Trump takes back seat after peace efforts over Ukraine, Gaza wars

US leader may have realised conflicts are more intractable than he thought: Analyst

- 

Pentagon officials sat down with a group of European diplomats in late August and delivered a stern message: The US planned to cut off some security assistance to Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, all Nato members bordering Russia.

More broadly, Pentagon official David Baker told the group, according to an official with direct knowledge of the comments, Europe needed to be less dependent on the US under President Donald Trump as the US military would be shifting its attention to other priorities, like defence of the homeland.

Some European diplomats fretted that the move could embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin.

On Sept 19, they may have been proven right.

Russian MiG-31 jets entered Estonian airspace for roughly 10 minutes, Estonia said, before being chased away by Italian F-35s. Russia denied violating Estonian airspace, saying its jets flew over neutral waters.

Hours later, Russian jets buzzed over a Polish oil platform, Warsaw said. The week before, Russian drones were downed in Poland.

The US response to those incidents has so far been muted.

Mr Trump did not address the latest incursion for several hours, before saying it could be “big trouble”.

After the earlier Polish incident, he posted cryptically on his Truth Social app: “Here we go!”

His responses appear to fit an emerging pattern.

After months of proposing both ideas to solve or mediate some of the world’s most intractable conflicts, Mr Trump has largely withdrawn from diplomacy in recent weeks.

Instead, he has allowed, and in some cases pressed, allies to take the lead, with only distant promises of US help.

He has increasingly turned his attention to domestic issues, like tackling crime, confronting what he calls violent left-wing extremism and overhauling a major visa programme.