Presidents and prime ministers from France, the U.K. and Ukraine convened in Washington D.C. this week where the US president spoke, officially, about Vladimir Putin at his first cabinet meeting. "He’s a very cunning person. I’ve dealt with some really bad people. He had no intention, in my opinion, of settling this war. I think he wanted the whole thing."

On the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europe recognizes that to stave off Putin’s reclamation of Ukraine, or other flashpoints in eastern Europe, it will require stepping up their mutual defense on the continent. “Forget about NATO,” Trump says, “It’s up to them now.”

According to Bruegel, Europe will need 300,000 additional troops, costing some $262 billion, to fully replace the U.S. military presence in Europe. The Brussels based think tank concludes "these numbers are small enough for Europe to entirely replace the U.S."

Catholic U.S. Vice President JD Vance — a long time critic of American support for Ukraine — was in Europe for the Munich Security Conference, and while the pope was convalescing conflated the Make America Great Again mantra with Christianity. He argued that “both orders are ethical obligations in a series of concentric circles.” Ergo, we prioritize family, neighbor, community, and nation in that order. "The MAGA movement simply inverts this paradigm and prioritizes America First.” Pope Francis replied:

Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. The true Ordo Amoris is the charity we discover by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception.

As Pope Francis, 88, a modicum of progressivism and reform, remains in critical condition at Gemelli Hospital in Rome, the Mystical Body of Christ gathers to rehearse his legacy. Likewise, Friedrich Merz, Germany’s presumptive 10th chancellor and his centre-right Christian Democratic Union party (CDU) are laying claim to their own. “Europe will only be taken seriously again in the world if it strengthens its military.”

The EU’s GDP ($28.22 trillion) surpasses China’s GDP ($18.28 trillion) and utterly overshadows Russia’s GDP ($2.012 trillion) as the second largest economy in the world. Combined, Europe’s nearly 2 million active military personnel in uniform, and roughly $338 billion per year defense budget, could surpass Russia (1,100,000); and the United States (1,326,050), to become the largest active military in the world.

And because the transatlantic alliance appears to be in question, the U.K.’s Keir Starmer arrived in Washington this week to kiss the ring for reassurance, along with a charm offensive and engraved invite for a future state visit. The bromance between France’s Emmanuel Macron and Trump remains a stunning spectacle of ‘caressmanship’ between one man courting security guarantees and the other who sees the return of Ukraine's pre-2014 borders as “an unrealistic objective.” Finally, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Washington to round up the week by kicking the tires. In a masterful performance, Zelensky provoked the executive into castigating him publicly thereby producing a spectacular global rallying cry.

In London, crowds cheered and world leaders gathered around Zelensky at Downing Street on Saturday for a Ukraine Summit. On topic, the future of a European nuclear deterrence.

As Merz ascends the Federal Chancellery in Berlin, he’s leery of Trump 2.0, rightly questions the future of NATO, and is the only politician with enough cash on his balance sheet to spearhead an Army of Europe. Not since Adolf Hilter’s Nazi Party has Germany faced the world without the United States.

As Pope Francis privately expressed concern that he may not recover from his current crisis, the CDU’s Friedrich Merz echos the same disquietude. “It’s five to midnight for Europe.”

The Society of Jesus is the world's largest male Catholic religious order. Spearheaded by Ignatius of Loyola in 1550, one progresses from novice and student to full-time work before ordination as a priest or final profession as a brother. In 2025, there were 13,768 Jesuits comprising the executive administrative staff of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Francis is the first pope to come from this Catholic religious order.

What isn’t widely known is that Jesuit brothers — who originally served in labor, service, and administrative capacities within Jesuit communities — have since merged into public life. Called "temporal coadjutors,” the brothers have taken on what the Vatican calls "worldly jobs” enabling priests to focus on the sacramental and spiritual missions of the society. Merz, a Catholic, and attorney turned public servant, inspirits an everyday temporal coadjutor. “In times of crisis, alliances can come together very quickly. America First is destined to become America Alone." Merz continues:

We must prepare for the possibility that Donald Trump will no longer uphold NATO's mutual defense commitment unconditionally. That is why, in my view, it is crucial that Europeans make the greatest possible efforts to ensure that we are at least capable of defending the European continent on our own.

Since NATO's inception in 1949, the US has been the de facto guarantor of Europe’s security against threats from the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact, and Russia. But new developments have turned the tide of the transatlantic alliance. JD Vance scolds EU leaders at the Munich Security Conference on 14 February. "To many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old, entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet-era words like 'misinformation' and 'disinformation,' who simply don't like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion, or, God forbid, vote a different way. Or even worse, win an election.”

Merz, 69, who saw his ascent derailed by former Chancellor Angela Merkel, stepped away from politics into the private sector as Senior Council with Mayer Brown’s corporate finance team (2009-2018). The multimillionaire holds numerous positions on corporate boards, including E&Y, BlackRock, and HSBC. He's described as able to "evaluate political equations like a cold hard balance sheet."

When an Afghan asylum-seeker wandered into a park in the wealthy southern state of Bavaria, using a kitchen knife to stab a 2-year-old boy and his caretaker to death, Merz admitted “the murders were the last straw.” Germany’s migration policy had failed, and slogans representing the cities of migrant attacks “Solingen, Magdeburg, Aschaffenburg” were an opportunity to win back those who’d defected to the far right. His reproach to politics — which prefers ideology over practical deals — promises a major shift with the United States.

Six years after the founding of the Society of Jesus, St. Ignatius Loyola petitioned the Pope to engage the brothers as ‘coadjutors’ (helpers) to effectively build society. Jesuit brothers are men of many talents, engage in ministries outside of their communities, and seek to bring souls closer to God. A new study from Pew Research indicates that 62 percent of U.S. adults currently describe themselves as Christian: Protestant (40 percent); Catholic (19 percent); and other denominations (3 percent). A statistic that pales in comparison to 565 million Christians throughout Europe.

Today, the brothers are spreading their love around — teachers, doctors, lawyers, professors — quietly infusing the kingdom for “the greater glory of God.” For Merz, a layman, his personal best was always about what he called “combining personal initiative, individual freedom, and creativity.” But for the presumptive Chancellor, it will be about a return to principle.

Merz, who represents a rural region in Germany’s parliament, is informed by practical values. He often pilots his own private plane from his home in western Germany to Berlin on Monday mornings. He can fly without instruments, and can use visual flight rules and references to navigate.

Germany’s Basic Law, a budgetary straitjacket, limits new borrowing to 0.35 percent of the GDP. Merz, an impressive navigator, using realpolitiks, could recall the current Bundestag before a new one is formed to swiftly approve $210 billion. Coincidentally, the same start up capital needed for an Army of Europe; in consequence to the demise of the transatlantic alliance; in compliance with the CDU’s political objective to “unite Christians of all denominations;” and in cooperation with the European Union’s motto “United in Diversity.”