sustain the war effort and his regime indefinitely.

Putin has achieved this without significantly disrupting everyday life across much of Russia. Military service offers rare upward mobility to men from impoverished regions and marginalized ethnic communities, with compensation high enough to ensure a steady stream of recruits. Tens of thousands of convicts have bolstered these ranks in exchange for commuted sentences. Casualty rates are high, but the social impact remains largely contained—helped by the state’s near-total control over information.

Western sanctions have hurt Russia, but not enough to incapacitate the war machine. China provides financial and economic support, energy revenues still flow, and domestic factories produce enough ammunition to sustain a prolonged conflict. Russia’s economy has proved more resilient than many observers expected, buoyed by wartime spending, energy exports to Asia, and the state’s growing control over industry.

Having ruled out direct military intervention in Ukraine early on, the United States is now offering concessions that would have sounded like preemptive surrender four years ago. But peace talks have produced nothing because they seek a compromise that does not exist. Putin’s stated goal—the elimination of Ukraine’s sovereignty—has not changed. That objective collides directly with Ukraine’s determination to preserve its statehood and Europe’s interest in not having a revanchist power on its doorstep.

In this stalemate, the search for a settlement is a fool’s errand unless one side changes its demands. For Ukraine, the matter is existential. For Putin, it is a matter of choice. So far, none of the concessions that have been floated—quietly easing sanctions, reintegrating Russia into the Western financial system, or inviting Russia back to the G-7—outweigh the prize that he sees in Ukraine, whose history occupies a central place in Russia’s imperial narrative.

The more that the United States signals its readiness to compromise, the more that Putin is encouraged to believe that time and pressure work in his favor, and that staying the course will eventually deliver a Ukraine stripped of real sovereignty and forced back into Russia’s orbit.

In contrast to Trump’s envoys, most European policymakers insist that negotiations must not reward Russian aggression and that Ukraine must decide the terms.

“Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has repeated. After decades of restraint, Germany’s massive new defense budget at least suggests that Europe intends to negotiate from strength.

If Western leaders wish to end this war, they have no choice but to dramatically raise the cost for Russia to continue fighting. Europe must close ranks politically and prevent internal divisions from paralyzing decisions on Ukraine. The revenue that sustains Russia’s war effort must be squeezed through stricter enforcement of energy sanctions, a real crackdown on the shadow fleet moving Russian oil, and coordination with partners to lower global prices. Ukraine must also receive the sustained military support needed to change the battlefield balance, including advanced air defense and the electronic capabilities that define modern warfare.

As the Russian saying goes, against a crowbar, there is no counter except another crowbar. Putin will negotiate seriously only when he faces credible pressure, and only then can the West start thinking about how to rebuild a world where rules matter. With Trump in the White House, much of that burden would fall on Europe, whose economic and military weight still gives it the capacity to influence the war’s trajectory.

Taking such a stance means making difficult decisions about defining acceptable escalation, spending priorities, and Europe’s long-term security posture. Yet reintroducing real costs for Moscow might be enough to make a viable peace settlement possible. It would begin to repair unity and leverage within the Western coalition, provided that its leaders are prepared to walk away from fruitless talks and pursue an alternative course.

Even without the United States, Europe has the capacity needed to deter Russia—if it can muster the coordination and political will to act. It is already moving in that direction, but the pace matters. In the meantime, Ukrainians will continue to die, and it could only be so long until the yellow and blue flags decorating Western cities from Berkeley to Dundee will no longer be symbols of solidarity but memorials. The price of sustaining Ukraine may be high, but the cost of letting it fall would be far higher.

As for the former anchor of this coalition, Washington should consider whether embracing the jungle is wise for a republic founded on the ideals of justice and freedom. An isolated United States will have less leverage against a hostile and ascending China. Without its wealthy European allies, it will be less resilient in the face of technological and economic shocks.

Upholding the rules-based order is a burden, but it is also a proven foundation for stability. Ukraine, at least, understands that and has made great sacrifice in its defense.