Media coverage from Dubrovnik
Europe should take the long bet on the United States and our security relationship because more than half of the supporters of MAGA movement of President’s Donald Trump believe the US should sustain or increase its presence in Central and Eastern Europe, says top security expert Ian Brzezinski in an interview for CaleaEuropeană.ro. Senior fellow of the Atlantic Council and former U.S. defense official, Ian Brzezinski used his appearance at the Three Seas Summit in Dubrovnik to deliver a stark assessment of transatlantic unity, the war in Ukraine, and the strategic stakes of energy security in Central and Eastern Europe.
Responding to a question on whether the summit is taking place amid widening tensions between Europe and the United States, Brzezinski emphasized that the Three Seas Initiative remains one of the few areas of convergence within the broader transatlantic relationship. “The Three Seas is one of the rare areas in the transatlantic relationship where there’s actually a fair amount of community”, he said, noting that “West Europeans want it to succeed, the EU wants it to succeed, NATO wants it to succeed… and the Trump administration wants it to succeed”.
He pointed in particular to U.S. engagement at the summit and recent energy agreements as evidence of sustained American interest in the region, describing the initiative as “an area of comity in the transatlantic relationship”.
Linking the discussion to energy security, and referencing Romania’s emerging role as a Black Sea gas producer, Brzezinski argued that current regional projects are directly strengthening Europe’s resilience. “All these initiatives are reinforcing security in this region”, he said, citing the Southern Vertical Corridor as a key development that “will enable the flow of imported LNG into the region, perhaps even all the way eventually to Ukraine”.
He also highlighted Romania’s offshore potential, stressing that the development of Black Sea resources “is going to be a powerful addition of energy not just to the country but to Europe as a whole”, adding that it “diversifies energy supplies” and represents “a definition of energy resilience”.
However, the discussion quickly turned to security risks stemming from Russia’s war against Ukraine. Asked whether the United States or NATO should do more to protect critical energy infrastructure near conflict zones, Brzezinski warned that vulnerability will persist without a change in the trajectory of the war. “Those facilities in the Black Sea will be vulnerable as long as this war is going on”, he said, adding that the likelihood of attacks “increases” under current conditions.
He went further, arguing that Western powers have not fully used their strategic advantage. “What strikes me about this war is that the West has failed to leverage its massive overmatch in power against Russia”, he said, pointing to the disparity in economic and military capacity between NATO countries and Moscow.
Defining “the West” broadly as the United States, Canada, and European allies, Brzezinski underscored the scale of that imbalance. He noted that combined Western GDP exceeds $55 trillion compared to Russia’s $2 trillion, while NATO alone spends roughly $1.5 trillion annually on defense versus Russia’s $200 billion. “So we’re talking about exponentially significant advantages”, he said. “It’s not a matter of capability. It’s a matter of political will”, Brzezinski considers.
Calling for a more decisive Western strategy, he warned that prolonged conflict risks escalation. “My hope is that the West will wake up… and leverage that advantage to end this war on our terms”, he said, adding that continued stagnation could encourage Russia to intensify hybrid attacks.
When asked about tensions between the United States and Europe over burden-sharing and Ukraine strategy, Brzezinski urged European allies not to overreact to current U.S. political dynamics. While acknowledging frustrations in Europe over American force posture, he said Europeans should “take the long bet on the United States,” arguing that domestic U.S. politics is more complex than often assumed in Europe and referring to the potential results of the upcoming midterm elections, where the Republicans might lose the control of at least one chamber in Congress, Senate or the House of Representatives.
He rejected the idea that current U.S. foreign policy reflects a stable consensus. “Trump’s view of the world is a minority opinion in the United States”, he said, emphasizing that it is not broadly shared in Congress or among the American public.
Citing polling data, he noted that around 70% of Americans support NATO as an essential alliance and favor maintaining or increasing U.S. commitment. Even within the MAGA political base, he said, there is significant support for alliance obligations: “71% of the MAGA base believes the United States should stand shoulder to shoulder defending” NATO allies if attacked, while “56%… believes we should be sustaining our presence in Central and Eastern Europe or increasing it”.
For Brzezinski, these figures underscore a broader point: “Europe should take the long bet on the United States and our security relationship”, he said, warning that overreaction to current political cycles could damage transatlantic cohesion more than U.S. policy shifts themselves.
Addressing the upcoming NATO summit and its implications for alliance unity, Brzezinski described such meetings as inherently difficult but strategically important. “I think every summit with President Trump is always a tricky affair”, he said, but stressed that it also provides an opportunity to reaffirm shared commitments and identify areas of cooperation, including China policy, critical minerals, and defense collaboration.
Ultimately, he framed the transatlantic relationship not as a crisis of inevitability, but of political choice and timing. The task for Europe, he suggested, is to engage Washington constructively while maintaining firm alignment with NATO principles: “to underscore the value and importance of the values and interests that bind us together.”
