Despite Donald Trump’s vocal statements from the White House on the US
withdrawal from international alliances, his rhetoric is often fails to be backed up by his actions.

This was emphasized by Amb. Stephen Sestanovich, J. F. Kennan Senior Fellow for Russia and Eurasia, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Professor Emeritus,
Columbia University, Ambassador-at-large, US Department of State (1997-2001), at the 17 th Annual Kyiv Security Forum “UA: UNITE AGAIN TO DEFEAT THE
Global AGGRESSOR”, organized by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk Foundation “Open
Ukraine”.

“Try to perceive this situation as a glass - whether half full or half empty. Indeed,
President Trump threatens to withdraw from alliances, but these are blind threats. He always has a plan B. But what will we all do when a real threat is there, and there is no plan B?”, he said.

The Ambassador argued that the US should not assume that it organized European security in the past 35 years in the “right way”: all battle tanks have been withdrawn from the continent. “True, they have expanded the Air Forces presence, but they have reduced rapid deployment forces,” he stressed.

Steven Sestanovich also warned against pointing fingers to blame one another vis-à-vis defenses: “It is not worth saying who is right and who is wrong. What we are doing today is not because the US “does not defend” Europe, but because America has certain responsibilities in other regions, as our bitter experience in the Middle East prtoves.”

Weaponry supplies during the Biden era, according to the diplomat, is good even
though it reduced the US capabilities. And now, in his opinion, it is due time to
restore these capabilities.

“We should not blame each other for doing something wrong. We need to think
jointly about our common security,” Stephen Sestanovich concluded.

The Kyiv Security Forum, founded by Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s “Open Ukraine”
foundation, is the main platform of our state for discussing the problems of war and peace, national and world security.