This is CBSI in the world.

I'm John Batchel with my colleague,

Enno Phil Levin, of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

Europe, NATO, the United States.

The question remains open.

It's not only about Ukraine, it's about the future.

Since the beginning of the Russian war, NATO has grown significantly.

Sweden and Finland joining that broadens the front facing Russia into the future to include the Arctic.

At the same time, there are doubts always voiced about will the U.S. stay as the leader of NATO.

Will the U.S. stay as NATO?

I note that the signs are not good, but then again, the Trump administration can spin quickly.

This from the F.T.

European hopes of being included in the U.S.-led talks about Ukraine, about Crimea, about the war, were dashed on Wednesday of this week when U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio pulled out of a meeting in London with Ukrainian European officials and Trump's special envoy, Steve Whitkoff, opted to make his fourth visit to the mosque, to the Kremlin, raising the question entirely that Europe is being kept out of,

locked out or ignored in the Ukrainian matter, and whether this is a pointer to where we're going, which is that the U.S.

will conduct bilateral agreements with everybody but will not bring Europe in.

What does Europe think of this risk of losing U.S., losing NATO, because it wouldn't be NATO anymore.

Is there an opinion emerging about what life will be like without the U.S.?

Well, not really.

I mean, there's endless talk and speculation.

But the Europeans have become so dependent on the US over the past 17 more years that no.

I mean, I don't think this is going very far, except in terms of European rearmament.

But you see, I think also the Europeans are to a degree panicking unnecessarily.

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