Both outgoing President Biden and the newly inaugurated President Trump have been consistent in their statements: the USA does not want World War III. This is a noble goal and one that suits Estonians perfectly. But what has been done to achieve it? Almost nothing so far. What is needed is the determination of Winston Churchill in defeating evil, writes the Chairman of Estonia’s Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs, Marko Mihkelson.
The survival and sovereignty of Estonia, and Europe at large, in an increasingly dangerous world are only possible if we accurately perceive external developments and do not deceive ourselves with the hope that a compromise reached with a dictator in a spirit of appeasement can bring lasting peace. Unfortunately, the posture of the new U.S. administration and the leadership void in Europe suggest that the very existence of the Western world is at its greatest risk yet.
For some time now, the democratic world has been under extensive assault from multiple directions, aimed at altering the current world order—weakening and fragmenting Western nations and subjecting them to external influence. In this anti-Western struggle, Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran have joined forces. The growing popularity of BRICS demonstrates that authoritarian states possess significant economic power and global reach, which further fuels their ambitions.
Biden’s weak, superficial, and delayed support for Ukraine played on the hope that avoiding escalation and not provoking Russia would prevent a larger war.
Just a few days ago, Russia signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Iran. While this agreement, unlike the one signed with North Korea last summer, does not include a mutual defense obligation, it still signals a deepening alliance among states hostile to the West. Iranian drones and short-range ballistic missiles are proving invaluable to Russia in its war against Ukraine, just as North Korean soldiers, ammunition, and other weaponry are aiding Russia in its quest to destroy a major European power. China’s primarily economic support and maneuvers to increase Western dependency only strengthen the offensive capabilities of authoritarian regimes.
Despite setbacks in Syria and heavy losses on the Ukrainian front, Russia has managed to enhance its military capabilities and battlefield resilience, even under sanctions, and has not retreated from its strategic goals. Putin’s gray eminence, Nikolai Patrushev, recently boasted in an interview that 2025 could mark Ukraine’s disappearance from the world map. At the same time, Russian propagandists increasingly talk of an impending war with NATO, fueling one another with mockery of Western nations and their leaders.
Russia’s confidence has grown partly because the West’s response to sabotage attacks—from political interference to undermining critical infrastructure—has been slow, fragmented, and weak. This is evident in the indifference shown to Russia’s destruction of Georgia’s sovereignty and democratic order during its imperialist expansion. If even in Estonia, our media pays little attention to the desperate resistance of the Georgian people against Russian domination, what can we expect from Western Europe? How would we feel if the world turned a blind eye to Estonia’s fate when it hung in the balance?
U.S. President Donald Trump’s desire to end the war in Europe as quickly as possible to focus on China is commendable, but the key question lies in the parameters of the anticipated peace. Trump understands that it is not possible to force Russia into peace within 24 hours, but his current stance resembles the spirit of the 1938 Munich Agreement with Hitler. The hope that a war happening “somewhere far away in an insignificant country” can be stopped by sacrifices and concessions actually paves the way for further aggression and possibly an even greater war.
Both outgoing President Biden and incoming President Trump have consistently stated that the U.S. does not want World War III. This is a noble goal and one that suits us well. But what has been done to achieve it? Almost nothing so far.
Biden’s weak, superficial, and delayed support for Ukraine played on the hope that avoiding escalation and not provoking Russia would prevent a larger war. In his final interview as president, Biden revealed several significant details that unfortunately confirm the United States’ strategic weakness in the eyes of Russia. He spoke about a conversation he had with Putin, which, as known, last took place face-to-face in June 2021 in Geneva, over six months before the full-scale war in Ukraine began.
Putin expressed a desire to “Finlandize” all of Europe—in other words, to gain complete control over the continent’s security decisions.
According to Biden, Putin expressed a desire to “Finlandize” all of Europe—in other words, to gain complete control over the continent’s security decisions. Biden also mentioned that Ukraine’s NATO membership would, in Putin’s view, open the door for the alliance to attack Moscow. Biden admitted that he had promised Putin to slow down NATO’s expansion into Ukraine until “fundamental changes” took place in Kyiv. Biden upheld this promise throughout his presidency, as U.S. opposition prevented the alliance from moving even an inch closer to its 2008 Bucharest Summit goal of making Ukraine a NATO member.
