President Donald Trump is not a leader who thinks in shades of grey. He has sorted the United States’s allies, by and large, into two categories: those worthy of diplomatic energy and close military coordination, and those who are not. The European nations, excepting Poland, fall into the “not” box. The gung-ho Asian tigers — Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia — get the green tick.

The division is partly explained by geography. While the Western Hemisphere is paramount under a rejuvenated Monroe Doctrine, Asia, where peer competitor China resides, is much more important than Europe. The Ukraine-Russia war may be an irritant, but Trump doesn’t see Vladimir Putin’s Russia as a major geopolitical threat. He wants the Europeans to handle their eastern border in any case. This will allow the U.S., should the Middle East permit it, to focus its might on containing an increasingly hegemonic China. 

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