The latest installment of 'Europe Pretends to Matter' has arrived via the inevitable leak to DER SPIEGEL, proving once again that international diplomacy is less a chess match and more a group of terrified middle-managers whispering in a bathroom stall about their unhinged CEO. The confidential notes from a conference call involving the EU’s finest—Germany’s Friedrich Merz and France’s Emmanuel Macron—reveal a poignant, almost touching level of existential dread. It turns out the leaders of the Old World have realized that their great protector across the Atlantic is essentially a bipolar giant with a penchant for arson, and they are terrified of leaving Volodymyr Zelensky alone in a room with him.

The core of the anxiety, distilled from the vapid bureaucratese of the leaked notes, is the crushing realization that Washington is no longer a reliable partner, but rather a volatile hazard. To be clear, this isn't the 'principled' distrust of a peer; it is the frantic shivering of a parasite realizing its host has developed a taste for poison. Macron, a man whose ego requires its own gravitational field, and Merz, the Teutonic embodiment of a rejected tax audit, are reportedly worried that the United States is ready to sell Ukraine down the river for the price of a domestic polling bump. The irony, of course, is thicker than the smog over a coal-fired German power plant. These are the same European leaders who spent decades offshoring their security to the Pentagon so they could fund their social safety nets and lecture the rest of the world on 'values' while buying Russian gas by the Siberian bucketload.

Now, the bill has come due, and the creditors in Washington are looking increasingly like debt collectors who haven't slept in three days. The EU’s fear is that 'these guys'—the Americans—cannot be trusted to see the Ukraine conflict through to anything resembling a 'just' conclusion. But what is justice in the eyes of a Brussels bureaucrat? It’s usually just a synonym for 'status quo.' The Left in the U.S. treats Ukraine as a fashion accessory for their moral superiority, a blue-and-yellow lapel pin to be worn until the next trend arrives. The Right, meanwhile, views the entire region with the same moronic apathy they reserve for climate science, seeing only a line item they can slash to prove they’re 'fiscally responsible' while they simultaneously funnel trillions into the military-industrial furnace. Between these two poles of American stupidity, Europe finds itself squeezed like a piece of overripe brie.

The leaked notes highlight a specific, pathetic concern: 'We must not leave Ukraine and Volodymyr alone with these guys.' It sounds like a frantic parent trying to prevent their child from being babysat by a known pyromaniac. Zelensky, the world’s most exhausted protagonist, is treated here as a prop in a larger drama of European irrelevance. The EU leaders are terrified that if the U.S. pivots or cuts a deal behind their backs, the 'strategic autonomy' Macron loves to bloviate about will be exposed for what it is—a fancy term for 'having no plan and no army.' Merz and Macron aren't worried about Ukraine’s sovereignty as much as they are worried about their own humiliation. If Washington walks away, the Europeans will actually have to lead, and leadership is the one thing they are fundamentally incapable of providing.

Historically, this is the logical conclusion of the post-Cold War delusion. The Europeans assumed history had ended and they were the winners, forgetting that history is a butcher who never stops working. They dismantled their industrial bases, hollowed out their militaries, and outsourced their moral spine to a country that thinks 'The Kardashians' is a cultural landmark. Now, facing a Washington that is either too senile or too angry to maintain the global order, the EU is having a collective panic attack. The distrust described in the SPIEGEL report is the sound of the 'rules-based international order' rattling its cage. It’s the realization that the ‘Rules’ are whatever the loudest guy in the room says they are, and right now, the loudest guys are in D.C., and they’ve stopped reading the script.

In the end, this 'confidential' conference call is just a autopsy performed on a living patient. Whether it’s the performative empathy of the American Left or the isolationist greed of the Right, the result for Europe is the same: abandonment. Macron can posture in front of gilded mirrors and Merz can crunch numbers until his eyes bleed, but they cannot change the fact that they are irrelevant observers in their own backyard. They don't trust Washington because they finally see Washington for what it is—a reflection of their own failure to be anything other than expensive ornaments on the stage of history. The tragedy isn't that they can't trust 'these guys' in America; the tragedy is that there is no one left to trust at all, least of all themselves.