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In the contention over the U.S. peace plan for Ukraine, the Europeans are in their accustomed role -- carping from the sidelines.

Not only can the once-great European powers no longer dictate the fate of far-flung parts of the world, they can't even dictate the end of a war involving a European country whose fate they deem crucial to their own future.

We're a long way from the British controlling about a quarter of the globe's territory in the early 20th century; a long way from British and French diplomats, Mark Sykes and François Georges-Picot respectively, drawing the lines in 1916 to divide up the Ottoman Empire; a long way from Napoleon sitting with Tsar Alexander in Tilsit in 1807 and rearranging the map of Europe.

France was once so diplomatically central that there are dozens of Treaties of Paris, whether in 1259 (between King Louis IX of France and King Henry III of England) or in 1951 (setting up the European Coal and Steel Community).

Now, France scurries around with its European counterparts to react to whatever the American president is doing.

It's gotten so bad that some European analysts speak of a potential "scramble for Europe," or attempts by richer, more powerful outside countries to influence the course of Europe.

The late conservative commentator Charles Krauthammer maintained of the U.S., "decline is a choice."

This isn't quite right with regard to Europe, whose great powers were kneecapped by the cataclysms of the early 20th century. France bore the brunt of World War I, suffering 1.4 million dead and 4.3 million wounded and a ruinous economic cost.

As for Britain, stretched to the max, it got steadily eclipsed in power and influence by the United States as World War II progressed.

The less said about Germany's role in all this, of course, the better.

And then the European colonial empires inevitably dissolved.

So, Europe was going to be diminished compared to its glory days. Its current fecklessness, though, has indeed been a choice, borne of strategic fantasy and economic incompetence.

Strong militaries were deemed as a thing of the past, or something unnecessary as long as Uncle Sam was around. The Brits, for instance, are hard-pressed to maintain a 73,000-strong army, and the size of its once-storied surface fleet is at a historic low.

Europe imagined itself "a diplomatic superpower," but has learned to regret that "soft power" not backed up by hard power is of limited utility. Both the Nobel Committee and Amnesty International have considerable soft power, too, but no one pays attention to them regarding high-level geopolitical questions.

Economically, the EU "regulatory superpower" has hobbled growth -- over the last 30 years Western European labor productivity declined from 95% of the U.S. level to 80% --while Europe's commitment to "net zero" greenhouse emissions has driven insane energy priorities.

Years into the Ukraine war, Europe is still dependent on gas imports from Russia.

None of this means that the U.S. should go out of its way to give Europe the back of its hand. Whatever its other failings, Europe has collectively given Ukraine more aid than the United States, and was justifiably furious at the initial 28-point Ukraine proposal. That plan had the embattled country handing over to Moscow strategically important territory that is still in Ukrainian hands; agreeing to a limit on the size of its military; and the U.S. taking currently frozen Russian assets in Europe to rebuild Ukraine (getting 50% of any profits) and to pursue joint investment projects with Russia.

Negotiations with the Ukrainians have reportedly produced a more reasonable version, but it is Washington and Moscow that matter most here.

The analyst Robert Kagan famously wrote years ago that, in their divergent approaches to the world, "Americans are from Mars and Europeans are from Venus.'' Having long outsourced power politics to Mars, it turns out that Venus has limited influence even in her own backyard.

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(Rich Lowry is on Twitter @RichLowry)

(c) 2025 by King Features Syndicate