The last few weeks have witnessed a geopolitical revolution regarding America’s posture towards Ukraine, Russia, and Europe. The administration of President Donald J. Trump has made very clear the president’s intent to end the war that originated with Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine in February 2022. Beyond that, there are signs that the Trump administration is seeking to rebuild bilateral ties between the United States and Russia and is re-evaluating the United States’ overall role in Europe’s security architecture. The Trump administration has floated cooperation with Moscow on issues ranging from the Arctic to Iran. Commentators have fretted about the dramatic implications this shift in American policy could have, not only for Ukraine’s survival but also for Europe’s stability.

Trump’s volte-face is a stark departure from the approach of the former Biden administration, which positioned the United States firmly alongside Europe in supporting Ukraine as it resisted Russia’s assault. Indeed, it contrasts with the general approach the United States has taken towards European security for decades, where the US has traditionally acted, through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as a shield protecting western and central Europe from Russian revanchism.

Instead, Trump’s policy towards Russia and Europe resembles that of the European great powers during the early and mid-18th century. During these decades prior to the French Revolution, the European great powers – Britain, France, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Spain – engaged in what historians refer to as ‘the stately quadrille’, named after a popular dance in which the participants constantly switched partners. Under the stately quadrille, each European power constantly shifted alliance partners, both in peacetime and during war. They made alliances regardless of the territorial aggression, regime type, or dominant religion of the other actors in the system.

At the beginning of the 18th century, Britain and France settled their differences in the Peace of Utrecht (1713-15) following decades of warfare in Continental Europe, in the New World, and on the high seas. The following year, they formed an alliance against the rise of Spanish power and cooperated with Austria and the Dutch Republic to check Spain’s ambitions during the War of the Quadruple Alliance (1717-20). Britain and France united despite the former’s identity as a Protestant and quasi-democratic power and the latter’s position as a Catholic and absolutist one. After the end of the war, Austria and Spain, erstwhile adversaries in the conflict, formed in turn their own alliance, codified in the Treaty of Vienna (1725). Following an inconclusive war between France’s British ally and Austria’s Spanish ally from 1727 to 1729, Protestant and quasi-democratic Britain then abandoned one Catholic and absolutist power, France, in favour of another, Austria, forming the Anglo-Austrian Alliance (1731). During the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48), sparked by Prussia’s unprovoked invasion of Austrian Silesia (modern southwestern Poland), this Anglo-Austrian combination clashed with Catholic France and its new ally, Protestant Prussia, resulting in a status quo ante bellum in western Europe and a Prussian victory in central Europe.

What followed less than a decade later was the ‘Diplomatic Revolution’ of 1756, the apotheosis of the stately quadrille. Frustrated by their allies’ performances during the conflict over Austrian succession, the European great powers switched partners. Britain – impressed by Prussia’s military prowess and now believing that Prussia, not Austria, could serve as a more effective check against Britain’s archenemy France – aligned with Prussia via the Treaty of Westminster (1756) and the Anglo-Prussian Convention (1758). France, more concerned about British ascendancy in the New World and Prussian power in Continental Europe than the threat posed by her Erbfeind, turned to an Austria frustrated by a Britain that had failed to fully support her during the previous war, and that now viewed France as a better partner against Prussia. France and Austria, who had fought countless wars over the preceding 250 years, formed a landmark alliance via the Treaty of Versailles (1756). With these new alliances in place, the powers clashed again in the Seven Years’ War (1756-63), resulting in a British victory against France in the New World and an Austro-Prussian draw in central Europe.

This dizzying 18th-century dance offers a framework for understanding the equally dramatic diplomatic revolution occurring before our eyes. Indeed, Trump’s outreach to Russia bears a certain resemblance to the Franco-Austrian alliance of 1756. In both cases, the Russo-American and Franco-Austrian rivalries were ingrained features of the previous geopolitical epoch, and the enmity between the countries was so deeply rooted that it could be measured in half or full centuries, rather than years or decades.

Trump’s attempted rapprochement with Russia also shares similarities with the Anglo-Prussian alliance of 1756. At the time, Britain was not dissuaded from partnering with Prussia despite the latter’s unprovoked attack on its Austrian neighbour in 1740, which resulted in the annexation of Austrian Silesia. Similarly, Trump does not seem to feel remorse in pursuing warmer ties with a Russia which brutally invaded Ukraine in 2022 and annexed substantial territories in the country’s east.

With respect to the stark ideological differences between the democratic and pluralistic United States and authoritarian and Orthodox Russia, a potential Russo-American entente would also mirror the Anglo-French alliance formed in 1716 between a quasi-democratic and Protestant Britain and an authoritarian and Catholic France.

What is more, just as the first alliances of the stately quadrille, between France and Britain, and Austria and Spain, catalysed the creation of new alliance systems, the strategic earthquake of a potential Russo-American rapprochement has, unsurprisingly, generated its own geopolitical aftershocks. China, sensing a potential split between an America warming to Russia and a Europe intent on continuing to resist Russian revisionism, has begun a charm offensive among America’s European allies. Beijing gradually peeling Europe away from Washington, just as Britain once enticed Prussia away from France, is not out of the question. In the Middle East, Israel has lobbied the United States to allow Russia to keep its naval and air bases in Syria so that Russia can better counter Turkey’s expanding influence in the country. This Israeli effort comes despite Russia’s staunch support for Israel’s archrival, Iran, in the recent Middle Eastern wars, where Moscow cooperated with Tehran on air defence and offered targeting assistance to Iran’s Yemeni proxy, the Houthis.

All this geopolitical flux can best be symbolised by a recent United Nations General Assembly vote on Ukraine, where the United States, Russia, and Israel all voted together against a pro-Ukrainian resolution backed by the major European powers, Canada, and Japan.

Policymakers seeking to navigate this unsettling new world should internalise several core truths. First, now that geopolitics appears to be moving towards a stately quadrille model, it is unclear if and when international affairs will revert to the previous paradigm, in which alignments between certain countries, such as the democracies of Europe and North America, or the United States and Israel, were a matter of course. One geopolitical realignment will likely catalyse the next, in a cycle that can last decades.

Second, appeals to shared values or common history are unlikely to hold much sway in the world of the stately quadrille. In the 18th century, countries with deep ideological divisions, whether with regards to regime type or religion, often partnered with one another to advance their self-interests and vanquish their rivals. Similarly, European policymakers hoping that reminding the Trump administration of their countries’ common democratic traditions or history of battling fascism and communism together will deliver strategic rewards will probably be disappointed.

Finally, officials need to widen the aperture of what can be conceived as possible. Analysts are already mulling what the defence of western and central Europe may look like should the US abandon its European allies to Russian avarice. It is not impossible that some European countries might shift beyond arms embargoes towards Israel to outright economic warfare. Without entertaining all potential futures, officials will not be able to plan effectively for what may lie ahead.