Not at the table: Europe's colonial moment

The upcoming negotiations in Alaska between Trump and Putin tells you all you ought to know about the nature of the Ukraine war, and Europe's current geopolitical status.

I did the research: there are very few examples - if any - in Europe’s millennia-old history of a military defeat against an external power where it wasn’t even at the table to negotiate the conditions for its future.

You’d probably need to go all the way back to the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to find Europeans having zero say in their own fate. And still, this was a somewhat “classic” military defeat where the victor simply dictated terms. At the time, there wasn't another external power negotiating with the Ottomans about how to carve up Byzantine territory - it was at least a straightforward conquest.

It’s therefore fair to say that, literally on a millennial scale, Europe's exclusion from negotiations about its own future in Alaska represents one of the most humiliating moments in European diplomatic history.