The “Old” and the “New”: Trump’s Approach to Central and Eastern Europe Revives Bush-Era Themes

The “Old” and the “New”: Trump’s Approach to Central and Eastern Europe Revives Bush-Era Themes

Two decades ago, in Prague — at the heart of the European continent, then US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met with leaders of Central and Eastern European states and recent NATO inductees amid a grand coalition-building effort. Nineteen-hundred miles to the southeast, the War in Iraq had irrevocably redefined the US’s geopolitical posture and single-handedly ended its unipolar moment. The continent was split over support for the US-led coal…