Donald Trump’s decision to cut Brussels and Kyiv out of tentative Ukraine settlement talks unfolding in Saudi Arabia — where US officials and their Russian counterparts busied themselves Tuesday with the earliest stages of what looks like an old-school, great power carve-up of a “lesser” state — shook America’s erstwhile European allies to the core.

I said “erstwhile.” And I think it’s accurate. I’ve heard the term “tough love” bandied about in recent days to describe what Pollyannas still imagine is an ultimately well-meaning effort on Trump’s part to prod Europe into providing for its own defense. But it’s only “tough love” if he loves Europe in the first place, and the uncomfortable, but ultimately unavoidable, reality seems to be that Trump doesn’t even like the Europeans, let alone love them.

That’s the sunny interpretation, believe it or not: That Trump’s aggravated at the contractural imperative of going to war to defend people he doesn’t especially care for, and even more aggravated (because money matters more to him than lives) at the financial cost of deterrence in peacetime.

The less sunny interpretation is that Trump actually wants to see Europe burn, or at least wouldn’t be terribly upset about a situation where Vladimir Putin partially reconstitutes the Soviet Union. An even darker view is that Trump’s beholden to Putin in a literal sense, and that what we’ve seen in recent days is the culmination of a decade-long project to parlay a compromised US president into the de facto dissolution of NATO.

I’m inclined to a combination of the sunny and less-sunny interpretations. I don’t think there’s “collusion” on this front or if there is, I don’t think it’s overt, but rather a sort of implied, legacy quid pro quo from Moscow’s 2016 election interference efforts. (“Hillary dropped the ball” and “Russia interfered” aren’t mutually exclusive.) My view is that Trump despises most of Europe, admires Putin and doesn’t see anything wrong with a scenario where Russia’s allowed limited expansion to reestablish its “rightful” sphere of influence.

A few days ago, Trump said, of Putin, “I think he wants to stop” when asked whether the tyrant he idolizes intends to take more than what Russia’s already seized in Ukraine. In support of that contention, Trump cited… well, Putin, unfortunately. He’s taking Putin’s word for it. “That was my question to him,” Trump said, referring to last week’s phone call between the two men. “Because if he was going to go on, that would’ve been a big problem,” Trump added.

Yes, it would be “a big problem” if Putin tried to conquer more of Europe, because in a lot of cases, that’d mean triggering Article 5, which is just another way of saying we’re one Kremlin dice roll from World War III. Or maybe not. Some insist that’s nonsense. And that’s the crux of the issue.

Although he didn’t say as much out loud, or in so many words, one goal of Emmanuel Macron’s urgent summit in Paris this week was to feel out his European counterparts on how Europe can prepare itself for a scenario where Putin (or anybody else) tries to invade and America simply refuses to come help.

More “sober” commentators than myself framed the ad hoc summit differently, suggesting it was mostly for show and anyway too fractious to matter given the demonstrable lack of agreement on what, exactly, the problem is and how to go about addressing it (i.e., Are we talking about how to hold the Russians at bay in Ukraine with ‘peacekeeping’ troops in a post-settlement environment? Are we talking about tapping joint funds — or issuing joint bonds — for our own rearmament? Or are we talking about a full-fledged European army? If so, how does the UK play into that? Etc.)

Others argued that Putin in fact doesn’t have avaricious designs even on states “like” Ukraine, let alone Reich-style ambitions for continental conquest. The latter contention’s probably true, but mostly because the logistics are impossible. It’s a mistake, I’d argue, to take the view that Putin only wants what’s “rightfully” Russia’s based on his own tortured historiography. Certainly, he believes his own narrative in that regard, but Adolph Hitler had a narrative too. Here’s the key point, and I really can’t emphasize it enough: Genuinely believing you’re entitled to one thing doesn’t preclude rapacity towards other things, particularly in the event the biggest obstacle to covetousness (in this case US security guarantees) is suddenly removed or watered down.

The market thinks it knows where all of this is ultimately going: Europe’s going to need a lot of weapons, and although Trump would love it if they’d “buy American,” the Europeans will be forgiven for balking. That’s just another example of Trump’s instinctual penchant for mafia-style shakedowns. “Oh, your car wouldn’t start this morning?  Imagine that. Well, the good news is, I know a great mechanic!”

The figure above may be the most ironic chart in the world. European defense shares just had their best session since Putin invaded Ukraine, and the catalyst was the onset of Ukraine settlement talks between the US and Russia in Riyadh.

Only Trump’s capable of such a feat: Turning European peace talks into the biggest catalyst for European defense shares since a tyrant invaded Europe.

Argue if you will that all the hand-wringing over the future of America’s Article 5 obligations is wildly overwrought. But inarguable is the contention that trusting Donald Trump with your well-being and safety is a mistake. Ask Mike Pence about that.

The New York Times summed it up well on Tuesday. “For years, European leaders have fretted about reducing their dependence on a wayward United States,” Mark Landler wrote. “[A]t a hastily arranged meeting in Paris, the hand-wringing gave way to harried acceptance of a new world in which Europe’s most powerful ally has begun acting more like an adversary.”