The world’s a stage and the players are finally taking their places. Trump and Putin, two lions in a den of hyenas, two men who don’t just talk but act. The phone call was the spark, the kindling. Now the fire’s burning and the smoke’s rising over Riyadh, where the real work begins. No time for the faint-hearted, no time for the hand-wringers, the bureaucrats, the paper-pushers, who’ve spent decades hiding behind their desks and their rules. This is about power. Unapologetic, world-shaping power. And Europe? Europe’s not invited. The Europeans are not even in the conversation. They’re the ghosts of a fading empire, the relics of a world that doesn’t exist anymore. Trump doesn’t need them. Putin doesn’t need them. The future doesn’t need them.
Riyadh. The desert. The heat. The sand. A fitting backdrop for what’s about to go down. The American delegation — Rubio, Waltz, Witkoff — men who understand the game, men who don’t flinch when the stakes are high. Across the table, Lavrov and Ushakov, the sharp minds of the Kremlin, the architects of Russia’s resurgence. No Europeans. No Ukrainians. No whining, no begging, no pathetic cries for “diplomacy” or “multilateralism.” This isn’t a charity. This isn’t a therapy session. This is the real deal. The kind of deal that gets made when the adults are in charge and the children have been sent to their rooms.
What’s on the table? Everything. Ukraine. NATO. The future of Europe. The balance of power. The Europeans can cry about “sovereignty” and “territorial integrity,” but what do they know about strength? What do they know about survival? They’ve spent decades leeching off American power, hiding behind American tanks, American dollars, American might, while sneering at the hand that feeds them. Well, guess what? The hand’s pulling back. Trump’s America doesn’t owe them anything. And Putin? He’s been waiting for this moment. Russia’s a powerhouse. A player. A force to be reckoned with.
The Europeans can cry all they want. They can whine about “security” and “alliances” and “values.” But what have they ever done except freeload? What have they ever built except a house of cards? Trump knows it. Putin knows it. The world knows it. Europe’s time is over. Their security architecture? A joke. Their NATO? A relic. Their so-called “unity”? A fragile facade that crumbles at the first sign of pressure. Trump and Putin aren’t here to prop up their hallucinations. They’re here to burn them down.
And what about Ukraine? What about the so-called “peace talks”? Let’s be real. Ukraine’s a pawn. A bargaining chip. A piece on the board that Trump and Putin will move as they see fit. The Europeans can scream about “sovereignty” and “territorial integrity,” but what do they know about strength? What do they know about survival? Trump and Putin are playing the long game. They’re thinking about the future. About power. About control. The Europeans? They’re stuck in the past, clinging to their pathetic little fantasies of relevance.
So let them whine. Let them cry. Let them clutch their treaties and their alliances and their useless little conferences. Trump and Putin are moving forward. They’re building a new world. A world where the weak are left behind. And Europe? Europe can rot. The Europeans had their chance. They blew it. Now they’re just spectators, watching as the real players rewrite the rules.
This is the new reality. This is the new order. And if the Europeans don’t like it? Tough. They’re not at the table anymore. They’re not even in the room. Trump and Putin are the future. And the future doesn’t have room for weaklings.
Europe, once the cradle of civilization, now lies in its twilight, a hollowed-out shell of its former glory. Its cities, once bustling with the vigor of empires, are now museums of decay, their streets echoing with the footsteps of a people who have forgotten how to rule and have been subjugated long ago. The Faustian spirit that once drove Europe to conquer the world has withered, replaced by a lethargic decadence that clings to the past like a child to a broken toy. Trump and Putin, in their brutal pragmatism, are the harbingers of a new epoch, one where the old order is dismantled brick by brick. Europe, with its endless debates and moral posturing, is no longer the protagonist of history but a footnote, a cautionary tale of what happens when a civilization loses its will to power. The future belongs to those who can seize it, and Europe, paralyzed by its own irrelevance, has already been left behind.
Trump, Putin, and Europe’s Funeral / Constantin von Hoffmeister