Unfortunately, the new U.S. president appears to follow the same path. Trump recently repeated Russia’s narrative that the war was triggered by NATO’s desire to expand. Entering peace talks with Putin under such a mindset is surrender from the outset. This reflects the spirit of Munich. By legitimizing the aggressor and its conquests, the West would eliminate any chance of holding Putin accountable for initiating a genocidal war of aggression. Allowing new borders drawn in blood to stand would open the door for future conquests and reinforce the principle that might makes right.
The desire to prevent World War III with deceptive peace agreements, as happened in Munich in 1938, is dangerous even for the security of the U.S. itself. Retreating from Europe or attempting to influence its domestic politics, as Elon Musk has done, will not better prepare the U.S. to compete with China over a new world order.
Instead of straining relations with close allies like Denmark and Canada, the U.S. president should focus on what matters most: ensuring American security and global leadership by securing Ukraine’s victory over Russia in its war of aggression. This is the most reliable way to prevent the feared outbreak—or, as some might argue, the expansion—of World War III.
Can we hope this will happen? Trump’s impulsiveness, unpredictability, and thirst for victory leave at least the possibility that Putin, now in the twilight of his life, will not achieve all his goals.
However, current conditions still favor a worst-case scenario. This is influenced, among other factors, by the inertia of history, in which the viability of the Russian Empire’s ambition for world domination plays a central role.
World War I marked the beginning of the collapse of empires and the rise of nation-states in Europe and elsewhere. However, the unresolved issues left by the Paris Peace Conference, such as the fate of the Russian Empire embroiled in civil war, made the outbreak of a new world war merely a matter of time. The Bolshevik Russia that swiftly restored its empire not only helped Germany survive militarily in the 1920s but later also paved the way for a new major war by supporting Hitler.
Stalin’s hope of achieving supremacy over the entire continent following a war among Europe’s great powers was largely dashed thanks to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s steadfastness in 1940. Churchill’s choice of war over dishonour and his determination to act in the face of blood, toil, tears, and sweat changed the course of history. Hitler was defeated, and Western Europe regained its freedom.
Although Churchill defeated Hitler, he was forced to do so in alliance with Stalin, arguably an even greater embodiment of evil. It was no surprise, then, that immediately after World War II, a new Cold War erupted between the Western nations and the Soviet Empire.
The collapse of the Soviet Union did not change Russia.
The creation of the UN, like the League of Nations before it, gave the illusion that there was now a mechanism in international relations to prevent large-scale wars in the future. However, the fact that Stalin himself played a significant role in establishing the UN and that his consent came at the cost of occupying the Baltic states and imposing iron control over all of Eastern Europe triggered a mechanism that could lead to another major war.
Discussions about World War III have occurred with varying intensity since the late 1940s. At times, it has seemed imminent (e.g., the Korean War or the Cuban Missile Crisis), and at others, more distant. Francis Fukuyama’s fiction about the end of history in the early 1990s even led to a momentary loss of any sense of danger in the West.
The collapse of the Soviet Union did not change Russia. Beginning with the Chechen Wars in 1994, the Kremlin revealed its true face. The West turned a blind eye and continued disarmament. This was the greatest strategic mistake of recent history, the painful consequences of which Europe is experiencing today as a full-scale war rages on the continent for the third year.
“If we say that Ukrainian society was unprepared for war, then Western societies are not even ready to think about it,” said Col. Andriy Biletsky, the commander of Ukraine’s legendary 3rd Assault Brigade, when asked about the credibility of potential Western security guarantees.
He is correct. Despite rhetoric and promises, the defense expenditures of major European countries do not match the existing and rapidly growing threats. Consider that while Russia is currently spending at least 7-8 percent of its GDP solely on its armed forces, large Western European countries are still spending four to five times less on defense. Therefore, Trump’s idea of allocating 5 percent of GDP to defense is not far-fetched but will soon become an unavoidable reality in the context of a potential world war. The problem is that Western societies still do not want to think about war, let alone prepare for it.
History should teach us that Western democracies can no longer afford to rely on hopes of Russia changing or on the idea of transforming Russia into a democracy through trade. A Russia seeking to expand its empire is waging a war of conquest in Europe, tying us to the unresolved problems left behind by the Paris Peace Conference. Western politicians dreaming of peace with Putin must understand the broader context and consequences of appeasing a dictator with world-conquering ambitions. To avoid a greater catastrophe, the Munich spirit must be replaced with a unique opportunity: decisively supporting Ukraine to resolve the security issue that has persisted since the end of World War I.
Russia’s defeat in its self-initiated war of aggression is the surest path to preventing World War III.
The comment was originally published in Estonian in EDASI magazine.
