Worthy Christian News > World News > Europe In Turmoil As Russia-US Design World Order (Worthy News Focus)

Europe In Turmoil As Russia-US Design World Order (Worthy News Focus)

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

AMSTERDAM/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – “I am thinking of leaving the Netherlands if there is a war again in Europe,” says Aafje van Kampen, a Dutch painter and graphic artist who happens to be the mother of a Worthy News agency reporter.

Her words echo sentiments among a growing number of Europeans amid mounting concerns that U.S. President Donald J. Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin will decide their future.

With heavily underfunded armed forces, Europe seems to be left alone without strong support from the United States.

Trump warned this week his nation would not participate in a peacekeeping mission after the war in Ukraine is over.

European leaders have told citizens to prepare for war amid concerns that Russia will move into the Baltics and Poland if the U.S. abandons the NATO military alliance.

Yet even without such a dramatic step, there is concern that Trump won’t respect NATO’s founding Article 5, which says that its members “agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all” and that actions be taken to protect the ally.

“It’s a bit premature to talk about the death of NATO,” said Samantha de Bendern, a Russia expert with Chatham House, a London-based think tank. “It certainly seems to be weakened.”

FIERCE DEBATE

She commented during a debate aired by French broadcaster France 24 entitled, “The death of Nato? Europe in crisis over Trump-Putin talks.”

Don’t tell that to Aafje van Kampen, who, at 83, now again fears war will spread to generations that grew up in peace.

She still remembers “my mom” asking her to “do as if you are sleeping” when hiding food beneath her in the blankets of the baby carrier.

German soldiers would take away food during the Dutch famine of 1944–1945, also known as the Hunger Winter (from Dutch Hongerwinter), near the end of World War II.

Up to 22,000 people died, including in Amsterdam, the capital, where Van Kampen still recalls the raids of Nazi Germany’s forces searching for Jews who were then sent to death camps. Several Dutch nationals even cooperated with them, betraying neighbors who were hiding Jewish people.

Some 4.5 million were affected and survived, thanks to soup kitchens. “I still remember me eating soup with sand in it. Elderly people who remembered better times reacted with emotion when I said: “It’s nice, tasty, Mom.”

At one point, a German soldier took her on his lap, and others laughed at the little girl, Aafje. “My mother just took me away, she was in shock, although I think it were just young soldiers perhaps missing their families too.”

REPEATING HISTORY?

Many decades later, she believes war will come at any time.

Some military talking heads, often retired generals and analysts who remain a safe distance from the frontlines, claim that Russia has been weakened and will be happy with a peace deal.

Yet NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has said he fears Russia won’t stop at Ukraine. Moscow still occupies parts of Georgia and Moldova, a nation sandwiched between Ukraine and Romania, a NATO member state.

To contain the armed conflict, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron are preparing troops in Ukraine if a ceasefire is reached, but other European leaders remain hesitant.

Feeling emboldened by Trump’s rhetoric about Europe’s alleged incompetence, Moscow has warned it won’t accept the presence of European soldiers in Ukraine. Starmer and Macron will visit Trump in the coming days to convince the self-declared “deal-maker-in-chief” to remain engaged in Europe.

For a starter, it didn’t help that Zelenskyy angered Trump by saying he “lives in this disinformation bubble” and that the American leader was parroting Russian propaganda

Trump’s allies then cast doubts about Zelenskyy, with presidential adviser Elon Musk accusing him of allowing an American pro-Russian blogger and journalist, Gonzalo Lira, to “die in a Ukrainian prison.”

ZELENSKYY DICTATOR?

Earlier, Trump had already called the Ukrainian leader a “dictator without elections” with an approval rating of “four percent,” though polls showed 57 percent of voters still trust him.

By then, transatlantic relations had already gone downhill, as U.S. Vice President JD Vance condemned the European Union at the Munich Security Conference as an undemocratic mammoth with little appreciation for borders and security.

He suggested that the EU had allowed millions of migrants from mainly Muslim nations to enter, often without proper documents.

Vance accused European leaders of “betraying democratic values,” giving several examples, including about a middle-aged man and army veteran who was detained in Britain for silently praying near an abortion clinic.

He also noted attempts to refuse anti-migration, often deemed as “far-right nationalist parties,” into government and for seeking to curtail the spread of “far-right viewpoints,” which he called “censorship.”

He also called it profoundly undemocratic to annul recent presidential elections in Romania over allegations that they were compromised by Russian interference. A far-right pro-Russian candidate was on track to win the elections before the results were canceled.

Also last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth deeply troubled Europeans with suggestions the U.S. might pull troops out of Europe because Washington does not view the security of Europe as a crucial concern.

BIGGER THREAT

China is seen as a bigger threat to America’s peace and security, and Trump said, “There was a beautiful ocean” between America and Europe facing military upheaval. Europeans worry that Trump may seek to draw down forces in Europe as part of a bigger deal with Putin to reorder the security framework in Europe and forge a new world order.

On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio began to re-establish ties with Russia by meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Saudi Arabia for talks. In a first step toward normalizing relations, Washington and Moscow agreed to allow the restaffing of embassies, Worthy News reported at the time.

Russia’s foreign ministry said the two “sides agreed to establish a dialogue to identify ways to resume cooperation in the economy, including energy, outer space exploration, and other areas of mutual interest.”

It added that both sides wanted to see the Ukraine war come to an end, but the Kremlin stressed the “importance of eliminating the root causes of the conflict.”

Moscow insists that it cannot allow Ukraine to become a NATO member and demands the removal of NATO forces and weapons from its borders. That, in turn, could make NATO members such as Poland and the Baltics less secure, analysts warn.

Back in the Netherlands, Aafje van Kampen calls her nation and Europe naive. She doesn’t exclude continuing her craft in faraway countries. “Look, if war starts here, I want to spend my last days in Bali or another far safer place. I think many people have forgotten what war means.”

For Ukrainians and Russians, this already has become a reality, with more than a million people believed to have been killed and injured.